New hard drive, raid?

[kchi55]

So since I built my computer, which was back in the winter of 2005, I've finally come to that point where my 250GB hard drive just isn't enough anymore. The model I bought back then was a Hitachi Deskstar T7K250. Now, though I've never tried a raid configuration before, I'm relatively confident that I'd be able to manage it, but I was wondering whether or not it would be more beneficial to me to buy another Deskstar and set up Raid, or if I would be better off just buying a faster 500GB hard drive. Where would the performance trade off be? And if I should just go with an entirely new hard drive altogether, what 500GB model would be best? I would just need a standard speed of 7200RPMs, 15,000 for me is just overkill. My system specs are..

AMD X2 3800+(skt939)
2x512 Corsair Value Select Ram
eVGA 6800GS (pci-e)
1x250GB HDD (15 GB left ><)
Asus A8N-E (motherboard)

thanks in adv.

 

[akhilles]

I wouldn't touch a Deathstar with a 10-foot pole. IBM or Hitachi.

I suggest either Seagate 500gb sata2 or WD 500gb sata2. The latter seems to be a bit faster. It has to do with the Seagate's crap firmware. They have yet to address it.

http://www.fluffles.net/articles/seagate-AAK-firmware

The easiest would be just add a 500 gig drive as storage. Use a smaller one for os & apps.

 

[agentsmith957]

Even faster is the 750GB WD SE16... the platter density increase that this model sports results in a pretty big performance increase, and for 180 bucks, its a pretty good deal.

 

[LoneEagle]

If you do not mind to reinstall the OS, get two HD (320, 400, or 500) and RAID them. you will have a better performance and bigger storage. Keep them your current HD just in case you need to boot Windows.

You will them be able to transfer your data from your old HD. After all transfered, that old HD could be used to backup data or whatever.

Yes, bad review on current Seagate with firmware AAk. I got two of those for a RAID and discover that after. They still give me a good performance output but try to avoid them.