Hard drive choice, confused :-) Advice needed!

[staffsMike]

No the 640GB is only a 2 platter model. The 320GB can come in both single and dual platter versions, the single being the desirable choice of course

[tensim]

Ahhh... that's where I was getting confused... How can you tell if you're getting a single-platter 320GB drive?

cheers

[staffsMike]

The last 5 letters (i think) of the model number but these are rearely published on sites.

I havn't heard of a single platter WD 320GB in the UK yet.. 640GB is the best bet if you want to stick with WD.

There are samsung 320GB single platters on Novatech I believe.

[Zhaoman]

The Raptors are being overtaken by large density drives, the Samsung F1 series was the fastest drives in many tests so I know they are faster. I'm haven't heard much about the new WD drives but i suspect they will follow the trend and perform faster than Raptors. Large drives are the fastest hard drives out there so if you're looking for speed you should go for them. They also happen to be the cheapest per Gb! This seems perfect for your video adventures in the future

[hermeticist]

Oooooooh, just found:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144339...roduct_reviews

WD6400AAKS @ £51.01inc vat & Del.

Or as I see it 1.28TB for just over £100!

[tensim]

I've decided to ditch the Raptor and just go with one big drive that should be plenty fast... the new WD Caviar Black. It's a bit more expensive than a normal 1TB drive at £145, but not too bad

I guess the best way to use it will be to do a small partition to instal Vista onto?

cheers

[tensim]

Just stumbled across 'Zak's Partition Theory'... Sounds like a good way to get the best performance out of a single drive

So I'll go with the 1TB drive, partition off 150GB as a system drive and install Vista etc on that? Is that right? Just wondering, how do you do the partition on a new system, before you install Vista?

Cheers

[Dreaming]

I would say get a newish normal hdd as they are very quick due to their high densities.

Random access time is most useful in a server application - if you have lots of requests for lots of different bits of data all over the hard drive it needs to spin up quickly and seek them out.

Sustained read / write is nearly identical with the raptor and other modern day discs which is what you're more likely to experience (sustained read of one file).

I personally have a raid0 array and then partition the drives so the OS is in the first 30gb, games are in the next 80, and so on. If you read zak's partition theory thread it explains it better.

raptors have always been about the epeen just as much as the £400-£500 graphics cards are. So if you're spending that kind of money to have 'the best', why not get a SSD?

[Dreaming]

Just stumbled across 'Zak's Partition Theory'... Sounds like a good way to get the best performance out of a single drive

So I'll go with the 1TB drive, partition off 150GB as a system drive and install Vista etc on that? Is that right? Just wondering, how do you do the partition on a new system, before you install Vista?

Cheers

You can create partitions in the vista install process

[tensim]

So I'd need 2 x 320GB discs for a RAID0 setup to use as my system drive (partitioned to take advantage of 'Zaks Partition Theory') and then another single large storage disc?

For the storage disc I think the 6400AAKS seems to be the best choice, nice and fast... But I'm confused as to which 320GB drives to go with... I'm guessing a single platter drive is going to be preferable? Any suggestions?

Cheers

[Dreaming]

You'll be ok with just 1 big disc, I just went with raid0 for the fun of it.