Hard drive help - perpendicular drives special?

[Shortsord]

I have two options for my new external hard drive which I need help considering.

Option 1 is getting a pair of seagate 400gb(ST3400632A-RK) and using this raid enclosure from owc(OWCMEFW912AL2). This would come to about $350 for 800gb striped or 400gb mirrored.

Option 2 is getting a seagate 750gb(ST3750640A-RK) and using one of owc regular enclosures(OWCMEFW912UAL1K). This would be about $400 for 750gb standalone.

Are the perpendicular 750gb really anything special? I know hey have increased storage, but are they really faster and more reliable as well? Would that be a better drive choice than the 400gb?

Does the raid setup have any distinct advantages or disadvantages, or vice versa? With the raid setup I at least have a little versatility if I ever need.

Which would you recommend?
Thanks.

 

[suneohair]

I have two options for my new external hard drive which I need help considering.

Option 1 is getting a pair of seagate 400gb(ST3400632A-RK) and using this raid enclosure from owc(OWCMEFW912AL2). This would come to about $350 for 800gb striped or 400gb mirrored.

Option 2 is getting a seagate 750gb(ST3750640A-RK) and using one of owc regular enclosures(OWCMEFW912UAL1K). This would be about $400 for 750gb standalone.

Are the perpendicular 750gb really anything special? I know hey have increased storage, but are they really faster and more reliable as well? Would that be a better drive choice than the 400gb?

Does the raid setup have any distinct advantages or disadvantages, or vice versa? With the raid setup I at least have a little versatility if I ever need.

Which would you recommend?
Thanks.

Perpendicular drives are the way to go from what I have read.

The RAID probably won't give you much of a benefit. It also depend on what RAID you plan on using.

RAID 0 (Data stripping): Stripes data across two drives (one piece on one, and another piece on the other). Boost in speed varies between uses. If you are just doing casual everyday stuff it won't help you. There is ZERO fault protection, so if one drives goes your data is gone.

This is probably what the enclosure you are looking to get is going to do.

If you are backing data up, you are asking for trouble with an external RAID setup.

So let use know what you plan on doing with this and we can help you more.

 

[Shortsord]

What is just so special about perpendicular? I mean what benefits will I see?
I'm very curious because it's $50 more for 50gb less, not that the difference is that much.

It will be used mainly as a storage drive for music, and on the side it will be a movie/game/app cd copy storage.

 

[Demon Hunter]

*tags post so he can read later*

 

[Sayer]

Perpendicular drives use a technology that allows for high storage density without the "superparamagnetic" effect that can cause the magnetic "bits" to flip from a 1/0 spontaneously, thereby corrupting data.

Basically a perpendicular drive allows high(er) capacity with greater data persistence than the older technologies.

When you are talking near-terabyte drives you are maxing out capacity, and since you want to create a RAID you want to ensure data integrity as much as possible. So you pay more for more peace of mind, or pay less for a more fragile hard drive.

I leave the decision to you.

 

[SRSound]

I'm no expert but from what I've gathered in research as far as which drives to choose for my primary audio recording drives, the perpendicular seagate barracuda drives (7200.10) seem to be the hands-down winners in terms of speed and reliability. If it matters, I also heard they're rather quiet. Just my $.02

 

[Shortsord]

Alright, so perpendicular is clearly the better choice your saying. Got that.

Now, one last quick question for the discerning viewers. Would my original post about getting a hard drive and enclosure separately be better than getting one of these?(http://outpost.com/product/4882800)

I know I'd have less of a warranty and no firewire 800, but is that worth the price difference?