hard-drives

[Jon Miller]

well, I just purchased a new harddrive (And more ram) for my computer, sort of a christmas gift to mysefl

I got a 80 GB western digital with an 8 MB cache (UMDA 100, 7200 RPM)

while at Fry's, I noticed that there was a 200 GB HArddrive on sale (similiar to the one I bought)

It was 350 though (there might have been a rebate, not sure)

mine was 100 after rebate (hmm, I need to send that in)

now why would you get the 200 GB if it was so much more money?

what is the point which is most cost effective for the size of hard drives currently

(I was sort of suprised to see the 200 GB, although I should not have been seeing as I had known that 180 GB had been out for a while)

Jon Miller

[Urban Ranger]

To store lots of porn.

[Jon Miller]

that does not ansrew the cost effectiveness issue

(and my current 40 GB drive does not have the space to install all of my games, plus my shares of those games on edonkey)

Jon Miller

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
To store lots of porn.

At 10MB for a 2 minute video, that's 700 hours of porn, or a month nonstop. That IS a lot.

Logically 3 80 Mb drives at $100 each is 40 Mb more memory and $50 less than the 200 mb @ $350

[Jon Miller]

that is what I was thinking

Jon Miller

[Dis]

what are you getting at Jon?

The fact the 200 gig is so expensive is because the technology involved in order to cram 200 gigs on one hard disk!

So the 80 gig is far more cost efficient. They have been around for a year or two now. I suppose if you had the room you could install 3 of them

[Urban Ranger]

Cost effectiveness as in GB/$? It depends. When all other factors are the same (seek time, transfer rate, etc.) that is a valid comparison.

[Jon Miller]

I have the room for 8 or so hard drives (well, a couple slots have CD-burners plsu DVDs)

so I just went with what I thought was best for me

Jon Miller

[Ted Striker]

Well Jon, since the 200 MB are still premium items (they are the biggest drives), you are still going to have to pay a premium price for them.

Personally I think it's better to have a pair of 80GB drives and then mirror them with a RAID1 card. That way if one goes bad you just put in another 80GB drive and don't have to worry about data loss.

[Urban Ranger]

RAID is good. Many mobos come with IDE RAID these days.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Personally I think it's better to have a pair of 80GB drives and then mirror them with a RAID1 card. That way if one goes bad you just put in another 80GB drive and don't have to worry about data loss.

IMO, mirror raid isn't worth it unless you had stuff you couldn't lose. Other backup methods are less expensive, and don't require space for 2 drives. Also, performance will go down slightly (especially if the drives are on the same channel). Raid 5, if you've got 3+ drives, is probably more worth it (although you would need all the drives to be the same size). Raid 5 would also have a performance increase.

The reasons for getting a larger drive than the price point might include only having 1 slot free for a drive, needing a very large partition (though you could always raid two disks together), or for a performance increase (if you use a 200gb drive, but only partition and use 80gb, the drive will perform better than an 80gb drive with an 80gb partition).

[loinburger]

Data loss isn't too much of a problem in my experience, so long as you've got ready access to a second (or third) harddrive (i.e. so long as you go with the 2-3 80 GB drives and not the single 200 GB drive) -- I had ample warning the first time I had a drive go bad, and had (barely) sufficient warning the second time (had I only had a single drive then I'd've been sunk). Go with the 2-3 smaller drives, regardless of whether you plan on putting in a Raid card -- it's a helluva lot safer.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Edan


IMO, mirror raid isn't worth it unless you had stuff you couldn't lose. Other backup methods are less expensive, and don't require space for 2 drives. Also, performance will go down slightly (especially if the drives are on the same channel). Raid 5, if you've got 3+ drives, is probably more worth it (although you would need all the drives to be the same size). Raid 5 would also have a performance increase.

There is no performance loss with a RAID1, as most cards come with memory cache. In my opinion the RAID 1 offers the best all around solution for high availablility. Instead of having to throw in a new drive, rebuild the OS, and then restore from your backups, you just open up the case and throw in a new drive, and let the card build the new drive in the background while you continue to work.

If you're gonna go for a RAID5, then you might as well go for a RAID10. RAID10 is the best RAID solution available, blowing the RAID5 out of the water in terms of performance, and also offers the reliability of the RAID1 mirror.

There is also a RAID50 but I have no experience with it.

Loinburger,

I disagree! Sometimes those things just die out of nowhere! I won't take the chance!

[loinburger]

At least my computer had the decency to give me a "Drive Failure Imminent" warning...

[Edan]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
There is no performance loss with a RAID1, as most cards come with memory cache.

Hmm, there might be none in that case (though I'm a little skeptical) but if they're on the same channel, there probably would be.

In my opinion the RAID 1 offers the best all around solution for high availablility.

As long as you don't mind the cost per GB

If you're gonna go for a RAID5, then you might as well go for a RAID10. RAID10 is the best RAID solution available, blowing the RAID5 out of the water in terms of performance, and also offers the reliability of the RAID1 mirror.

As long as you don't mind the cost per GB

The reason I suggested Raid 5 is that it allows some protection at a little more cost which is probably more in line with what a typical home user might be willing to spend on their personal computer.

And really, how many home comuters need all of that much backed up, anyways? I probably have, maybe about 100-200 mb worth of stuff (system files, latest drivers, documents/work, basic programs like winzip, emacs and tera term, etc) that I would need to get back running quickly, plus add another 100 or 200 mb of saved games that would be nice to have - everything else I can just reinstall, since thats what fills up my disk, and none of it's vital (heck, I've got games installed that I haven't played in over 6 months...)