Tips for building a RAID

[amakh]

I am thinking of buying the Newertech Guardian MAXimus, but I do not know if I should buy the enclosure with hard drives from OWC or just buy the enclosure and put drives in myself. The 4TB model is $400 and the 6TB model is $600. That comes with a 3 year warranty for both the enclosure and the drives. If I go the DIY route, the 4TB will be about $350 and the 6TB will be about $530. By saving $50-$70, I am giving up 2 years on the warranty of the enclosure, the service of having the drives tested before shipping, and the ease of just sending it back to OWC should something go wrong with the drives or the enclosure. Are these advantages/conveniences worth the extra cost?

Also, I will be using this to store large files that I do not need to access very often. Usually, I will be playing video/audio/photos off the drive. I will be using FireWire 800 because my 15" Macbook Pro doesn't have an express card slot I could put an eSATA card into, so my transfer speed will be relatively limited. Is it necessary to get 7200RPM drives for this application? I can save about $30 on the drives if I go for WD Caviar Greens with a 5900RPM rotational speed over the Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 with a 7200RPM rotational speed (both drives have 64MB of cache)? Thanks a lot!

What would be the optimal setup for these purposes?

 

[reebzor]

I believe this is in the right section.

Now onto your previous query...

I read the post over a couple times and couldn't really pick out the questions. I did my best so here you go:

Save $50-$70 by giving up 2 years worth of warranty? This is completely up to you. I don't think anyone can or should answer this for you. If you think the piece of mind you get 2 years of warranty is worth $50-$70, then get it. In all honesty, it is probably going to be a waste of money, but you wont know that for a fact for at least 3 years.

5900 vs. 7200 RPM: Since this is external it may not even make a difference. Another factor will be what type of RAID you will use. RAID0 will be faster than RAID1. I have a RAID5 with 5900rpm green drives and it is sufficiently fast for my needs (basic file sharing, streaming HD videos, etc). Your specified needs dont really sound like you need 7200rpm drives, however they will be marginally faster.

Were there any other questions in there?

 

[dimme]

Like the previous poster said the speed difference between the two speeds will not make a difference. The green drives will run cooler with I think is a advantage.

 

[amakh]

Green Drives

With the green drives, I can set this up for only $290. OWC will also exchange your drives for brand new ones (not refurbished) if they fail within 90 days. I've been reading about a lot of people who received drives that were dead on arrival. If that happens, it's like you paid for a new drive, but you are going to be using a refurbished drive. That is pretty unsettling.