Which Storage to use?

[streak55]

Looking to build a new mach. Looking at a i-975 xtreme with a x58 mobo. Alot of memory using Win 7 64bit OS. But storage I have 1 WD VelociRaptors should I just get a cpl more and use them in a raid array or I have been looking at a cpl SCSI 15000 drives with a controller. SSD is nice but for the size an money I think it is kinda pricey but do or would they out perform the hard drives? Anythoughts would help thanks.

 

[sub mesa]

You don't say what the system is for. So any advice is basically meaningless.

That said, pairing a high-end desktop pc with only a harddrive sounds like the wrong strategy to me. You should at least get an SSD for the boot drive to make the storage part be on par with the other (high-end) components you have.

Look at the Intel X25-M 80GB SSDs, you really only need one for the OS + applications. All data files should be on large mechanical disks. The lower the rpm, the better for this task. So i wouldn't use 15k rpm disks since 5400rpm with much higher data density may be even faster for sequential access.

 

[streak55]

Sorry forgot to ad that I will be using this mach for gaming as well as other normal use ie: Videos, music, and general use.

 

[sub mesa]

Well i guess the key question is, how much of your crucial most used stuff can you put on a 80GB SSD? If thats basically every application + game you use, the SSD is great for you.

Personally i think for gamers, 160GB would be better for the system disk than 80GB. Ofcourse you can also buy two Intel X25-M 80GB and team them with RAID0. The Intel ICHxR RAID drivers are of high quality and can enable write caching for RAM-speed write speeds for short bursts, which improves performance.

Your data files (music, videos etc.) should be on mechanical disks not on the SSD. Access to these files is sequential in nature and HDDs do those fine.

 

[streak55]

Yes I saw the 169GB intel xtreme SSD maybe a choice to keep games and some applications. Thne use the raptor fo other apps if that is a good idea.