So I’m in need of a new hard drive, yet can’t really decide on what to get.
I’ve been told by a few people that the WD Caviar Black 640GB is good (That will be enough space for me), but for $5-10 more you can get the 750GB.
a) What would be the better choice (This drive will have all my Steam games on it, so the faster the better)
b) Are there any other worthwhile options of similar size and price (Around AUD$100)
I’ve got a 320GB WD external drive, a 1TB WD external drive, and a 320GB WD My Passport drive. I’m a very satisfied WD customer!
Get two smaller harddrives and put them in RAID 0, some people say RAID 0 is overrated but my speeds have doubles when copying files on my harddisk etc. (you will still have the same capacity but it is recognized as one)
WD Caviar Black 640GB - these are good drives, im buying a 64MB cache 6Gb/s x2 (also available in 3Gb/s) putting them in Raid 0 would be nice, but at the same time, if raid 0 fails, your fucked, so keep another drive maybe a SATA-II 64MB cache 3Gb/s 1TB-2TB for backup. just remember its all preference, and depends on motherboard capability.
Also try jambo, he has enough HDD’s to run a headquater. lol xD
All the above advice is true. Western Digital generally makes great drives (in 14 years of building PCs, I’ve only ever used WD and Maxtor, and [knock on wood] haven’t had a single drive failure). And with magnetic 7200RPM drives, the cost per gigabyte is so cheap nowadays, as you noticed - you can add an extra 110GB for only $5-10.
I would warn against RAID0 unless you have a reliable and frequent backup system - even if the drives themselves don’t fail, RAID controllers, driver issues, etc. can all affect a RAID. I’m not saying they don’t perform well (used to run two separate RAID0 arrays in my machines, they are fast) but the failure consequences are high. RAID0+1 helps in this regard, but you’re only looking to get 1 drive so we can forget about that 
Bottom line - definitely go with a WD, and then, definitely go for the Caviar Black with the highest cache available. Whether you get Sata 3.0 or Sata 6.0 is up to you and your motherboard specs, but capacity is up to you 
Yeah it’s a major weakness of RAID 0. I would suggest only to use it if you’re going to work with a lot of big files (I don’t like waiting half an hour for a huge file to copy on my HDD).
you should probably spend more moeny and get a SSDD because they are an improvement in technology. Moore’s law says get a SSDD.
SSD’s are way too expensive, and you get like 50 - 100 Gb in return. Yes they are extremely fast, but I think most people would use the money to get a better CPU/GPU.
That’s probably not the best idea because of this:
I’m not sure about Cameron, but my Steam directory is something in the neighborhood of 20GB. Even the smallest (~24GB ) SSD’s are at or over $100US. Considering the loss of capacity due to memory addressing, and the ability to use the drive for more than just Steam, he would need at a least a 128GB SSD, which is pushing $300.
To be sure, they are fast, but I don’t think they fit his requirements.
EDIT: Ninja’d.
My hdd is less than 3gb/s I think it’s a 5400rpm 640GB it was external but I threw out the case and plugged it into SATA.
Do you just use that as a backup really? one you kind of had knocking about thing?
no it’s my primary and boot HDD
I paid around 180$ total for my PC but it plays any game out there at 60FPS no lag I just need moar ram.
My recommendations:
WD10EALS <-- AUD$94.28 (1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s)
WD1001FALS <-- AUD$117.86 (1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s)
WD1002FAEX <-- AUD$129.64 (1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s)
I personally own the WD1001FALS, I’ve been using it as my main file storage drive. It’s served me well so far, in the year and a half that I’ve owned it.
EDIT: Wrong link on the first one, fixed. XP
With a name and post count that large i expected you to be running a power surger in the local neighbour hood grid, what mobo you running with?
p5kpl-cm with a 430W psu that can only deliver 350W and the CPU is overclocked to 2.94Ghz.
Don’t worry though, I spent exactly as much as I needed for my PC, I can even play GTA4 on high (no lag until it runs out of ram ~10min) so apart from ram I don’t need an upgrade until some part of this rig dies. If you want to see the most badass part of my PC, here and here. It keeps my CPU at 40C on full load.
post cout != anything
Im not being an ass or anything but, why? i mean ive just spent £1200 on my new build, but i still want another gpu 6 gigs of ram and cpu cooler when i have a bit more cash. why havent you forked out yet?
ive got an old pentium 4 at 3.1ghz stock with 512mb of ram integrated gpu thats been torn apart and is now currently my seat with 2 pillows on top, gonna scrap it soon.
heres my newy so far.
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
