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shopping for memory and external HD

M

maldoror

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 20, 2009
105
0
it's been two years since i bought my last external hdd.
i went with a 1TB WD Cavier Black 7200 SATA-II w/ 32mb cache (WDGWD1001FALS) and coupled it with the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Quad enclosure.

is this still a good option 2 years later? maybe i should try the 64mb cache?

or should i put this hd into a raid enclosure? what advantages would that have?


also, i need to order memory for the first time in a while...i was going to go with the OWC, but read a few posts about issues people were having with their memory. the posts are a year old though...are there still issues...is there another brand that's overtaken them?

i'm using a 27" i7...latest release.

thanks for the help,
maldo
 
maldoror said:
it's been two years since i bought my last external hdd.
i went with a 1TB WD Cavier Black 7200 SATA-II w/ 32mb cache (WDGWD1001FALS) and coupled it with the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Quad enclosure.

is this still a good option 2 years later? maybe i should try the 64mb cache?

or should i put this hd into a raid enclosure? what advantages would that have?


also, i need to order memory for the first time in a while...i was going to go with the OWC, but read a few posts about issues people were having with their memory. the posts are a year old though...are there still issues...is there another brand that's overtaken them?

i'm using a 27" i7...latest release.

thanks for the help,
maldo
Click to expand...

On the memory issue I would go with crucial or OWC you should not have an issue. As with any computer components you will always find instances of people having problems.

As to the hard drive issue this totally depends on what you are using it for?

If you want data security then RAID 1, speed and space is not as big of an issue then SSD if lots of space is needed and speed is needed then go with a server grade 10K-15K drive from Seagate or WD or a RAID (beware of RAID 0 because they are twice as likely to fail catastrophically).

Cheers
 
really just need space to store movies and downloads.
you think raid 1 is better than 2 stacked 1TB drives? it wouldn't cost that much more.
if i stack them...since there's only one fw800 on the imac what's the best way to connect it? an adapter or can you jump the drives?
 
is raid 1 just two drives with all the same info...one backing up the other?
i don't really think i need that if that's the case.
i need one drive to backup my mac's internal drive and another drive for storage.
should i just stack separate externals?
i was thinking raid somehow would just make it faster and less cables.
 
other thoughts

There are a couple of options you don't seem to have considered - you could save yourself some money and just upgrade the HD in your computer so that it can store both your computer files and whatever movies you want and then buy just one new external drive. A lot of the money you spend will be on the enclosure so this way you save quite a bit on that. Or you could keep your internal HD and just buy one very big external drive (not as a mirrored RAID arrangement but rather something like one 5400rpm 3TB drive) and then partition it using Disk Utility; then it will mount as two separate disk images, one for films and one for your Time Machine and you cut out the complications of many cables.

If you are just using these drives you want for films and for a backup then you don't need to buy a 7200rpm drive because they are FAR more unreliable and not really much faster than a decent 5400rpm. You don't really need speed when you are talking about streaming one film off of an external drive.

As far as RAID goes, yes a big part of RAID is mirroring which you don't seem to need, as well as the additional cost. RAID 0 is fairly cheap but as has been said a little unstable, RAID 1 is better but the prices are a lot higher and to be honest it doesn't sound like its something you need. I would recommend a 3TB 5400rpm external drive in a single enclosure running Firewire 800. You may even want to wait for a Thunderbolt enclosure to hit the markets because then you will be able to keep on using that enclosure for many years to come.

OWC memory is great, never known anyone to have problems with it and certainly no more unreliable than the Samsung RAM that Apple ships your computer with. You can even get a rebate on your old memory there.
 
OWC drive failed me and so did the company

Drive failed...company offered empty apology. I am left with a mess.
 
owc doesn't sell proprietary drives do they? did the enclosure fail?
 
a 3tb hitachi or a 3tb WD green?

just realized the owc quad enclosure says it only supports up to 2tb drives.
any other suggestions for enclosures?
 
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