Which drives...

[phasmantis]

I am trying to figure out which drives I should get for 2 in raid 0. I am between these three models;
WD Caviar BLACK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319&cm_re=western_digital_black-_-22-136-319-_-Product
Samsung F4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=22-152-244&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo
Samsung F3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=22-152-185&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=5#scrollFullInfo

Currently I am leaning towards the Samsung F3, because of its cheap price, and 32mb cache + the fact that people recording 250mb/s - 300mb/s read/write with two in raid 0.

I am open to suggestions. Also, I assume 32mb cache would be the best for random access times as well.

 

[Pyroflea]

I'd go with one of the two Samsung options personally. The 2TB F4's (only 5400RPM) are getting ~125MB/s read, from what I've seen, and ~100MB/s write. I'd assume that the 7200RPM models are faster than that still.

 

[phasmantis]

Hm, so the F4 or the F3? The F4 seems to have great results, but I'm not sure the difference between the F4 and F3, or if the 32mb cache will make a big difference.

 

[Pyroflea]

The F4's are just the newest generation of drives. They're supposed to perform a bit better than the F3's (which they do from what I've seen), and they use less power as well, IIRC.

The drives you listed are kind of scattered all over the place. What do you plan on using these drives for, what's your budget, and how much space do you need? I'm really quite fond of Samsung drives if you haven't noticed, but WD is fantastic as well. I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything Samsung.

 

[phasmantis]

Gaming (faster load times, I hear some people get some FPS out of it too), but I like the idea of overall faster performance. I also wouldn't want to spend more than 100 bucks tbh, but I wouldn't mind pushing it a bit.

Currently I have a single Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM, not very sufficient if you ask me to pair with a q6600 @ 3.0ghz and a gtx 470.

Okay, so I've decided on the F4 drives, but I what's the suggested stripe size for a raid configuration? I can choose between 4-128k. The FAQ advises between 8-32k for gaming, but I'm not sure how current that is. I do hear lower stripe = less life though. So I'm thinking maybe 64k?

And let me ask this. Is RAID 0 worth it for gaming? I appear to be one of the last people to load games lately with my current drive; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148140

 

[tomatthe]

The WD drive will not work in a raid setup, so don't bother considering it. Search tler in the link you posted on newegg and lots of the reviews get into why.

 

[phasmantis]

Now I'm also wondering if raid 0 is even worth it. Will I see a performance increase in load times from what I see now? I hear RAID doesn't really apply to real world applications, just benchmarks.