|
The Ultimate Dream Computer
|
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
14. January 2007 @ 22:51 |
Link to this message
|
|
Although they're very expensive, if you're looking for the fastest hard drive that isn't insane (I'm thinking 15k rpm Atlas here LOL) then the 150GB raptor is ideal, most "ultimate" pc systems are built with one, or two in RAID. If you want a bit more storage for your money, go with a Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB or its equivalents, they're particularly fast, and also very quiet.
Lol@forkndave, a friend of mine met a 5000rpm 60mm heatsink fan once, that wasn't nice, but a 200mm fan could do some serious damage.
to shuboy: nice choice of components, I'm looking to upgrade to that power supply (or the 700W model), i'd be interested to hear your thoughts of it when your system's up and running. With regard to are the fans cheap, are what fans cheap? Fans come with cases usually, and if you want to replace them you can go with cheap crummy ones that are noisy, or expensive near-silent ones like I have. Fans can cost anywhere from $1 to $20 each.
|
|
Advertisement
|
 |
|
|
|
shuboy00
Junior Member
|
15. January 2007 @ 07:26 |
Link to this message
|
|
@Sammorris, I think I am going to check out the WD 500GB Caviar. And I was asking about the fans that come in the Antec Nine Hundred Case stock. Are they cheap? What 120mm fans would you recommend getting?
--The test of a man is the fight that he makes...
Kreative Klick
HEAVY HITTERS...SUCKAS!!!
|
Senior Member
3 product reviews
|
15. January 2007 @ 08:07 |
Link to this message
|
|
I always use WD over other makes.
Look for SATA 2 with he 16MB Cache, size is up to you, but for speed, I would use a RAID.
With that board you can easily set up 0+1
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
15. January 2007 @ 10:16 |
Link to this message
|
|
The fans in the Antec are probably OKish, being Antec rather than stock with any old cheap case, but they won't be ultra-silent models, if that's what you're after then you may want to look at aftermarket fans from the likes of Nexus, Scythe, Coollink and Noctua. As for the 200mm fan, you may just have to run it at low speed if you want it silent, I don't know many aftermarket fans that size. If you want high speed, high airflow fans, the Thermaltake Thunderblades aren't bad for noise, they're still what I'd pronounce quite loud, but for the air they push they're acceptable.
With regard to the disk drive, make sure you get the SE16 series. They have a 16MB cache, use S-ATA 2 and are as quiet and as fast as they come.
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
15. January 2007 @ 11:49 |
Link to this message
|
I'm with BigDK, WD is a proven name. I like the big drives for storage. Since we're talking dream machine here, you want both storage and speed. I'd go with Raptors in RAID 0 for speed and use a large storage drive for storing things like video files. A single Raptor is plenty fast by itself though. If you want to go the budget route, get a couple of big drives in RAID 0. I don't usually keep much mission critical data, so I don't use mirrored drives.
BigDK
I don't know how many drives you put in the 0+1 configuration, but if you're using multiple sets, you may want to consider 1+0. Mathmatically it's a more reliable setup. A normal user wouldn't need to worry, but a power user with a lot of drives might want to check into it. I read a small article on it not long ago that explains it fairly well. I'm not that good at math myself. LOL
Heres a small quote from the article: "The difference is that the chance of system failure with two drive failures in a RAID 0+1 system with two sets of drives is (n/2)/(n - 1) where n is the total number of drives in the system. The chance of system failure in a RAID 1+0 system with two drives per mirror is 1/(n - 1). Using an 8 drive system, the chance that losing a second drive would bring down the RAID system is 4/7 with a RAID 0+1 system and 1/7 with a RAID 1+0 system."
http://aput.net/~jheiss/raid10/
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 15. January 2007 @ 15:30
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
15. January 2007 @ 12:06 |
Link to this message
|
|
shuboy00
Another drive to consider is the Seagate Barracuda with the Perpendicular Writing technology. They're another high quality drive and they come in larger sizes than the Raptor. Some reviews claim the perpendicular technology gives the Seagate an edge over the regualar WD drives. The Seagate shows a little faster from the specs.
