Need replacement for older harddrive...

Hey there team.

My primary working station is in need of a replacement harddrive. The current one is a Samsung F1 250GB which I have been running for well over 3 years (with the format: C done once a year) I have a gut feeling that says it´s time to replace it.

Obviously my need for storage is not that big since the 250GB has been more than enough for 3 years!

Give me some headers please!

(please have in mind that I plan on migrating to Linux sometime in the future. (We only need web, word, homebank and such...No fancy games...) Also it would be great if the HD could be part of a future upgrade. Don´t wanna spend money now, just to buy another HD later on

Hey Beer,

First, are you sure your drive is going bad?

There are some good utilities for checking/monitoring the health of most SATA/ATA S.M.A.R.T. compliant HDDs. Speedfan has a detailed smart section that also allows you to compare your drive status with others of the same make & model via Speedfan's database.

For other utilities see this list (which is probably not a complete listing) ---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...M.A.R.T._tools

For a new HDD Samsung and Hitachi have improved reliability over the last few years. Seagate of late has been getting worse from what I can see from user ratings on Newegg. Western digital still has a good reputation. I do not have any experience with the new SSD technology and personally I am holding out until I start seeing some long term reliability reports.

Be wary about buying any SSD that is using the Sandforce controller. People are having problems with these drives for every manufacturer. Lots of BSOD's and spontaneous reboots. Not to say all of the drives are bad it's a big problem.

I bought a Corsair Force GT 120 GB and I had issues. Check the drive manufacturers forum before you buy.

First off. I am pretty sure the HD is dying on me...My pc is getting in-responsive every other minute. Simple tasks takes longer than normal. I have tested all other HW. Works fine.

I am not in the market for a SSD. I don´t trust them just yet. And if I am to pay hard-earned dollars for a HD - you can be damn straight I want something that will last! :p I am thinking along the lines with maybe a server disk of some kind. You know...Those 24/7 disk with longer warranty?

Hi Beer, if it's for a future build, may as well make it a SATAIII just because. Then, consider something I learned from Slicker -- best speed will come from a HDD that is 50% full or less. This has to do with the way it uses the outside of the platter first, which is much faster than the inner part.
Also make sure it is at least 7200rpm. So...that leaves us with something like WD's black series, which has extended 5 year warranty. Here is a link to the 750GB0 @Newegg, which sounds about right for your needs, and would be fast, because you'd only be loading the outer 1/3 ohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136794f the platter.

Of course, slightly cheaper for the 500GB version and then 1TB version is a bit more.
Hope that helps some!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

Hi Beer, if it's for a future build, may as well make it a SATAIII just because. Then, consider something I learned from Slicker -- best speed will come from a HDD that is 50% full or less. This has to do with the way it uses the outside of the platter first, which is much faster than the inner part.
Also make sure it is at least 7200rpm. So...that leaves us with something like WD's black series, which has extended 5 year warranty. Here is a link to the 750GB0 @Newegg, which sounds about right for your needs, and would be fast, because you'd only be loading the outer 1/3 ohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136794f the platter.

Of course, slightly cheaper for the 500GB version and then 1TB version is a bit more.
Hope that helps some!

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Thanks! That looks like something usefull! I take it that SATA III is backward compatible? (my board is SATA II I believe)

Yeah, Sata 3.0 Drives can easily work on 2.0 boards. They just run at 2.0 speeds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

Hi Beer, if it's for a future build, may as well make it a SATAIII just because. Then, consider something I learned from Slicker -- best speed will come from a HDD that is 50% full or less. This has to do with the way it uses the outside of the platter first, which is much faster than the inner part.
Also make sure it is at least 7200rpm. So...that leaves us with something like WD's black series, which has extended 5 year warranty. Here is a link to the 750GB0 @Newegg, which sounds about right for your needs, and would be fast, because you'd only be loading the outer 1/3 ohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136794f the platter.

Of course, slightly cheaper for the 500GB version and then 1TB version is a bit more.
Hope that helps some!

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For DrPop's comment there is an easy way to implement that idea. It's called short stroking. In simple terms you format a portion of the hard drive. For best performance is at 50% or less. So if you want 500GB of storage buy a 1TB HDD and format only the first half.

