Whis would be best for performance?

CFTait

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Apr 22, 2010
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Well, as I dig deeper and deeper into my pockets, I'm stuck on my Hard Drives (That's plural) I've always only had one hard drive before, so I do not have any experience, with this RAID thing. The configuration I wanted, will consist of 2, maybe 3 HDD's. One would be my External, which I may put inside of the computer; but doubtful. I wanted to get an 80GB Seagate for my Boot Drive and either a 320 or 500GB along side of the 80GB. Or, I would get two(2) 500GB Drives and create a partition for the OS.

I'm a Gamer, so I was thinking of creating a partition of 40GB and 40GB, one for the OS and then the other 40GB for my Games. Hard Drives are far out of my reach still as I "master" the hardware of computers.

In short, which would I see more performance from: One(1) 80GB + 320 or 500GB Drive, or two(2) 500GB Drives?

Thank you in advance for the answers and information.




CFTait.
 

sub mesa

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80GB HDD? Those are very slow; as you know HDD performance scales with data density; currently the 500GB-per-platter are latest generation; that means the disk has to be multiples of 500GB or it will have smaller platters and thus being slower.
 

gtvr

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For the 80gb drive, are you considering a solid state drive? There's no reason to go find an 80gb traditional hd - if you could even find one, they are much slower than today's drives.

That answer will drive some other responses. For example, you don't want to partition an SSD.
 

CFTait

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SSD's are not to my likings right now (Price) and Seagate hasn't manufactured any, that I'm aware of. So, I am talking about a traditional HD; I'm guessing I should go with the larger drive? I'm getting a SATA 6.0GB/s Motherboard nad I've heard that there really isn't a huge difference between the two, SATA 3 and Sata 6. So I wouldn't exactly benefit from a SATA 6 over a SATA 3 HD, would I? There's a price gap between them and the SATA 6.0 are rather scarce, right now.
 

gtvr

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sata 6 is more of buying now in case you need it later. There's a difference between the 2, but the issue is today's traditional HDs aren't going to take advantage of even 3gb/s, much less 6. Some RAID or SSD configs may, but not a single HD.

So again just my thoughts, but if you're doing an add-in raid, don't worry as much about the motherboard capabilities if it's a BIG issue. If you can get a MB with the latest greatest, such as sata 6gb, and/or USB 3, at a small premium, it's worth it though.
 

CFTait

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I'm getting the ASUS M4A89RD Pro, which will help future proof this system.

I'll just go with the WD Caviar Black 640GB, I don't really need more than one drive, I was just wanting to try something new, that's all :) I'm sure I'll be adding something else in there, the next week! lol