OS: Windows XP SP3
I currently have a WD VelociRaptor 10,000RPM 150GB drive (this model:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136034) that I bought about 3 years ago. It's been a great HDD and is still working well, but recently games have been growing ever larger in size. The last three I installed were each over 15 gigs each, and I was actually having to uninstall programs just to make room for the new games. With how cheap hard drive space is nowadays I find this to be totally unacceptable, so I'm looking to expand my storage capacity.
My first question is regarding RAID. I've built my own computers before but always managed to get by with a single hard drive, so I'm embarrassingly ignorant to adding a second drive. I've read the advantages/disadvantages of setting up hard drives in various RAID configurations, but my real question is whether this is even necessary for my purposes? I have external drives where I backup my data, so I don't need redundancy within my machine. I don't care about having a separate letter drive on my machine, so can I just buy a new HDD, plug in the SATA cable and be more or less ready to go?
My next step is obviously picking a new drive. There are so many options out there it can be a tad overwhelming at first, especially since I haven't looked at computer hardware in three years. My first thought is that while having a 10k RPM drive has been nice, it's probably unnecessarily expensive to go with another one and 7200 should suffice. I found it funny that the 300GB VelociRaptor is $50 cheaper than what I paid for my current drive (again, 3 years ago), but at $200 it's quite a bit more expensive than many larger 7200 RPM alternatives. I would like to spend under $100 and get at the very least 500GB.
Here are some that I am looking at:
WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" $55.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
WD Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" $99.99 (on sale)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Does anyone have any other suggestions? I've had good success with WD in the past so I am comfortable with them, but I am open to other manufacturers if they have a good reputation for high quality at a reasonable price.
Thanks in advance for any responses.