i basically want some advice on two products
Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR Memory
and
Wwestern Digital Raptor 10k RPM SATA HDD 74GB
i have read some bad reviews about the WD hard drives, saying that they pack
in after a few months and start crunching etc.
.... as to a small number of every make and model. Those who
have drive failures are certain to be more vocal about it
than those who don't. All things being equal the higher
rotational speed would tend to make them shorter-lived
drives but not THAT short-lived. It is the best
higher-performance-on-budget solution out there, if that is
the goal rather than lowest cost or highest capacity per
$... that's your call to make.
anyone any experience with these drives when they aren't being used in a
RAID of any type
LIke what?
It's a drive, it does what it's supposed to, but at higher
sustained throughput than most (excepting some very large
high density drives) and with a lower seek time (very useful
for OS use). For work with very large files, linear editing
and such, a Raptor is no better than a huge drive. For
"most" common uses it is better.
as for the Crucial Ballistix Memory, i have every faith it is going to be
top quality and work great but does anyone have any experience with it?
Memory is memory.
You pay more for a slightly higher spec. If the minor
performance increase is worth the less-minor additional
cost, there you are... you gain nothing choosing Ballistic
memory of 2,2,2,5 timings than (any other) 2,2,2,5 memory.
does it do what it is meant to and is it better than buying standard RAM?
No better or worse. It's simply capable of slightly faster
timings (and/or reducted timings for higher overclocking)
than some, with a price that corresponds to this. That last
5% of performance, maybe even the last 20%, always costs
disproportionately more to achieve.
Typically one weighs the performance of the rest of the
system to decide of these parts are warranted... one doesn't
usually spend more for faster memory if they didn't do so
for the CPU, video (thinking gamers), hard drive, etc, etc.
Then again for limited, specific workstation-like uses of a
system where memory throughput, particularly latency is the
more significant bottleneck, then the memory would of course
be one of the more important performance decisions.
