Relatively cheap performance hard drives?

[Dreaming]

Hi. I've got 2 HGST 250gb t7k500s atm, using one for OS and one for files, but running out of space, so going to set them up in a raid0 for fast file storage. 500gb should be sufficient.

So I want something to put my operating systems on. At the mo I split my hard drive down the centre, one partition for XP and one for Vista.

So I'm thinking possibly getting two smaller drives (160gb?) with a large cache, and running them in raid0 as well. Then partition the array into two and go as before. Sata II goes without saying, I've seen these ones:

160 Gb Western Digital WD1600YS Caviar RE

I've not used them before though, so don't know how they perform... Are they relatively quiet. Also bear in mind all 4 hard drives will be in the same P180 lower drive cage - but it's got a big fan sucking air through them:

Bottom one

With drives installed

Also, on a practical note, how the heck do I transfer my files over? I've got approximately 200gb of files to be saved, want to get them from the two seperate hard drives (well just one) to the 500gb raid array made of those drives, maybe I should put the 160gb drives in, put them in my ez raid thing , format them, copy files over, format two 250gb, set up raid array - but here I'm stuck because I don't know how to transfer the files over without an operating system? Unless I make a mini partition, install XP / Vista, copy the files, nuke the smaller hard drives, then set up the things properly.

Seems awfully longwinded though, reminds me of this:

Wikipedia: Tower of Hanoi

But if anyone has any better solutions, that would be great. Really cna't afford the premium of a raptor though

[dave87]

Seagate 7200.10s usually fill that sector of the market

Any of the 250-400gb drives would suit your requirements, or even a single 500gb drive...

RAID 0 is a bad idea if you want any data security - so don't use it for storage.

[Dreaming]

I just really wanted to use both my 250gbs in one big partition, not too fussed about the increased speed.

A single 500gb drive for my operating systems? :|

When they're bloated they take up approximately 100gb each, I like extra space though just so I don't feel crowded. I got by on an 80gb drive for 3/4 years! Now though I have started storing stuff (just random things, games, films, apps etc.) on one hard drive rather than deleting it after a while, and it soon starts to fill up. I've got two partitions on my data hard drive (I don't know why I did that?) and it's annoying because one is much more full than the other.

[herulach]

Download less pr0n = problem solved.

[dave87]

Or get a 80/160gb drive for the OS, then use your existing drive (and any new ones for storage.)

I'm running a laptop with an 80gb hard disk in it - Windows and all the programs I use comes to just under 20gb, including installs of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, numerous games etc. Jus trim down the stuff installed, clear out the caches/temp files, and you'll be fine with an 80gb drive for the OS...

The suggestion of the 250-400gb drives was to allow you to use one of your 250 gb drives for the OS, then the other with the new one for storage. The 500gb suggestion was if you were just wanting 2 drives - space limitations or whatever - in which case it would do away with one of the 250s.

[Dreaming]

Yea, I was hoping to get something fast though

[dave87]

2x80s in RAID 0 then

Or even a 74gb Raptor - if you really want speed...

[Dreaming]

But the raptor is expensive! Lol, now you see my predicament. Thing is with two operating systems I want *around* 100 gigabytes each. I suppose two 80s in raid0 would work. But I thought a hard disk with a 160gb platter and 16mb cache would be faster?

[dave87]

Nope.

In terms of platters - if it can read from 2 platters at once, then its gunna be faster than reading from a single 160gb platter.

[Blitzen]

2x80s in RAID 0 then

Or even a 74gb Raptor - if you really want speed...

2 x 80s in RAID 0 would be faster than a single Raptor.

But the raptor is expensive! Lol, now you see my predicament. Thing is with two operating systems I want *around* 100 gigabytes each. I suppose two 80s in raid0 would work. But I thought a hard disk with a 160gb platter and 16mb cache would be faster?

Nope......... Raid 0 drives would be faster.

[dave87]

Random access the Raptor would be faster due to a higher spindle speed. Sustained transfer is probably slightly lower though.

[Dreaming]

What is faster out of:

2 x 80gb in raid0
2 x 160gb in raid0

etc. etc.

That's what I was getting at lol. I want the best hard drives for putting in an array that don't cost the earth. (which in my perspective is the whole point of a raid array, no? )

[herulach]

capacity doesnt make much difference, in fact you may find that bigger drives are better at sime stuff due to denser platters. for the extra expoense of raid you wont notice the difference, i had 2x 120gb diamond max n in raid 0, and noticed little difference when i movd to the single 250.

[Dreaming]

So my original question, which of these low capacity drives will be the best ones? Seagate 7200.10 as said earlier? The 16mb cache version is 250gb, so not really a downsize :/ oh well. 500gb is a lot, will be annoying when trying to defrag possibly. We can only hope for the best though

[dbh]

Look for the single platter Western Digital and Hitachi hard drives they are pretty fast the WD drive is only beat by its own Raptor brand.

[Dreaming]

Well I like the look of those first western digital caviars I picked, the 'RE' stands for RAID Edition, to give them extra reliability and speed in raid anyway.

But like I asked earlier, how the heck do I transfer the data