Seagate Barracuda ES ST3400620NS 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Average Latency: 4.16ms
Average Seek Time: 8.5ms
Average Write Time: 9.5ms
Cache: 16MB
Features: Industry's Highest Reliability Optimized For Enterprise Storage Environments
Form Factor: 3.5"
Model #: ST3400620NS
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD4000KS 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Average Latency: 4.2ms
Average Seek Time: 8.9ms
Average Write Time: 10.9ms
Cache: 16MB
Features: Cool operating temperature ? WD hard drives are designed to have the lowest power consumption of any high-capacity, desktop-class hard drive which lowers the operating temperature for enhanced drive reliability. Whisper quiet ? These highly reliable drives deliver technologically advanced acoustics. With its WhisperDrive? and SoftSeek? technologies, WD has minimized
Form Factor: 3.5"
Model #: WD4000KS
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
15. January 2007 @ 14:01 |
Link to this message
|
|
peak data transfer rates seem to give the WDs an edge from what I've seen. Could be wrong though, and after all, I use a Seagate!
|
|
shuboy00
Junior Member
|
15. January 2007 @ 15:13 |
Link to this message
|
|
I see the same. I think I am going to get the Raptor and then get a large WD for storage.
--The test of a man is the fight that he makes...
Kreative Klick
HEAVY HITTERS...SUCKAS!!!
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
15. January 2007 @ 15:23 |
Link to this message
|
|
sammorris
There's a difference between the Seagates with and without the perpendicular writing. With the newer drives, I was under the impression they were faster than the WDs, except the Raptors of course. Where did you get your information?
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
15. January 2007 @ 15:33 |
Link to this message
|
|
|
shuboy00
Junior Member
|
15. January 2007 @ 15:34 |
Link to this message
|
|
@Sammorris
Links didnt work for me...
--The test of a man is the fight that he makes...
Kreative Klick
HEAVY HITTERS...SUCKAS!!!
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
15. January 2007 @ 15:56 |
Link to this message
|
|
Hmm, they work fine for me. What happens when you click on them?
|
|
shuboy00
Junior Member
|
15. January 2007 @ 15:59 |
Link to this message
|
|
I get this error:
Error404
Sorry! The Requested Page was not Found!
Dear Visitor. The page you requested couldn't be found :( - If you followed a link from another Website please inform their Webmaster. If you happen to get this message while browsing Tom's Hardware Guide please inform the Webmaster of Tom's Hardware Guide.
Please check the URL in the address field of your browser. All pages end with .html, maybe it is .htm. You might want to use the Search Engine to find what you are looking for.
You might want to check the Historical Archive. Here you can find all articles in a chronological order.
Home
--The test of a man is the fight that he makes...
Kreative Klick
HEAVY HITTERS...SUCKAS!!!
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
15. January 2007 @ 16:04 |
Link to this message
|
|
How bizarre, the links are fine for me.
Go to the tom's hardware main page, then click "Hard disk charts" down the side. Thatll give you the same diagrams.
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
15. January 2007 @ 22:35 |
Link to this message
|
Sammorriss
Some time back Anandtech compared similar SATA drives from WD and Seagate (with perpendicular drive). They were close and each had some slightly different advantages. The tie breaker of the comparison came down to Seagate's better warranty. Here's an excerpt: Quote:
In the end we have to declare a winner so we took the fact both drives are selling for around $99 in their OEM version (incredible value for 320GB) and bounced that against their performance and still ended up in a situation where you win with either drive. However, after tallying up the points we noticed the deciding factor would be the warranties offered by each company. Seagate offers a full five year warranty while Western Digital offers three years on their OEM drives and one year on their Retail drives with a $14.95 charge for two additional years. Based upon this information, we are going to declare the Seagate our winner on a technical knockout.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2803&p=12
I go with WD, but I've been thinking of trying one of the new Seagates. As Anandtech pointed out, they've been improving the Seagates and they're better than what was in that review.
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
15. January 2007 @ 23:03 |
Link to this message
|
Sammorriss
I noticed that your selection of benches mentioned some of the Seagates having an edge. I ran the guides with models similar to those in the Anandtech test. The difference is the Seagate is a larger model (Tom's didn't have the smaller one listed). For the Data transfer you were interested in, the Seagate won out between the 2.