The server HDDs come in several versions. I think they are classified in tiers but I could be mistaken. Anyhow the top level server drives are called "Mission Critical". The next level/tier drives are called "Near Line Storage" or something to that effect. I believe there is a third level but the classification escapes me.

I personally use Western Digital Caviar Black drives. From my research, they're the best there is (outside of server drives). And yes, no worries getting a SATAIII. It'll work just fine with SATA 2 or 1.

I just raid 5 my drives so when 1 dies, I just replace it. Then I don't have to worry about much else. I still backup in case 2 drives failed at one (very unlikely) or some other disaster strikes

?DAD?.:((:((:(( Where is ddubnmjuydyxpto or something. Can I call you daddy? :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DAD

I just raid 5 my drives so when 1 dies, I just replace it. Then I don't have to worry about much else. I still backup in case 2 drives failed at one (very unlikely) or some other disaster strikes

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FYI, I had to replace two drives on a database server last week. Planning for just such an occurrance, the server was setup with RAID 5 and two hot spares. Unless they all go bad siimultaneously, it can handle 3 drive failures and still limp along. So, having two drives fail does happen. The questions is how much do you want to spend to mitigate the unlikely risk. For this server, the couple hundred dollars for hot spares was consisidered a good option when compared to the lawsuits we'd have if we lost our client's data. I'd probably never put hot spares in a machine at home, but my home office machines are all either RAID 5 or mirrored.

@Slicker - wow, crazy, two drives at once. Yikes. How much better is RAID 5 than RAID 1? For my own (fairly small at this point) health care office that we run here, I just have our business data on a RAID 1 setup, mirrored across two "regular" 500GB drives. If I remember correctly, they are about 1 year old 7200rpm Seagate drives. I was thinking maybe I should replace them with two WDD Black drives, because those seem to have a better track record. Cost is a factor, of course, because we are not some big entity (yet?) ;) but, do you think I need to take more precaution than this?
Thanks, because I value your opinion on this kind of stuff big time!

Well, I am taking the plunge and ordering one of the WD Black that DrPop suggested once my next paycheck comes in....I am gonna go "crazy" and ordering the 1TB version. That ougth to cover me for some time.....LOL!

That's awesome Beer! I think that is one of the best HDDs that you could buy.:cool: The only one arguably better is the WDD RE4 model, which is built for Enterprise RAID solutions, but they are pretty spendy, and not much different than the Caviar Black edition, I think.:confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrPop

That's awesome Beer! I think that is one of the best HDDs that you could buy.:cool: The only one arguably better is the WDD RE4 model, which is built for Enterprise RAID solutions, but they are pretty spendy, and not much different than the Caviar Black edition, I think.:confused:

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+1

Thks for the feedback guys!!

1 x WD Black 1TB SATA600 64MB ordered! :cool:

With a little luck it arrives here tomorrow! The retailer got day-to-day delivery :p

Oh, sweet, Beer! You're going to love that thing. Now, granted it's no SSD in the speed department, but with the light load (250GB or so) that you have to put on it now, it will be quite fast...and these things are supposed to be pretty reliable. No complaints with the one I've got here! ;)

I am running 3 of the WD Caviar Black 1 TB drives and love them. They are all the 64 mb versions and I love them. They are about a year old now and no trouble at all. I also back up the entire computer to a 1 TB Fantom Drive external HD. I don't want to take the chance of loseing data.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Duke of Buckingham

?DAD?.:((:((:(( Where is ddubnmjuydyxpto or something. Can I call you daddy? :D

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You could call me daddy, but then you might be asked to do things you might not want to do :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DAD

You could call me daddy, but then you might be asked to do things you might not want to do :eek:

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WAAAAAHAAAHAHHAAHAHAH!!!! ^:)^^:)^
Joker and Max would have been all over this one. I'm sure Duke will have a few photos. :-bd=))=))

New cookies campaing to bring DADDY to the dark side

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Dont cry DADDY is on the Darkside

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that's right.. I am on the darkside :)

Oooooooooohhhhhhh man. I am so missing Joker now! :)) :D He would have been all over this like a fly on...X_X

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Maxwell could help a bit by joinning the diswasher to the Darkside. Afterall Maxwell is the
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Yeah, Joker is missed. STM would have dropped a intellectual tidbit as well. =))
I told ya Duke would be all other this. =))

I love the keys to the x-wing one, Duke! :D