Which 2TB HDD?

[FellowPazzini]

Recently I've been looking for a new HD & with the 2TB's being relatively cheap now I can't quit decide which one to buy. I can't really find the 4k version of the WD to buy but is probably out of my price range anyway. The WD seemed a little better with it having 64MB Cache & slightly quicker Access Time BUT judging from the the review site it seems to be the Samsung thats the overall better performer.

Any help in this choice would be much appreciated or possibly a 3rd & better option for myself or others also looking for that much needed HD space.

2TB Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2TB-Western-Digital...

2TB Samsung HD203WI Spinpoint F3EG, EcoGreen
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2TB-Samsung-HD203WI...

The Review
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_cavia...

[FasterFreddy]

Have you looked at G-Tech's offerings?

[FellowPazzini]

Just had a quick look but there's not many places that sell it (I think) and from early scans they're not the cheapest. Have you got a specific 1 in mind?

[FasterFreddy]

FellowPazzini said:

Just had a quick look but there's not many places that sell it (I think) and from early scans they're not the cheapest. Have you got a specific 1 in mind?

I've got 3 of their 2TB G-Raid drives and they've been very reliable so far. Jigsaw sell them and probably have the best deals.

Had lots of problems in the past with Lacie and other large drives which had put design and styling over performance.
The biggest problem areas with any large drive is cooling and the quality of the power supply. Take a look at both of these areas for any large drive you are thinking of buying, especially if you are not intending to back them up regularly.

My strategy these days is not to bother with infrequent backs ups or RAID 0 or 1 within the same enclosure. Instead I have at least 2 identical external drives and backup one with the other.

[FellowPazzini]

Thanks Freddy. The only Jigsaw shop I can find is a womens clothes store lol. The 2TB are coming in at double the cost on the G-Tech website so they're probably out of my league but I've no doubt they're much better. I don't know too much about Raid tbh but I'll look into the option of having an external hd also.

[FasterFreddy]

http://www.jigsaw24.com/

Don't be put off that they seem to be a MAC shop - drives are PC & MAC compatible.

If the money for something like a G-Raid is too much then just buy 2 x cheap external drives and keep one as a mirror of the other.

[sonic_2k_uk]

My preference has always been WD.

[E36Rob]

We utalise the WD RE Drives in all of our sata servers, never skipped a beat yet and powered on 24/7 under load.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2TB-Western-Digital...

EDIT: Sorry didn't realise the price difference! But WD recommended from me.

Edited by E36Rob on Sunday 1st August 23:11

[FellowPazzini]

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the delay but I've sort of decided what to do (eventually). I think I'm going to go for the RAID option with 2 of these http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/0... which seems to have great reviews.

TBH I ain't that clued up on RAID having never dealt with it but I'm willing to give it a go, my MB is capable. Question is, if it duplicates data on each does that mean I only actually have 1TB of HD space or can I allocate say 100GB on each drive for the C System Data then use the other 1.8GB for storage? at a guess though it will duplicate everthing so I only have 1TB. If you catch my drift. Also does it mean I can ONLY have the 2 identical drives connected because I think theres 3 SATA slots.

[sonic_2k_uk]

FellowPazzini said:

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the delay but I've sort of decided what to do (eventually). I think I'm going to go for the RAID option with 2 of these http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/0... which seems to have great reviews.

TBH I ain't that clued up on RAID having never dealt with it but I'm willing to give it a go, my MB is capable. Question is, if it duplicates data on each does that mean I only actually have 1TB of HD space or can I allocate say 100GB on each drive for the C System Data then use the other 1.8GB for storage? at a guess though it will duplicate everthing so I only have 1TB. If you catch my drift. Also does it mean I can ONLY have the 2 identical drives connected because I think theres 3 SATA slots.

Depends what RAID config you use.

With 2 disks you're limited to RAID 0 (striping) or 1 (mirroring).

If you have RAID 0 then the disks are not actually redundant, you'll get more space and it will be quick, but that's not what you want out of this setup.

RAID 1 will duplicate the data between each disk, so yes you will end up with half the total disk space of the disks in the array.

[FlossyThePig]

The current issue of PC Pro (September) has a review of 1 an 2 TB drives.