[HTPC Storage]

[upstatesledder]

Been thinking about my HTPC build and this is what's up. I have on order (1) WD 1TB Caviar Black Drive (that I was going to use for my OS, programs, pics, and music) and (1) WD 1TB Caviar Green Drive (that I was planning on using for all my video files.

I got thinking and did some more reading on performance of these two drives. I am debating on weather to get another WD Black 500GB to use for my OS and programs, and use the Black 1TB for video and the Green 1TB for music, and pics.

Performance/noise wise does this sound right???

What about getting Raptor WD740ADFD 74GB 10000 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s 3.5" for my OS and programs instead, would this be enough room? The speed factor would be great. What about the noise level?

 

[rwpritchett]

I have both black and green WD 1TB drives. The black is definitely more audible than the green.

Forget the raptor, they just aren't worth it these days. Have you considered an SSD for your operating system/apps and then a 1TB drive for storage?

 

[wuzy]

Your data in HTPC doesn't need speed, it needs reliability and the only way you're going to get that with a mechanical HDD is through RAID redundancy with a trustworthy controller or software(Server 2008 or Linux).
For the OS+app you can consider using a 160-320GB or a small SSD like rwpritchett suggested. They don't require more than 60GB.