best SATA HD to place the OS

sman26

Distinguished
Jul 24, 2007
11
0
18,510
I am putting together a computer and am at the point of deciding what would be the best HD configuration.

I was thinking:

(1) 40 or 80 GIG SATA for the OS.

Best choice for this??? other ideas?

* Western Digital Caviar SE WD400JD 40GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 Hard Drive - OEM - $40
* HITACHI Deskstar 7K160 HDS721680PLA380 (0A32727) 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $40
* Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $43

(2) ~300 GIG SATA drives for Data

Best choice for this??? other ideas?

* HITACHI Deskstar T7K500 HDT725032VLA360 (0A33435) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $69
* Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $75
* Seagate Barracuda ES ST3250620NS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $80

Thank you very much for your time.
Shawn
 

Hatman

Distinguished
Aug 8, 2004
2,024
0
19,780
Western Digital Raptor 36gb/74gb for the OS. 36gb is reccomended though. Spins at 10k RPM.

For DATA try to get 2 x 160/250gb ones in RAID0 if you can, most people say its worthless but there is SOME improvement.

Seagate or Samsung are probably the best makes you'll find.
 

systemlord

Distinguished
Jun 13, 2006
2,737
0
20,780
The Raptor 150GB HDD is the fastest HDD on the market and only go's for $249.99. Boots Windows in under 20 seconds and I never see that blue welcome screen before you get to desktop anymore.
 

blashyrkh

Distinguished
Jul 4, 2007
350
0
18,780
I agree with Systemlord, as I'm using the 160Gb raptor myself and its blazing fast. I did read somewhere though that the 74 GB version is slightly faster than the 150GB. Also, the new SATAII raptors are out (which shouldn't make much of a difference since its the seek time that matters).
For data I use a 500GB WD @16MB cache. I see no point going RAID for data since speed is not important and also if that baby goes bad, you loose everything anyways. Also, you don't want to add another 50 degree heater inside your case that also consumes power, unless you really have to.
 

SomeJoe7777

Distinguished
Apr 14, 2006
1,081
0
19,280


Fastest SATA HD on the market. ;)

Many (actually most) SCSI drives are as fast or faster.
 


Go to www.storagereview.com performance database and pick your workload. In almost every case, the 150gb raptor(adfd version) beats out even 15k scsi drives. http://www.storagereview.com/php/benchmark/bench_sort.php

If price is no object, and you need about 300gb, get two independent raptor150.

My strategy is to use a 150gb raptor alone, until it fills up, then later add a 7200rpm storage drive later.
 

choirbass

Distinguished
Dec 14, 2005
1,586
0
19,780
for current ADFD raptors, they all offer the same practical speed benefits, anywhere from the 36GB to the 150GB, the 150GB is slightly slower than both the 36 and 74 when it comes to overall STRs (it would seem thats due to it having 2 platters instead of just 1), but not that that would even matter much when it comes again to typical OS and application uses, the seek times are what mainly matter here, and are what will make the largest impact in actual performance most of the time... the main differences between the 3 are price ($100 WD360ADFD, $150 WD740ADFD ($135 after rebate), $195 WD1500ADFD at newegg.com), and total usable capacity. for all else, both features and performance is virtually identical. the 5 year warranty is also nice to have.

edit: newegg doesnt seem to have the 36GB anymore that i saw, though they might just be out temporarily.

though usually not recommended, you may be able to find an older raptor for cheap on ebay (~$20 or so), and for most practical purposes, theyre almost exactly as fast as the newer raptors (rated seek times are 4.6ms for the newest raptors, 5.2ms for the oldest).

all raptors are still on sata150, not that that matters much anyhow