Hard drive recommandations

[Harald]

Hi,

I am about to assemle a new PC and have a tough time trying to decide which
harddrives to get. I plan to get 4 SATA disks and use them in 2 Raid0
arrays. The mainboard will be Athlon64/Nvidia Nforce4 based.
The ones I am considering now are the Maxtor 200GB DiamondMax 10 (NCQ) or
the WD 160GB Raid Edition.
The specs seem about identical for the two drives, except Maxtor has NCQ and
WD has "been enhanced for RAID operation". The drives cost exactly the same
here in Norway.
I have searched the net, but can't find a review which pits them against
each other.
Any tip is most welcome, perhaps I will be better off getting a Hitachi or
Samsung disk, I am open to all suggestions.

Thanks

Best regards

 

[Harald]

Hi again,

You might need a little bit more info. On second thoughts I will probably
use a Raid0 array as a system disk and a Raid1 array for data. I will not
use the PC for games, apart from the ones bunled with XP. My main apps are
Photoshop and publishing plus some developement work.
Which graphics card will fit my needs? I was thinking in the lines of an ATI
600XT or Nvidia 6600 based card.
Any thoughts welcome!

Best regards

 

[Harald]

Raid because of speed and security, System=Raid0 Data=Raid1. Photoshop
complains if you have the swapfile on the same physical drive as the prog.
VGA cards, I am interested in a good 2D board, imafe quality is a lot more
important than 3D speed. If Matrox makes a PCI-E card and it is available
her i'll buy it. But I can't find any Matrox PCI-E here.
Have previously used ATI and Matrox only, so I don't know about image
quality on Nvidia based cards.

 

[Terry Wilson]

Hi again,

You might need a little bit more info. On second thoughts I will probably
use a Raid0 array as a system disk and a Raid1 array for data. I will not
use the PC for games, apart from the ones bunled with XP. My main apps are
Photoshop and publishing plus some developement work.
Which graphics card will fit my needs? I was thinking in the lines of an ATI
600XT or Nvidia 6600 based card.
Any thoughts welcome!

Best regards

Perhaps you could give still more information.

If your primary tasks will be "Photoshop and publishing plus some
developement work"
I would be concerned about two things:

1 - Storage space and backup of data ( maybe external/hotswap sata drives)
2 - Noise levels (Samsung drives and low heat components)

Why go with RAID and 3D gaming cards?

Check out http://www.silentpcreview.com/

IMHO

 

[Terry Wilson]

Raid because of speed and security, System=Raid0 Data=Raid1. Photoshop
complains if you have the swapfile on the same physical drive as the prog.
VGA cards, I am interested in a good 2D board, imafe quality is a lot more
important than 3D speed. If Matrox makes a PCI-E card and it is available
her i'll buy it. But I can't find any Matrox PCI-E here.
Have previously used ATI and Matrox only, so I don't know about image
quality on Nvidia based cards.

ok

You will never notice the speed difference with System=Raid0 for Photoshop
and Publishing
And raid 0 is less reliable.

Data=Raid1 is nice if you need data online 24/7. I would guess you
could make a real sweet rig with some hot swap sata drive setup.
But it's not a backup solution.
Personally, I feel better if all my work is saved on a drive
that's not spun up all the time.

Yes, I would also not have the swap file on the system drive.

I'm sure any of those graphics cards would work fine. I'd
get one without a fan to keep the heat down. This would
keep your fan requirements lower. Thus lowering the noise
while you work.

Best of luck to you!

 

[Ruel Smith]

I am about to assemle a new PC and have a tough time trying to decide
which harddrives to get. I plan to get 4 SATA disks and use them in 2
Raid0 arrays. The mainboard will be Athlon64/Nvidia Nforce4 based.
The ones I am considering now are the Maxtor 200GB DiamondMax 10 (NCQ) or
the WD 160GB Raid Edition.
The specs seem about identical for the two drives, except Maxtor has NCQ
and WD has "been enhanced for RAID operation". The drives cost exactly the
same here in Norway.
I have searched the net, but can't find a review which pits them against
each other.
Any tip is most welcome, perhaps I will be better off getting a Hitachi or
Samsung disk, I am open to all suggestions.

I was once a big Maxtor fan. That has since changed. People in here talked
about having troubles with Maxtors. I had never experienced it, but my
friend has. He started getting lots of disk errors. The drive hasn't gone
down for the count yet, but it's strange enough.

I like WD better, now. Besides, the reviews on the DiamondMax 10's were
lukewarm. If you want speed, get a Raptor.

 

[Ruel Smith]

You will never notice the speed difference with System=Raid0 for Photoshop
and Publishing

Bull. Some of those Photoshop files get pretty large and that's where RAID
shines the most.

 

[Terry Wilson]

Bull. Some of those Photoshop files get pretty large and that's where RAID
shines the most.

What a great way to start a conversation. You know, I said it was my
opinion.
He wouldn't be saving his Photoshop files to the system drive,
he would be saving them to the data drive, which
he specified as Raid 1.

It's comments like these that made me stop posting to newsgroups.