which 1TB HD: WD Caviar black/hitachi deskstar/samsung f3

[student_trap]

thanks to everyone for the advice. I did purchase 2 of the newer hitachis, but there was a problem with delivery and they are now out of stock so I am back to square one!

However, considering this, I thought that I may be better off changing everything up to a quicker system in general.

So what would you guys recommend?

1. Buy 4 500GB RE3's for a 1+0 raid system
(although this would leave me with limited space, and no scratch drive)

2. buy 2 1TB caviar blacks for (OS+data)+(back-up)
(although I wonder whether this would be quite a slow option?)

4. Buy a small disk for OS and apps (any ideas? I dont think that I could afford an SSD) alongside a 1 TB caviar black for data and a 1TB Caviar green for backup, and one of my existing drives as a scratch disk?


What do you think?

 

[student_trap]

OK guys well im leaning towards getting a smaller drive for the OS and 2 1TB drives for files and backup.

Can anyone advise me on what to get for the smaller (fast) boot drive?

I will need to order very very soon so please let me know soon er rather than later if you can help

 

[student_trap]

Hey all, well in the end I bought 2 WD Caviar Black 1TB and think that I will use one as an OS only drive with the other for file storage.

I am also thinking about picking up a 1TB caviar green for backup soon

What do you guys think?

 

[Fiete5401]

What do you guys think?

Excellent choice I think. I'll upgrade the hd in my late 2006 iMac with the same WDCB drive soon.

 

[slughead]

I currently have 5 WD Caviar greens, my dad has 4 more. We've been very happy.

I always do a full surface scan on every drive I buy before I start using it. All 9 were clean.

We've had 1 failure between the two of us in the past few months, and that may have been my fault (I may not have waited for the drive to fully spin down before removing it, possibly caused a head crash).

I know this is not very scientific but failure rates seem low enough. (you're backing up anyway, right?

WD's RMA process is freakin amazing. $5.50 for a shipping sticker you print out yourself. Then you just bring the HD in a shoebox to a UPS store and they'll do the rest. You can even give WD your credit card number and they'll ship you the HD before they receive the RMA (free of charge)! Even without doing that, it only took 1 week to ship and get back.

Also, 5 year warranty.

I put 4 in a RAID 1/0 (software). It seems to work great.

 

[koruki]

I hope you haven't bought your Hard disk yet cause seems everyone is recommending you the WD. I got the Samsung F3 yesterday and was blown away. I been using WD exclusively the last two years and although they are solid, they are slow(I use them as mirror drives for storing photos so its ok). The F3 totally humiliated the Velociraptors I have, the write speed beat them easily. I was doing a big transfer and it was pushing 120MBps. Until I fired the drive I have been skeptical. Def a excellent OS disk, was at a LAN on the weekend and my friends old machine was loading games quicker than his main machine because of the F3.

Do a quick google about F3 and its nothing but praise, they are quiet too.
I ran a few benches and the only thing the Velociraptors can claim on the F3 is seek times, everything else it was a sad sight.

If I didn't have a X25-M G2 Stripe I'd use the F3 as my OS disk without a doubt.