Upgrading again, this time, I have Hard drive questions(IDE vs SATA)

[KubeDawg]

So I'm thinking about getting a better type of hard drive. I've been using ATA drives ever since I can remember, and I'm a bit concerned that I might not be able to transfer my files from one to another hard drive.

First of all, HDD's are funny, I've had a few of em fail on me, and I think that's my biggest concern, but what about file transfer? Do I need to simply swap drives, and set my current one as a slave, and transfer that way after I've installed the OS on the new one?

How does that work? Also, I have an old hard drive, nothing wrong with it really, it just has some old data I want to retrieve, but I think it has an OS already on it, which might be a reason it's not letting me access anything.

Finally, what are the speed differences. I googled it, and the diff I saw was 133mb/s vs 150mb/s. Is that it? Is that worth it?

Also, what is RAID? What's the diff between RAID 1 and 0?

[KubeDawg]

Also, as far as brands go, what are the best? I used to go with Seagate till a couple HD's failed on me, and now I'm using Western Digital. Here's the drive I was thinking about getting:

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

[Sh4x]

That's not a bad drive. You could look up some Samsung drives too, I heard they are pretty good.

Raid1 is to have 2 drives in a mirror state meaning one is the exact copy of the other so if 1 drive fails, your PC still runs no problem. all you have to do then is find another HD to replace the dead one and it'll reconstruct the image automatically and you'll be back with 2 drives. 2x250gig = 250gig total.

Raid0 is to have 2 drives work togheter to speed up reading/writting of the data. You got 2 times the chances of a drive failure because if 1 drive fails, you lose all the data on both drives. It doesn't speed operations by 2 but it still helps quite a bit. 2x250gig = 500gig total.

[KubeDawg]

rgr, so can one have RAID 1 and 0 with 2 drives or 3 drives or more?

[Sh4x]

If you want more complex information you should just google for raid levels and you'll find plenty. But from my experience, there's nothing interesting at the consumer level in other raid levels. Raid0 with a third HD where you duplicate all your important files is the way to go imo.

[Innoc]

Kube, the difference in speed between todays SATA and PATA is much more dramatic. You need to google SATA2 or SATA300. The raw bandwidth is 300 mbps not 150. 150 was the first SATA generation. Also, the terms for RAID0 and 1 are Mirroring and Striping.

Honestly, there is nothing but e-penis to be gained from RAID0 for 99% of home users. Also, unless you have a true hardware based controller you won't see top performance anyway on a desktop motherboard. FYI, many of the low end "SATA RAID" cards on the market are do not feature true hardware based RAID controllers. As to RAID1 I guess it depends on what it is you're storing and how important that drive redundancy will be.

[Gwarsbane]

I have 1.5TB of HD space right now, all ata drives and yes most of it is filled and yes I know what most of it is and its not porn :P. I am slowing going to move to SATA2 based drives. As was mentioned SATA2 moves much faster then the 150mbps.

There are a couple of versions...

The 16meg cache versions and the 32meg cache ones. the 32meg ones, are of course a little more expensive, but from everything I have read they are actually noticeably faster.

As for moving over all your stuff, well thats a different story. I use a program called Migrate Easy. I install it on my current drive that I want to save data from, install the second drive as a slave, then use Migrate easy to copy everything over from the old drive to the new drive.

Then I take out the old and new drives, put the new one in as master, and bingo, you're all moved over with little fuss.

It does take time and you don't have to worry about if your new drive is bigger then your old drive, you can change the partition sizes in Migrate Easy.


As to raid, well thats not something I have messed with yet but there are many forms are raid and it all just depends on what you need.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

This should help.


I think if I could afford it I would go with a raid 1 so that I could mirror all my data just to make sure I don't loose anything. Though I have never had a HD failure where I haven't been able to get back all the data.

There are hard ware that you can get that does raid for you. You just plug in like 2 to 4 drives and its ready to go. Course they cost like 150 bucks on their own. Its set up like an external drive bay and connects via usb2 or firewire.


As for your old drive, just make sure its pinned for slave on the back and you should be able to access it then. My guess is that its pinned for either master or cable select. Course you could also invest in an external drive bay, make sure the drive is set to master and then get everything off that way. I've got 2 ngear external bays and I love them. I want to get a couple of more so that I can access all my drives when ever I need to.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 3.5IN 500GB SATA2 8.5MS 7200RPM 32MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...acture=Seagate
Reg. Price: $92.00 CAD

Model
Brand Seagate
Series Barracuda 7200.11
Model ST3500320AS
Performance
Interface SATA 3.0Gb/s
Capacity 500GB
RPM 7200 RPM
Cache 32MB
Average Latency 4.16ms
Physical Spec
Form Factor 3.5"
Features
Features Proven second-generation perpendicular recording technology


Thats one I am looking at right now. I was thinking of going for the 1tb drives but they are still $228 right now and for that price I can get 2 and either save some cash or get an external bay for the second one if I don't want it on all the time.

