Hard drive comparison help

[scottiemedic]

I just got my beautiful new Samsung 830 256GB SSD installed, reinstalled Windows, putting User and AppData to my 1tb WD Green secondary HDD. It's only SATA 3gbps and 5200RPM, so I'm looking to upgrade it (since it houses User and AppData, I want something faster rotational and SATA 6gbps. It feels sluggish accessing data and starting programs when it has to be utilized to load the program).

Firstly, here's a comparison of 2TB drives I was looking at. I just started considering a new HDD, so I haven't got a lot of comparisons in yet, I neeeded some Tom's love to narrow the field:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600003483%20600003340%20600003269%20600003300%20600003334&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=14%7C22%2D145%2D473%5E22%2D145%2D473%2DTS%2C22%2D148%2D834%5E22%2D148%2D834%2DTS%2C22%2D148%2D902%5E22%2D148%2D902%2DTS%2C22%2D136%2D792%5E22%2D136%2D792%2DTS

I'm not 'sold' on 2TB, and would even consider 1.5 or 1tb in a RAID (or not) if there is a drive that straight rocks in the 1-1.5tb range due to tech or build (1tb/plate type considerations). It will be on a Z68 Gigabyte board powered by an i5-2500k.

Questions:
1. What difference will I see between 32MB and 64MB caches on a secondary drive if any?
1-a. Is the 7200RPM going to make a appreciable difference as a secondary since it won't be doing to load of read/writes for OS and programs?
2. Who's top of the HDD leader board? Please no 'I like' statements. I 'like' Seagate, but am not Mr. Loyal To Brand Name Man. I know WD has a better warranty, but I heard HGST/Hitachi was making their way up the ladder of success in leaps and bounds. Seagate used to be it, but I haven't heard them making big news in some time.
3. Should I consider RAID of 2 mechanical drives with the SSD being my boot drive?

Any other comments or concerns will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[BerretSO4]

I'm really hoping someone responds to this post. Especially #1 and #2. Seagate used to be the s***. Now it looks like Seagate has as many dead-drive nonsense problems as WD, and both have come to sell terrible warranties unless you pay an extra 50% for the warranty itself and identical storage.

I need advice on which brand or even which models of the brands are turning up to be well-engineered and reliable. I realize that HDD's by nature aren't exactly "reliable", but I don't want to see drives fail more often than three years' time. I wish I knew more about the manufacturing, but I don't!

(BUMP)

 

[scottiemedic]

WD has a 5 year warranty on the Black line, not sure about the rest of them. But yeah, Seagate has seemed to fall by the wayside. Hoping someone can enlighten me too!! (No responses so far <SIGH>).

 

[BerretSO4]

I'd do the research and learn this myself and post here, but I honestly don't know where to begin when searching. I've done all I can looking for opinions on this but I haven't seen anybody say definitively that, say, WD has a bad Indian production facility that uses off-spec chips (or something on those lines)