hard drive choice - Guild Wars Guru archive powered by Guild Wars Legacy

cronk

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2005

Animal Factory [zOo]

W/

15 Apr 2006 at 06:20 - 1

i dont know too much about computers, but im dropping the money and a good friend of mine is building me a godly one. (which i deserve since i run gw on an emachines, stock everything) he is giving me options and stuff, i decided on water cooled and dual gigs of ram. (dont really know what that is

) but i somewhat understand hard drives. he is thinking that i should get a "raptor" i guess they are faster performance, but are quite expensive, and about 150 gigs costs about $300, or i could get another hard drive, that doesnt have as many rpm as the raptor, but it would be up to 300 gigs and much cheaper.
do my fellow guild wars players have any suggestions?
thanks

Blade Rez

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Fairfax, VA

Shadows Of Nightmares (KoN)

W/

15 Apr 2006 at 06:45 - 2

Tell him to stick the loud ass raptor, and go RAID-0 2 Sata 3gb/s HDs

cannonfodder

Tech Monkeh Mod

Join Date: May 2005

Good Old North East of England

Mo/Me

15 Apr 2006 at 07:44 - 3

Nah I would get a couple of samsung spinpoints and raid 0 them, they have a seek time nearing the raptors, and they dont make your ears bleed... and they are cheaper.

Blade Rez

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Fairfax, VA

Shadows Of Nightmares (KoN)

W/

15 Apr 2006 at 07:53 - 4

I ran a spinpoint IDE and hated it. Newegg had a special on them one day, around christmas, so I put down a special on my computers I ebay, shipped 10, 6 came back HD's Dead. I find everything I buy from samsung dies... Monitor 19inch, interminent power off. Hard Drives died, 6 times, Dvd player/VCR Scratches DVDs and just gets static with VHS. Dvd Burner, Works... for now. Samsung Yepp t-7, dropped it on my COUCH, and it broke.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148107

Buy 2, raid-0 em. Or hell go SCSI heheh.

RAID-0 with sata 3gb/s rivals 2 raptors. give or take 100 points

cannonfodder

Tech Monkeh Mod

Join Date: May 2005

Good Old North East of England

Mo/Me

15 Apr 2006 at 08:00 - 5

Thats bad luck, maybe samsung do not like you, I have had 3 spinpoints sata in raid 0 for about 18 months now, still as quiet and stable as ever. My other PC has a standard raptor as the c drive and a couple of maxtors in raid.

I'm still a big fan of the spinpoints as in my experience they are as quiet and stable as..

The seagates are good too, but at the end of the day there is always going to be a bad drive out of al of them that breaks and takes all your data with it.

Asrial

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2005

Centurion Guard

Mo/E

15 Apr 2006 at 08:13 - 6

There are certain components where it's extremely easy to upgrade and/or add to a system. A hard drive is one of those components.

My advice? Go grab whatever's on sale.

Loviatar

Underworld Spelunker

Join Date: Feb 2005

15 Apr 2006 at 16:14 - 7

i like western digitals heavy duty raid series with the 5 year warranties.

i got a pair on sale a bit ago at only 119.99 (each) for 250 gig drives

Str0b0

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

North Carolina

N/Me

15 Apr 2006 at 16:21 - 8

Seagate. Godly hardware means heat and Seagate drives have always been good about not generating too much heat. Even with a liquid cooling system you want to minimize heat. They also are quiet and if you want to RAID things together then Seagate is the way to go since RAID's usually involve keeping the drives in relatively close proximity to one another.

Blade Rez

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Fairfax, VA

Shadows Of Nightmares (KoN)

W/

15 Apr 2006 at 16:22 - 9

Seagate has 5 year warranty too, I like western digital best, but at the time 30$ for 100gb SATA maxtor was just too good of a deal.

Here's a nice deal to look at on slickdeals.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthr...hreadid=232690

PATA hard drive, 250 gb. -7.99$ I think.