Other companies I would trust would be Western Digital and Samsung. I would personally stay away from Maxtor because I know a few people that have had problems with them locally. But I also know people that wouldn't touch my suggestions with a 10 foot pole and like Maxtor for the same reasons. Though they are not local.

[KubeDawg]

Ok rgr that. Now as far as cashe goes, what does that mean exactly? I mean, is there a big difference between 16MB cache and 32MB cache?

I've found this one here,

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$89.99
Free 3 Business Day Shipping

Don't know why I'd ever need 500GB of space, but fuck it, it's only like $20 more for double the space...

[Innoc]

Originally Posted by KubeDawg

Ok rgr that. Now as far as cashe goes, what does that mean exactly? I mean, is there a big difference between 16MB cache and 32MB cache?

I've found this one here,

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

$89.99
Free 3 Business Day Shipping

Don't know why I'd ever need 500GB of space, but fuck it, it's only like $20 more for double the space...

Those are good drives. The 7200.11 series was the first to use a new read/write technology (called PMR) that helped improve performance and error rates. Cache is a temporary storage area used for helping to smooth out data placement and retrieval....I am thinking that you don't care about the longer more technical explanation. More hasn't always been better in the past. If cache is one of the characteristics upon which your decision hinges do a little reading on it and see if it really had that effect...chances are there are reviews out there...especially if you're looking at 1/2 TB drives.

[SoBe Green]

I always say go with Seagate. They warranty most of their drives (if not all) for five years. The average drive should last at least 1-2 years under heavy use.

The biggest issue you might have with most raid setups is that one drive will fail and you'll lose a lot. Raid is faster because you'll use two drives to do the job of one but keep a habit of backing up your files. 9/10 times you will never need or want that backup but one day you will. Its about like driving without a seatbelt only you don't get a ticket if you don't do it. :P

Western Digital drives are also alright but I've not enjoyed sending drives back to them. Seagate has a better RMA setup on their website.

I'm a better safe than sorry kind of person. Don't be worried about what I said about a raid setup. It does have positive sides I just wanted you to know the only downside to it.

**EDIT
Forgot one other thing. If you do go for a raid setup do not use any tools that repair bad sectors (like the Diags that come with the drives). These tools aren't meant to be used on drives in a raid setup and will almost always screw it up.

Another note on why I like Seagate. When I was working as a computer tech at a local store we had a guy send in his drive for him. It was an old 40GB IDE drive hardly under warranty. Normally when you send in a drive you get that same drive back repaired or a replacement. They sent him back a 80GB IDE drive. We double checked to make sure it wasn't a mistake and it wasn't. It may be common policy on things like this and it may not but Seagate got my respect on that one.

[Innoc]

I like Seagate and Western Digital. Each has had it's share of black eyes over the years. There are certain manufacturers with whom my experience was bad enough that I would never give them a chance again. Hitachi, Samsung and Fujitsu are among those...

As far as lifespan goes...I have builds I did 10-12 years ago still going...will this current generation hold up as well? Time will tell.

[KubeDawg]

Well I've also heard that the error correction as well as the failure of drives increases the higher you go in gigs of space. I've heard it's probably better to have 2 250gb hd's, or 2 500gb ones instead of 1 tb.

[Innoc]

Originally Posted by KubeDawg

Well I've also heard that the error correction as well as the failure of drives increases the higher you go in gigs of space. I've heard it's probably better to have 2 250gb hd's, or 2 500gb ones instead of 1 tb.

I think that where the product is in it's life cycle and how much effort the company puts into addressing design errors and manufacturing deficiencies has a greater impact most than anything else. Honestly, I've been building systems for a very long time. I would, and do, feel comfortable with the larger drives....I do not, however, buy the drives that have not been on the market for at least 6 months...it reduces the chance of getting that "early adopter burn".

[Dospac]

Well Noc, he's probably referring to the number of platters leading to higher failure rate.

In general larger drives use more platters and will not last as long as there's more that can go wrong, basically. If you're worried about reliability go with any drive that carries a 5 year warranty. WD I would recommend first, and then Seagate afterwards though I've had issues with their drives of late.

[Gwarsbane]

Actually I believe the latest models of SATA2 drives use 3 platters while the older models and ATA models use 4.

[Dospac]

Samsung and WD offer 1TB drives w/3 platter design last I checked.

Or you could just get a VelociRaptor.