Two new HDD's

[Kiro-San]

After a bit of a snafu with my boot HGST 7k250 250gB drive over the last few days I've decided to replace that and the 7k250 that holds all my games. Both are getting on now (the boot drive must be almost 5 years old now). So I'm looking for two new drives. Looking round at prices I'm happy to spend about £200 in total, which of course cancels out SSD's and Raptors (not liking their £/GB). Won't be running the drives in any sort of RAID either.

In addition I'd like to buy a decent external caddie/enclosure. Looking to spend under £50 on one of those.

So what HDD's should I be looking at (I have no brand loyalty) and who makes a decent caddy? Cheers.

[Will404]

How much space do you need??

If you are content with ~400GB, then you could get a small SSD (30-60GB), for ~£180, and a small (320GB) hard disk for ~£30.

Or you could go with two huge drives, for lots and lots of space

30GB solid: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/30GB-...-s-Write-speed - £126

60GB solid: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/60GB-...-s-Write-speed - £186
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/60GB-...-s-Write-speed - £182

320GB :http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-G...MB-Cache-89-ms - £33
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-G...MB-Cache-89-ms - £35

1TB: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1TB-H...16MB-Cache-HDD - £58

640GB: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/640-G...MB-Cache-89-ms - £46

1.5TB: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/15TB-...ache-89-ms-NCQ - £86

note - some of the drives are 5400RPM (AFANK the 1.5TB seagate is the only one), and will consequentlly be slower than the 7200RPM drives, but also less power hungry and cooler.

[Kiro-San]

The SSD's are just too much buck for their bang. Great drives no doubt but too pricey really.

Looking around I've been considering the 300GB Raptor for my gaming drive. 300GB is easily enough for that purpose and the price is actually a lot better than I thought it would be. Then I'd probably go for the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB for my OS/Downloads drive. Just over £200 which is fine. For the dock i'm considering the Icy Box External Enclosure IB-390StUSD-B which is under £50 so that comes in at under £250 all told anyway.

[Kiro-San]

Ended up getting one of the 1TB Caviars and the 300GB Velociraptor. Spent a bit more than I wanted but the Caviar looks like an awesome drive. Went for the Icy Dock MB-559US as the external enclosure. Got some very good reviews.