Omega X

Ninja Unveiler

Join Date: Jun 2005

Louisiana, USA

Boston Guild[BG]

W/Me

15 Apr 2006 at 20:30 - 10

Why do people feel that they should use RAID? RAID should only be used for backup purposes. It doesn't speed up games.

Blade Rez

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jun 2005

Fairfax, VA

Shadows Of Nightmares (KoN)

W/

15 Apr 2006 at 21:25 - 11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

Why do people feel that they should use RAID? RAID should only be used for backup purposes. It doesn't speed up games.

Wrong, RAID-1 "mirrors" all files from the first hard drive to the second, that is why some people say, "Yeah I mirrored my two hard drives."

RAID-0 splits up work inbetween the two hard drives. This way it increases load times etc in games.

RAID-0 is also called Striped

Omega X

Ninja Unveiler

Join Date: Jun 2005

Louisiana, USA

Boston Guild[BG]

W/Me

15 Apr 2006 at 21:46 - 12

Read it again.

RAID will NOT speed up games. Only Loading of files.

lord_shar

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Jul 2005

near SF, CA

15 Apr 2006 at 21:53 - 13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

Read it again.

RAID will NOT speed up games. Only Loading of files.

If anything, RAID can reduce wait time at the splash screens

No, I don't bother with RAID, since performance gain is usually nominal for games, not to mention the loss of some hardware storage capacity to protect data.

Omega X

Ninja Unveiler

Join Date: Jun 2005

Louisiana, USA

Boston Guild[BG]

W/Me

15 Apr 2006 at 22:27 - 14

Exactly what I was trying to say.

Serafita Kayin

Exclusive Reclusive

Join Date: May 2005

Tuscaloosa, AL

Seraph's Pinion (wing)

R/Me

16 Apr 2006 at 01:34 - 15

I don't raid for OS, I run a single DiamondMax 10 16mb cache SATAII 250 GB, and then a pair of 160s for storage.

Old Dood

Middle-Age-Man

Join Date: May 2005

Lansing, Mi

W/Mo

16 Apr 2006 at 01:38 - 16

Well anyways...Lets help out this nice guy Cronk!

I am no expert on hard drives. It isn't that hard to figure out though. I would take the advice of your friend there and get what he suggests. then ask him what he would use other then this Raptor. Se what he says about that.

I personally have had no real problem with any Brand of hard drive. Some people will tell you don't use this one...or..only use these....or that one suxs because of this and that.... I price them out...get the most GBs I can for the money. You never need the most expensive or the latest Tech...... Basically you look for SATAII at no less then 7200rpms. Every Sunday BestBuy and Circuit City and others have there "Deals of the Week". Never hurts to read those...you can find a good deal. Newegg.com will have some decent deals as well....

This is a good time for you to soak it all in and Learn about this Uber Rig this guy is building for you...

And it is FUN! That is the Icing on the Cake....

Old Dood

Middle-Age-Man

Join Date: May 2005

Lansing, Mi

W/Mo

16 Apr 2006 at 01:52 - 17

That is a nice Hard Drive Serafita...(and by the way...hello...how have ya been?)

I just saw it on the Net for abut $100.00. Not bad. Hard drive pricing never really bothers me anymore. There are a few of us around that remember when Hard Drives were very expensive for what amount of storage you got and performance. Use to be you had to have SCIC drives to get real fast performance....

awesome sauce

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2005

16 Apr 2006 at 02:06 - 18

Don't they have new insanely fast hard drives that consist of ram cards?

Old Dood

Middle-Age-Man

Join Date: May 2005

Lansing, Mi

W/Mo

16 Apr 2006 at 02:14 - 19

Probably...

awesome sauce

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2005

16 Apr 2006 at 02:25 - 20

aha, found it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16815168001

might want to tell your friend to give it a try

Quote:

Pros: it is the fastest "hard drive" in the world, apps are running faster then my old raid 0 36 raptors and i can tell you i really can see the difference, bla bla bla