--------------------------------------------
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
15. January 2007 @ 23:16 |
Link to this message
|
|
I should have used the WD500KS in that comparison, but the Seagate is still faster. The only WDs faster were the Raptors and a 160GB drive with 8MB cache (WD1600AAJS). For a big storage drive the Seagate was smokin'. Note it actually beat a Raptor or 2 in there. Looking at that, my next storage drive may be a Seagate.
|
Senior Member
3 product reviews
|
16. January 2007 @ 01:15 |
Link to this message
|
|
I'm very limited with my present board on how many drives I can setup.
Its one of the failings of the P5WDH IMO.
I just use 3x drives in RAID 0 as I always back everything up onto separate drives anyway.
I would never recommend Raptors on a reliability score, as I seem to get about 1 drive fail per year on average.
That?s in a well vented system in a constant temp room.
Other WD?s which I use on other systems have never let me down at all.
I would also never recommend Seagate, as the support is total crap compared to WD's, WD always turn the drives around within a week on an RMA.
They'll always be people that argue on both sides, but I can only use my own personal experience to go by, the service from Seagate made me sell off the last drives I had by them.
I had bought drives with 5 year warranty, I produced the original documentation proving their age and supplier details etc?, but they still refused to except the drives were under any warranty.
|
Senior Member
3 product reviews
|
16. January 2007 @ 01:15 |
Link to this message
|
|
Double Click -- Ignore!
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 16. January 2007 @ 01:16
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
16. January 2007 @ 02:40 |
Link to this message
|
|
Hmm, duly noted. Didn't know that about the reliability of Raptors, good thing I'm not relying on it for storage. Mind you, we've had two hard disks fail between us at uni, a Maxtor 120GB IDE (of reasonable age), and a Samsung 200GB IDE (new). The Maxtor developed a load of irreparable bad sectors, and would throw a wobbly once you exceeded 40GB, and the Samsung kept thinking it was an empty 32GB partition every few weeks (one of the jumper settings, but we didnt use any jumpers, seemed like a PCB short).
|
|
PacMan777
AfterDawn Addict
|
16. January 2007 @ 04:09 |
Link to this message
|
|
Well we all have our problems. One of my fairly new WD(s) went down recently. I'll have to give WD credit. They had a replacement on the way before I got mine off in the "brown truck". You guarantee shipment of the one under warranty with a credit card and they ship out the replacement. I had the HD in a couple of days and they had the old one a day or so later. Nothing was ever billed to the card. I'm not overly fond of refurbished parts, but so far it's held up.
|
|
shuboy00
Junior Member
|
16. January 2007 @ 16:09 |
Link to this message
|
|
Well my 80GB WD sounds like a 1952 Chevy that wont start! Its in my old rig, so I think I am going to get a Raptor 150GB, maybe 2 and put them in RAID. and get a large WD for storage for my new pc i am building...but i dont want my Raptor to crap out on me so iunno.
--The test of a man is the fight that he makes...
Kreative Klick
HEAVY HITTERS...SUCKAS!!!
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 16. January 2007 @ 16:11
|
|
psrg
Suspended permanently
|
18. January 2007 @ 18:11 |
Link to this message
|
|
Alright here is my setup, this was my first computer build, still in the process. IF anyone wants to help like take a pic of their setup that would be cool, cause I have alot of extra cords and empty motherboard prongs and I dont know exactly what to do. Computer lags a little, and windows starts up slow. Please help D:
-7950 gt Nvidia video card
-2.14 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
-XFX Creative sound card
-Creative speakers w/ sub, remote, portable volume adjuster/reciever
-EVGA 680i SLI motherboard
-XIONII Case w/ 4 fans
-19" View Sonic widescreen monitor
-Big thyphoon Heatsink/fan
-580 Power Supply
-2 Corsairs (2 gig)
-24x dvdrw w/ lightscribe | 8x dvdrw
-No floppy disks
-250 gig hardrive
|
AfterDawn Addict
4 product reviews
|
19. January 2007 @ 01:41 |
Link to this message
|
|
Sounds pretty good, did you use a Hiper power supply?
|
|
Advertisement
|
|
|
Senior Member
|
21. January 2007 @ 10:05 |
Link to this message
|
|
aren't those 750gb 16mb hds the ones with the data writen on them in a realy dense, perpendicular configuration that the other brands are tring to copy without breaching copywrites.
|
