Upgrading Storage On My Pc

[Peterbigeyes]

I'm have storage issues on my computer, 500gigs isn't really enough for me. I'll be getting additional hard disk space for my computer this weekend and I'd like some opinions on which brand to get. I've always gotten Western Digital but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has some to offer. Help please : )

[ManInSurat]

I like you have the WDC 500GB - mine is the Caviar Green SATA, I just have 4 of them installed, and at 2TB it's more than I need for now.

Were you looking for 1TB+ drive space in one drive? If so, Thanni.com has a 2TB WDC Caviar Green on their site for 4,120 - I'd say for maximum space and price that's probably a decent option.

I think with WDC you get for what you pay for.

As someone once told me - you pay cheap, you pay twice!

[wolf5370]

Better of with two internal dives rather than 1 larger one - as backups are safer following a head crash etc. Four internal drives is pushing it a bit perhaps as this would require an uprated PSU (power supply unit). I have noticed the pre-build machines here often have minimal PSU's installed - 400 or 500 watts - which with a decent graphics card, some USB peripherals and HDDs, is going to start having issues. When I build my own machines I try to go higher wattage to stave of such power issues - I aim for 700W or there abouts.

You also have the option of extenal HDDs too - depending what you use all the space for. If its photos etc, then its almost dead space (how often do people look at their 500GB of photos?). So a swap out (removable) HDD or external can be useful as it isn't using power doing diddly (like leaving the light on in a filling cabinet you arely open). Be careful of just dumping to DVD though as the unbranded disks have quite a short life and you could loose precious memories.

You may also want to do a bit of spring cleaning too to get rid of the crap clogging up your drive (Wise do free registry and HDD cleaners) and a defrag.

[2008bangkok]

Whatever you choose try and get one that has a service center in Thailand as the 3 yr warranty they provide means nothing if oyu have to spend $100 to send it to Singapore, my boss just brought a Iomega drive they have a service center behind pantip so the salesman says and iomega are a good solid backup option

[garyh]

I am running 2 Samsung 1TB in raid and about to put 3 more in as I am down to my last 50 gig also, Amazing my first hard drive was 20 MB and I never even half filled it. Has anyone found a reasonable source of Blu Ray Blanks? Still cheaper to buy hard drives going on the prices I have seen so far.

The Samsung Drives get good reviews and mine have not missed a beat.

[keeniau96]

WD is good as are Seagate, Samsung and Fujitsu. The WD Green is not really a good choice for the boot drive because it spins at 5400 RPM vs. 7200 for most, including the WD Black and Blue series HDDs. You would probably do well with a WD Black 1TB or a Seagate 7200.12 1 TB or even larger, say, 1.5 or 2 TB HDD (data will eventually fill up any space that may be made available). I would recommend using Acronis True Image to transfer everything from your current HDD to the new one, then setting the new as the boot drive and relegating the old 500GB to secondary drive or perhaps as external backup unit.

[ManInSurat]

WD is good as are Seagate, Samsung and Fujitsu. The WD Green is not really a good choice for the boot drive because it spins at 5400 RPM vs. 7200 for most, including the WD Black and Blue series HDDs. You would probably do well with a WD Black 1TB or a Seagate 7200.12 1 TB or even larger, say, 1.5 or 2 TB HDD (data will eventually fill up any space that may be made available). I would recommend using Acronis True Image to transfer everything from your current HDD to the new one, then setting the new as the boot drive and relegating the old 500GB to secondary drive or perhaps as external backup unit.

In the product listing on Thanni it has the 2TB WD Green as 7200rpm. With an average seek time of 8.9ms which compared to Samsung, Hitachi, et al is pretty much par for the course.

I believe they also offer 1TB drives that also have 7200 too.

Is there any chance the product listing is wrong?

LINK

There's conflicting data here, where they say it's 5400rpm like you say... confusing...

LINK

EDIT: Upon closer inspection I can see the model on Thanni is the "WD20EARS"... (love that it's called twenty ears, makes me think of some mythical beast!) and the other, the first 2TB SATA drive in the world no less, is the "WD20EADS" so that might clear things up.

Edited September 7, 2010 by ManInSurat

[Peterbigeyes]

@Maninsurat

LOL I find myself misinterpreting the models as 20 ears and 20 heads. I guess the models have different rpms then. And yea, I totally agree with the buy cheap pay twice reasoning.

@Keeniau96

That is a good suggestion to keep the 500gb as a secondary drive. I'll do just that. I'm pretty interested in WD Black 2TB, the high performance model, that would solve my storage problems for at least a decade lol.

@wolf5370

I'm keeping my options open and the thought of an external Hard Drive did cross my mind. Will probably drop by the store and take a look at the prices

@2008Bangkok

Thanks for that very important reminder, it'll be a chore to send the hardware overseas for a warrenty service.

@GaryH

I'll check out some of them Samsung reviews. Thanks for your suggestion!

