Hard Drive Upgrade Advise

[MatiasZ]

Hello everyone

I need to buy a new hard drive for my computer. Since I'm replacing a 200GB IDE drive that went into a RAID1 array, I need to get something in the lines of 250GB+. It will be mainly used for MP3-VID-SOFT storage, but also as a video capture and editing drive.

After hunting down for different drives, for the price tag I'm willing to pay the best offer is Maxtor's 300GB line, which has 16MB of buffer, NCQ, and are fast, quiet and not too hot. After searching for prices on-line, I have found too different drives:

Maxtor MaxLine III - 300 GB SATA 16MB 7200 RPM - 7L300S0 - 179€ TAX included
Maxtor DiamondMax 10 - 300 GB SATA 16MB 7200 RPM - 6L300S0 - 169€ TAX included

As far as I understand Maxtor says Maxline discs are intended for 24/7 online time on small servers, and they seem to sport a 5yr warranty, weather the DiamondMax only sport 3yr and are intended for 'Desktop Usage'.

I can't seem to find any technical differences between the two, and since the price difference is just 10€, it would seem reazonable to get the MaxLine.

I would like to know if this makes sense, and what do you feel/know about these drives to support or not support them as a good choice, and in this case, what would you recommend instead.

Any opinion or comments are greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Matias

 

[Sxotty]

Unfortunately I don't really know, but I agree with your assesment. I much prefer drives with longer warranties, my seagate and WD drive both have 5yr warranties and it is nice knowing that I won't have to waste money for that long.

I have a raptor though and want another one to do raid as well as a huge slow drive for backup.

 

[Althornin]

I have a raptor though and want another one to do raid as well as a huge slow drive for backup.

On what partition, and what raid level?
Raid 0 is a waste for OS - more gains by splitting your IO to multiple disks (and by more, I mean actual gains, rather than no gains, like you'll get from raid 0 OS drive).

 

[MatiasZ]

Well I'm actually willing to buy a raptor for my OS drive... I just need the money

What I'm trying to do here is move all my critical data (and my father's) to a server with a software RAID1 (eventually I would get a third 200GB seagate disc and make a RAID5 array).

Has anybody got any experience on the performance of RAID1 (and RAID5) software under linux?? I mean, what can and what you can't do with it? In my case I would love if I could be able to pull Audio data (WAV files) which my father uses for his recording studio fast enough through the network (suppose a Gbit connection to the server) from that RAID setup. Any feedback on this?

And as Althornin said, having used RAID0 for OS has proven no improvement over a regular setup here. And I hate the idea of loosing my info, even my system partition. I'll only use RAID0 if i NEED the speed (which considering the drives speeds nowadays, I see not much of a point since you can already use them for anything from regular tasks to audio and video editing without becoming the bottleneck).

Thanks for your input so far.

Regards,

Matías

 

[Sxotty]

On what partition, and what raid level?
Raid 0 is a waste for OS - more gains by splitting your IO to multiple disks (and by more, I mean actual gains, rather than no gains, like you'll get from raid 0 OS drive).

Really? Is there any particular reason why? I had assumed it would make a good deal of difference...ah well.

I meant raid 0 yes and my raptor only has a primary partition all the data is on it. Since I have only one physical drive in this machine I did not see the purpose of making seperate partitions (since I can backup data on the network).

 

[Guden Oden]

Any opinion or comments are greatly appreciated.

I only buy Hitachi. Reason? Generally superior performance, and ramps to offload the read/write heads when powering off rather than having them slide over the disc surface in a contact start/stop.

5 year warranty versus 3 years... Who cares really? You're not even going to be using that drive in 5 years, and if it crashes in 3 1/2, you'll still lose all the data on it even though you may get a new drive thru warranty, and the data is typically what is worth money, not the mechanics that stores it.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I only buy Hitachi. Reason? Generally superior performance, and ramps to offload the read/write heads when powering off rather than having them slide over the disc surface in a contact start/stop.

If heads actually contacted the disc surface at any time, they would destroy it. IIRC, pretty much all manufacturers use off disc head landing zones nowadays. It's one of those things like fluid bearings that used to be exotic, but are now industry standard.

 

[Guden Oden]

Only hitachi actually use headramps in 3.5" formfactor drives (it's standard with ramps in laptop drives because that makes them more shock resistant when powered off), so ALL other drives use full-contact start/stop cycles. The head landing zone (typically at the innermost part of the disks) is typically sputtered with some kind of carbon surface treatment to prevent heads sticking/getting damaged, but it still wears on the mechanics of course. There's also the shock damage problem when powered off; if the drive is banged, heads can literally lift and "slap" back down against the surface and knock off microscopic particles that can cause headcrashes during operation.

If you don't believe me just rip off the top cover of any modern seagate, maxtor etc drive, look for yourself, it ISN'T in every drive today...!

This is why I go with hitachi. They just got their shit better together. Also, some of their drives feature accelerometers that give vibration feedback to the actuator servo to counteract twisting motions when multiple drives are stacked and working.

 

[Sxotty]

Guden I use Hard drives for @ least 5 years so it matters to me. My brothers both have old drives one of which is now 7 years old and failing. The point is hardware that lats gets another lease on life.

 

[MatiasZ]

Thank you all for the input.

I finally bought a Seagate driver, mainly because of three reasons:

- I have about 8 of them and (almost) never had a problem, so I trust them
- It was about 20 bucks cheaper
- More importantly, it was the only 300GB drive in stock, and I didn't want to wait a couple of days to get it.

I know it's not the fastest, it comes and goes in every benchmark, so it's not the slowest either, but I don't really need that 10% difference for storing MP3's and Videos. And I kind of like the fact that I know the brand, and according to storagereview.com, the 7200.7 (previous version, almost same tech, platter size is different now) was the most reliable of its class.

I'm using it and everything seems to be working fine. When I have a couple of bucks I'll replace the 120GB Seagate I'm using now for OS for a 74GB raptor and I'll be set.

BTW Guden, I would've gotten Hitachi (although I had two 60GB IBM 'dead series' die on me after 6 months), but they don't produce any 300GB drive, and the 400GB version was too expensive, about 100€ more than the 300GB seagate.

Regards,

Matías