Internal HD recs: my studio is my living room, need quiet drives...

[OnlyShawn]

...need quiet drives or the wife will get angry. I'm still surprised that she's okay having this giant mac pro and 30" screen in our tiny living room, but it certainly does help that they're so pretty.

I looked through this thread discussing the WD Black drives...it's a few months old, would people still recommend those? While they can definitely be had through newegg for pennies, I don't mind spending a little more if it will get a quieter/more reliable drive.

These will be used to do autocad & photoshop (oh, and, of course one of them will be a bootcamp drive, since autocad unfortunately isn't a native mac app), primarily, so speed is somewhat of an issue, but it's not like I'm doing gigantic 3D renders. One drive will be a scratch disk for PS, one drive a time machine backup, and one a data drive...at least, that's what I've considered at this point...still trying to figure out how I want to do my total household network backup...currently, external drives are connected to my home theater-powering mac mini, and our laptops time machine into that, using 'home and away' (awesome app, by the way). I'd like to keep that system as is, and maybe just have the mac pro as a completely separate system (my 'work' system), and have its time machine backups self-contained, and probably backed up offsite somehow.

i think I've given enough information here....let me know what drives I should be looking at...thanks!

 

[OnlyShawn]

btw...dealnews has the WD black 1tb @ 85 after rebate from zipzoomfly. Not too shabby.

http://dealnews.com/Western-Digital...for-85-after-rebate-free-shipping/312999.html

 

[frimple]

How much space do you need? Solid states are the quietest drives around!

 

[velocityg4]

All around the quietest I have owned have been Seagates. Maybe WD has improved but all the WD's I have owned have been extremely noisy in comparison.

I have two 640GB Seagates and a 320GB Hitachi in a G4 tower case that is cracked open at the moment. I can not hear any of them over my cooling fans. Even minus the fans they are rather quiet.

The G4 has been modded to handle ATX parts and is the gaming rig in my signature.

If you want the best in quiet. Get two smaller SSD's for your OSes and applications (Windows and Mac OS X) leaving a small Mac partition on the Windows SSD for the scratch disk (you would be surprised how many applications + OS you can stuff into 64GB). Then use a single 1TB+ HD for data just use Mac Drive to make the HFS+ volume usuable from Windows.

For the backup use an external FW800 or better so that you can lock it up in a small bolted down 1+ hour fire/water-resistant safe. You don't need a backup drive running 24/7 and keeping your backup in the Mac Pro offers no protection against fire, flood, theft &c. Since this computer sounds like it may be your livelihood get two backup drives. Then swap them daily or weekly whichever you think is best for your needs. That way one is always in a protected environment.

This is a similar setup one of my customers has with his MP. Except he uses one Time Machine Drive. Then uses a third party program to duplicate his Time Machine backup to the other drive. Though less fuss then re-pointing Time Machine when drives are switched it increases the time spent with both drives unprotected.

Edit: For backing up in Windows I found Memeo Auto backup works quite well.

 

[OnlyShawn]

frimple...HA...no, I'll be working on graphics that can easily be a few GB each (in psd form), so I can't quite take the SSD price tag just yet. These need to be regular old drives...

velocityg4...thanks man, that was a really helpful post. great ideas about splitting up the general/storage, and the external locked enclosure. I'll look into all that ASAP. Seriously, great input.

so, perhaps this would be something to look in to?

80gb intel ssd drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167005

(there's another, cheaper drive-64gb-but it doesn't include a 2.5-3.5 converter, so i'd have to drop another $25 on one of those/drive, so that makes the 80gb intel drive a better overall deal)

64gb, cheaper drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231255

couple of those intel guys should do the trick, eh?

Now...can I partition the SSD and just have half or 3/4 of it dedicated to mac osx, and the other half or 1/4 to windows (maybe 60/40...you get the point)? if so, a single 128 or 160 gb drive would be cheaper than two 64's...would that work?

 

[frimple]

(there's another, cheaper drive-64gb-but it doesn't include a 2.5-3.5 converter, so i'd have to drop another $25 on one of those/drive, so that makes the 80gb intel drive a better overall deal)

couple of those intel guys should do the trick, eh?

Now...can I partition the SSD and just have half or 3/4 of it dedicated to mac osx, and the other half or 1/4 to windows (maybe 60/40...you get the point)? if so, a single 128 or 160 gb drive would be cheaper than two 64's...would that work?

I wouldn't skimp on the SSD's, Intels have been shown time and time again to be superior and for an extra $50 a pop I wouldn't think twice (disclosure, I own several intels and love them). You can partition the drives out, unless you're planning on using software RAID to join them together.

 

[OnlyShawn]

I wouldn't skimp on the SSD's, Intels have been shown time and time again to be superior and for an extra $50 a pop I wouldn't think twice (disclosure, I own several intels and love them). You can partition the drives out, unless you're planning on using software RAID to join them together.