[wolf5370]

I am running 2 Samsung 1TB in raid and about to put 3 more in as I am down to my last 50 gig also, Amazing my first hard drive was 20 MB and I never even half filled it. Has anyone found a reasonable source of Blu Ray Blanks? Still cheaper to buy hard drives going on the prices I have seen so far.

The Samsung Drives get good reviews and mine have not missed a beat.

hehe that brings back memories - my old IBM XT (build like a tank - old advert had an elephant standing on the metal case!) - orange screen (two brightnesses!), 5 1/4 floppy and 20MB HDD - like you mostly empty with old Lotus 123 and Wordstar files at 4 and 5 KB each! I remember upgradinmg to MS DOS 5 and thinking how graphical it looked

[ManInSurat]

Oh and about your Blu Ray blanks, I haven't seen them in any of the major retailers here, but I'm in Surat, so I don't have much choice.

I would have though shipping them in would be a good idea if you can EMS it you should be able to get past customs, but don't hold me to that and you might need to look into it.

Price-wise though, this is very agreeable at under $6 per. It's Amazon.

Blu Ray Discs

That's what I would probably go for myself.

I'm not really up to speed with Blu Ray disc prices, so this might be rubbish, sorry in advance if it is!

Never had any problems with getting things into Thailand from Amazon.

[Tywais]

@GaryH

I'll check out some of them Samsung reviews. Thanks for your suggestion!

I've been looking at Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives reviews for a while now and most review tests show it to be the highest performing 7200 rpm drive out now. Also, the power factor on them is quite good allowing them to run relatively cool. I'm looking at getting 4 500GB F3s and setting them up in RAID 1+0 for performance and security.

Do a search on Spinpoint F3 HDTUNE tests. You'll find a lot of info comparing various brands. Spinpoint F4 models are out now but seems not available in Thailand yet. Samsung F3 1TB 32Mb cache costs 2180.00 Baht.

[garyh]

Oh and about your Blu Ray blanks, I haven't seen them in any of the major retailers here, but I'm in Surat, so I don't have much choice.

I would have though shipping them in would be a good idea if you can EMS it you should be able to get past customs, but don't hold me to that and you might need to look into it.

Price-wise though, this is very agreeable at under $6 per. It's Amazon.

Blu Ray Discs

That's what I would probably go for myself.

I'm not really up to speed with Blu Ray disc prices, so this might be rubbish, sorry in advance if it is!

Never had any problems with getting things into Thailand from Amazon.

Thanks for the link, at that price 1TB of storage is about $90 USD plus shipping. So still cheaper and a lot faster to buy hard drives for larger storage/backup.

[RedNIvar]

If you're on Windows, just make sure that you do not attach more than 3.9TB of storage. Anything more than this is not recognized by Windows. If you have 2.5TB (2TB + 500GB) internal storage, your PC will not recognize your 1.5TB or 2TB external storage. Mac does not have this problem. Mac can recognize up to 1PB (Peta Byte).

I'd go with WD drives, they rock.

[Spoonman]

.......................................double post.

Edited September 8, 2010 by Spoonman

[Spoonman]

If you're on Windows, just make sure that you do not attach more than 3.9TB of storage. Anything more than this is not recognized by Windows. If you have 2.5TB (2TB + 500GB) internal storage, your PC will not recognize your 1.5TB or 2TB external storage. Mac does not have this problem. Mac can recognize up to 1PB (Peta Byte).

I'd go with WD drives, they rock.

Care to elaborate on this please ??

Windows (7 Ultimate) have no issues with the 5x2TB (JBOD array) storage I have installed in my Pc, this is in addition to my 128gb SSD boot drive.

[innerspace]

If you're on Windows, just make sure that you do not attach more than 3.9TB of storage. Anything more than this is not recognized by Windows. If you have 2.5TB (2TB + 500GB) internal storage, your PC will not recognize your 1.5TB or 2TB external storage. Mac does not have this problem. Mac can recognize up to 1PB (Peta Byte).

I'd go with WD drives, they rock.

I can personally confirm that vista and 7 can both support much more space than that.

Off the top of my head I believe there used to be a storage limitation but a patch was released with one of the service packs on xp and overcome in all future versions.

And worst case in this scenario it would read 1.4GB and just not address the remaining space on the last drive.

Agree that WD are good.

Also REMEMBER BACKUPS!

If you have a large amount of data and need to get new drives I would always recommend getting more drives than you plan to use.

Put half to 2/3 of the storage in the PC and use the rest to keep backups of all non-replaceable data in another room in an airtight box.

The cost of an extra drive is nothing compared to the hassle of getting all of the family together to recreate the photos you just lost!

[spacemunk]

Best price : performance at the moment are the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB/1.5TB

WD are not really that reliable anymore. If u really need a WD drive the SATA3 6MB are better than the SATA2 drives.