One 2 TB HDD or two 1 TB HDD?

[Viper-2733]

Hello, it seems like most of the craze here is about SSDs, which I can probably afford, but honestly I still have an old mobo and I'm in need of more storage atm, rather than fast boot speeds.

My mobo only supports sata II so I do not expect very high speeds, but it does support usb 3.0.

Would I be better off paying;
1.)90.39$ or one 2TB drive @5400rpm
2.)131.47$ for two 1TB drives @7200rpm
3.)168.45$ for one 2TB drive @7200rpm
4.)95.87$ for one @TB external drive [usb3.0]
Thanks in advance.

 

[kanewolf]

SATA II is still WAY faster than any mechanical HDD. Two 1TB disks have the advantage of only losing 1/2 your data if one fails as long as you don't RAID 0. I wouldn't recommend a USB drive unless you want it as a backup device.

 

[Viper-2733]

Thank you for your reply.

SATA II is still WAY faster than any mechanical HDD. Two 1TB disks have the advantage of only losing 1/2 your data if one fails as long as you don't RAID 0. I wouldn't recommend a USB drive unless you want it as a backup device.

The intention of these drives will be for storage mostly, not gonna run any software from there.. And what you say is, that sata II covers the full speed of 5400rpm drives and 7200rpm drives? then what is the point of making the same drives with sata III?
Anyway, about raid, can it somehow contribute to drive degradation? I do want to try and set up an array with those two, but I'n looking into buying anymore storage anytime soon.

 

[Viper-2733]

@kanewolf, Another thing I wanted to ask is does raid0 contribute to drive degradation? And how much speed it contributes? if a raid0 array will make the drives die faster while only adding like.. 50% faster read and writes I'd rather just buy a single 7200rpm 2TB drive.. I'm never going back to 5400rpm

 

[kanewolf]

@kanewolf, Another thing I wanted to ask is does raid0 contribute to drive degradation? And how much speed it contributes? if a raid0 array will make the drives die faster while only adding like.. 50% faster read and writes I'd rather just buy a single 7200rpm 2TB drive.. I'm never going back to 5400rpm

Does RAID0 cause drives to fail faster? I have never seen any articles like that. But RAID0 does double the probabilities of loosing all your data. Why, because a failure of either drive loses data on all drives. I don't recommend RAID0 or even RAID1 for most home users. The probability of data loss it too high for the limited benefits.

You seem to have conflicting priorities. Most performance vs most space. Maybe your data isn't that important, but a backup scheme needs to be your top priority IMO.

 

[Viper-2733]

@kanewolf, Another thing I wanted to ask is does raid0 contribute to drive degradation? And how much speed it contributes? if a raid0 array will make the drives die faster while only adding like.. 50% faster read and writes I'd rather just buy a single 7200rpm 2TB drive.. I'm never going back to 5400rpm

Does RAID0 cause drives to fail faster? I have never seen any articles like that. But RAID0 does double the probabilities of loosing all your data. Why, because a failure of either drive loses data on all drives. I don't recommend RAID0 or even RAID1 for most home users. The probability of data loss it too high for the limited benefits.

You seem to have conflicting priorities. Most performance vs most space. Maybe your data isn't that important, but a backup scheme needs to be your top priority IMO.

Yeah my priorities did get conflicted after your first response, I wanted to have a drive just for storage of videos and pictures and possibly game instalations, stuff that I don't really mind that would load slowly. I back up my documents on several places, whether on a cloud, external hdds, flash drives... movies and games I don't mind losing, so I don't back them up, and game saves weigh nothing, so flash drives are sufficient for that.
After your first response I started reading about RAID, and I also did not find anything that points to drive degradation, except of ssds, which are out of the question at the moment, and the reason I asked you here as well. Since you don't recommend RAID0, I'll take it that your answer is to get one 2TB drive? again, I do not plan to have data on one drive and back it up on the other, I plan to use both for their full capacity, but it would be nice if I could push just a bit more speed out of them in raid0. I've read this, but my millage will vary on my system.

 

[kanewolf]

I don't recommend RAID because it is just too easy to mess up. Users think they are invincible with RAID but when a drive fails and they attempt a rebuild and it goes badly they still can lose everything. RAID isn't portable between hosts unlike a standard drive. I lost data with a RAID, so maybe I am extra cynical. But I won't lose data again...

 

[Viper-2733]

I don't recommend RAID because it is just too easy to mess up. Users think they are invincible with RAID but when a drive fails and they attempt a rebuild and it goes badly they still can lose everything. RAID isn't portable between hosts unlike a standard drive. I lost data with a RAID, so maybe I am extra cynical. But I won't lose data again...

I get your point, and it's justified, I had a HDD die, other HDD formatted without backing up and google drive formatted by accident all at once, so I know what it's like to lose data, but again, the data I plan to store is temporary anyway. I think I'll try the raid array, and store games there that have long loading times, and see if I see any difference. If I do, nice, I'll keep the array. If not, no big deal, I'll split them back and still have my 2TB of storage with 7200rpm..

 

[Viper-2733]

I don't recommend RAID because it is just too easy to mess up. Users think they are invincible with RAID but when a drive fails and they attempt a rebuild and it goes badly they still can lose everything. RAID isn't portable between hosts unlike a standard drive. I lost data with a RAID, so maybe I am extra cynical. But I won't lose data again...

I get your point, and it's justified, I had a HDD die, other HDD formatted without backing up and google drive formatted by accident all at once, so I know what it's like to lose data, but again, the data I plan to store is temporary anyway. I think I'll try the raid array, and store games there that have long loading times, and see if I see any difference. If I do, nice, I'll keep the array. If not, no big deal, I'll split them back and still have my 2TB of storage with 7200rpm..