Touche. 160gb intel ssd: $450
Includes converter sled. haven't shopped for this yet, maybe I can get it cheaper elsewhere, but it's a start.

30gb for windows, 130 for mac...I'd prefer that to 80 for both, as I'll only be using windows for autocad, so there would be a lot of wasted space on that windows drive.

ooo...bad review for using this SSD with bootcamp/windows on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820167015&Local=y

Edit: well...I'm still confused. I happen across this post, which seems to say that one can now install windows on the abovementioned intel x25 drive, but it's not exactly clear..

seems like I've got a few weeks to wait anyway, as intel recently announced a 2nd gen of the x25-m drives with notable upgrades in speed. These aren't shipping yet, so I've got plenty of time to research...and find out if one can install windows on it!

I'm halfway wondering if I should/can just run autocad in parallels...gotta see if it's working well as such.

 

[velocityg4]

Now...can I partition the SSD and just have half or 3/4 of it dedicated to mac osx, and the other half or 1/4 to windows (maybe 60/40...you get the point)? if so, a single 128 or 160 gb drive would be cheaper than two 64's...would that work?

Yes.

Though I would go with the 2x80GB for the paltry $10 extra. As you would also have the option of setting up RAID 0 in Mac OS X for an even bigger performance boost (try RAID 0 on SSD for a week and you will likely laugh at your old 7200RPM drive). Unfortunately you can not set up software RAID 0 in Windows too, it requires dynamic disks which do not happily work with an Intel Macs GUID partition table.

Though on the Windows side you could use a partition on one disk for Windows and the other as a scratch disk. Or a partition for Windows on one disk and a partition on the other for Apps.

Touche.

160gb intel ssd: $450
Includes converter sled. haven't shopped for this yet, maybe I can get it cheaper elsewhere, but it's a start.

30gb for windows, 130 for mac...I'd prefer that to 80 for both, as I'll only be using windows for autocad, so there would be a lot of wasted space on that windows drive.

ooo...bad review for using this SSD with bootcamp/windows on newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16820167015&Local=y

It's just one bad review, probably just a bad unit. Other Windows reviews are great. When you boot into Windows on your Mac Pro. Your Mac is really just like any other high end workstation from Dell or HP. It is just a fancier case with an Apple symbol when booted in Windows.

As for space used. My biggest user for apps and OS is my gaming rig with Windows 7. That uses 70GB and is loaded with games, which take up more space than most pro apps. Unless you load the whole Final Cut Studio suite which I think is over 50GB.

Unless you can easily afford it I would not go too wild on the SSD size. As they are still a pretty new tech. In the last two years the capacity and speed has increased astronomically and their prices have plummeted. Two years ago a 32GB SSD ran around $600. They were still having a tough time catching 7200RPM HD's now the 15K drives are trying to keep up with SSD's.

One other thing make sure the 2.5 to 3.5 adapter has bottom screw mounts and aligns properly (as you have no cables to move like a regular PC). The Mac Pro drive sleds attach to the bottom screw holes. You may need to buy special adapters. Like the Icy Dock

Though you could always use good ol' electrical tape.

Who cares it's no like people are going to actively pull out the drive sleds and see the tape job.

 

[joaoferro37]

Yes.

Though I would go with the 2x80GB for the paltry $10 extra. As you would also have the option of setting up RAID 0 in Mac OS X for an even bigger performance boost (try RAID 0 on SSD for a week and you will likely laugh at your old 7200RPM drive). Unfortunately you can not set up software RAID 0 in Windows too, it requires dynamic disks which do not happily work with an Intel Macs GUID partition table.

Though on the Windows side you could use a partition on one disk for Windows and the other as a scratch disk. Or a partition for Windows on one disk and a partition on the other for Apps.




It's just one bad review, probably just a bad unit. Other Windows reviews are great. When you boot into Windows on your Mac Pro. Your Mac is really just like any other high end workstation from Dell or HP. It is just a fancier case with an Apple symbol when booted in Windows.

As for space used. My biggest user for apps and OS is my gaming rig with Windows 7. That uses 70GB and is loaded with games, which take up more space than most pro apps. Unless you load the whole Final Cut Studio suite which I think is over 50GB.

Unless you can easily afford it I would not go too wild on the SSD size. As they are still a pretty new tech. In the last two years the capacity and speed has increased astronomically and their prices have plummeted. Two years ago a 32GB SSD ran around $600. They were still having a tough time catching 7200RPM HD's now the 15K drives are trying to keep up with SSD's.

One other thing make sure the 2.5 to 3.5 adapter has bottom screw mounts and aligns properly (as you have no cables to move like a regular PC). The Mac Pro drive sleds attach to the bottom screw holes. You may need to buy special adapters. Like the Icy Dock

Though you could always use good ol' electrical tape.
View attachment 187562
Who cares it's no like people are going to actively pull out the drive sleds and see the tape job.

Try this one, Stardom Pro Drive.
Takes two 2.5" and of course you can put one.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Raidon/PD2500/