I am upgrading my desktop computer and I want to upgrade my hard drive. I currently have RAID 0 setup with two 1TB SATA II hard drives. I would like more storage, so I'm trying to switch to two 2TB SATA III hard drives because my new motherboard is SATA III compatible. However, I don't know much about RAID or how to find hard drives that are compatible with RAID 0. I was looking at the "WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD2003FZEX" but I read that the WD Black is not good for a RAID 0 setup. I read that the WD Red is optimized for RAID but isn't good for desktop computers. I don't want to switch to a SSD because they are too expensive. What would be the best HDD hard drive for a RAID 0 setup? Also, will I need to buy a new RAID controller, as well? Thank you in advance for your help. I really appreciate your time.
Best HDD Hard Drive for RAID 0
- Thread starter fyrflygrl
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Someone Somewhere
Titan
- Sep 23, 2012
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Neither SATA II or SATA III will give any performance improvements for conventional HDDs - they can't max out SATA I except for the 10K RPM ones.
RAID 0 isn't really RAID; you don't have any redundancy, so the drives designed to work well with that (WD Red and equivalents) aren't necessary. There's nothing wrong with running a Red in a desktop PC, though. They're just more expensive.
Onboard RAID controller is fine.
Are you sure you need RAID? There's a lot of extra cost for not a lot of performance gain, plus a much higher chance of failure. The Black drives are also more expensive for little gain.
We normally suggest a ~240-512GB SSD for your OS and frequently used programs/games, and a large, slower HDD for other data (movies, music etc.). This gives you the best of both worlds.
RAID 0 isn't really RAID; you don't have any redundancy, so the drives designed to work well with that (WD Red and equivalents) aren't necessary. There's nothing wrong with running a Red in a desktop PC, though. They're just more expensive.
Onboard RAID controller is fine.
Are you sure you need RAID? There's a lot of extra cost for not a lot of performance gain, plus a much higher chance of failure. The Black drives are also more expensive for little gain.
We normally suggest a ~240-512GB SSD for your OS and frequently used programs/games, and a large, slower HDD for other data (movies, music etc.). This gives you the best of both worlds.
I probably don't have to have a RAID 0. That's just how my computer was originally set up by Alienware. There is probably a way to switch from the RAID 0 setup. I play a lot of PC games, which take up a lot of space. So, you would suggest switching from RAID 0 to an SSD drive and a larger HDD drive? The hard drives that I have right now are 3.5 inch drives. I was looking at the Samsung 500GB SSD but it is a 2.5 inch drive. Can I still use that with a desktop PC or do I need to search for one that is a 3.5 inch? I'm sorry for all of the questions. This is the first time that I've had to upgrade this computer and I want to make sure that I get the correct parts.
Someone Somewhere
Titan
- Sep 23, 2012
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Almost all recent desktop cases will let you mount a 2.5" drive in them - and even if not, you can easily zip-tie it to something.
Should be easy to disable RAID, or to keep the current RAID and add an extra drive outside of the RAID array.
Should be easy to disable RAID, or to keep the current RAID and add an extra drive outside of the RAID array.
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