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Storage Two 640GB or one 1TB?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by The_Beast, 26 Nov 2009.

  1. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    With the current black Friday deals I've decided to pick up some backup/extra drive space. So it's two 640GB WD Caviar Black for $50 each or a one 1TB WD Caviar Black for $110. I currently have a 320GB Seagate.

    My plan was to partition one of the drive to 320GB for backup of the drive I have now and use what ever is left to backup my movie collection in case something ever when wrong with the disc. The 1TB drive gives me less space but would most likely be cooler and quieter. The two 640GB gives me more space, but more heat and noise and would require a PCI SATA card as I've used all my SATA ports on CD drives and my one HDD.


    So what would you do, spend $100 for a 1TB drive or $130 for two 640GB drives with a PCI card? How easy would it be to move everything (all the files and windows) to the two 640GB?
     
  2. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Two 640s and use one as back up. People always never want to do this, as they feel it's "wasted" somehow if it's only for back up... especially if their drives aren't full yet, and they don't need the whole 640.

    The fact is however, that one day, you'll be glad you did. I have an entire 1.5TB drive here solely for backup... and another one to back up the back up :)


    Two 640s. One for back up.. and see if you can get a copy of Norton Ghost in the Black Friday sales.
     
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  3. Burnout21

    Burnout21 Mmmm biscuits

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    ha, i was thinking the same thing! I guess you and I have both been down that road of loosing everything and attempting to re-build are data with data recovery applications and poor past backups.

    The joys!
     
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  4. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Yep!... A mistake you make once only. Fortunately, nothing serious was lost, but I learned my lesson way back in my Amiga days.

    People still never do however.. even some people who have lost data will still carry on afterwards without adequate back up. I think it's probably because buying big hard drives just for back up is expensive, and people can't resist spending the cash on other stuff instead... or using the big drive to store their HD movies and music on instead :)
     
  5. Lankuzo

    Lankuzo CPC Refugee

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    I don't have a back up for my system as i've never had anything on my system that I really need to keep. Most of mine files are just game files, few films and music. Although what ever I do wana keep I just copy to DVD.

    With regards to the question though. I take it your planning to keep the 320 hdd aswell. If so I would just opt for the 1tb drive and partition it. If you are not keeping the drive you could clone it onto new drive sell it and stick the 2 640 drives in and won't need the pci card.
     
  6. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    I back up all my "user generated content" (basically photos) to my server then to an external hard disk every thing else is replaceable. If I had spent loads of time converting my cds to flac then I might back them up to but as it is my mp3 collection is backed up to my mp3 player.

    tldr: i wouldn't bother with a large back up if you don't generate much data.
     
  7. kenco_uk

    kenco_uk I unsuccessfully then tried again

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    I have 2 x 1.5TB drives mirrored and a 2TB nas as an extra backup of one of the 1.5's. I also have the most important stuff on a 500gb 2.5" drive that I keep with me most of the time. The OS drive is imaged now and again as I've settled on an OS (didn't see the point when running the release candidate/beta).
     
  8. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    How easy would it be to transfer everything (OS and all the files) to the new 640 drive? Then use the 640s mirrored and the 320 as none important movie backups drive?


    What is a good SATA PCI card (relatively cheap)? I only have 4 SATA ports on my mobo, one for my HDD and 2 for my cd drives
     
  9. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    What do you mean use them mirrored? You mean striped? RAID0?


    Or do you mean use a new 640 for your main drive, and the other one as purely a back up of it?
     
  10. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    I was planning to transfer everything to a 640 (OS and files) and use the other 640 as a copy of the first, then the old 320 (the one I'm using now) as a non-important data drive (stuff I don't care if I lose it or not)

    How easy is it to set up a RAID 1 for the 640's? How hard is it to transfer everything to one of the 640 drives? Is this a good SATA PCI card, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020 ?
     
  11. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Yeah Norton Ghost can do that easily enough.

    Sometimes after you've replaced the drive and put your OS backup back on you may have to repair your master boot record unless you use the same device channel.... but that only takes a couple of minutes.

    Install one new drive... and use Ghost to create a complete drive back up of C: onto this new drive.

    replace old C: drive with a blank formatted new one.... boot from Ghost's recovery disk, and put the back up you created onto the NEW c: drive. Done.

    Once completed, don't move your back up drive, as Ghost will use this location for backups from this point on.

    Ghost backups aren't usable files... they will create a single back up file (.v2i file). These can be browsed with the Ghost backup browser... but not actually "used" within windows (you can restore single files via the back up browser however).
     
  12. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    How would I be able to use the .v2i files then?
     
  13. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Well.. they're not meant to be "used" as you would normally use files in Windows... they're a back up file. They're to be used by Norton Ghost should you wish to restore that drive. If your drive fails, or you wish to restore for any reason, you'd boot from the Ghost recovery disk, and Ghost will read that v2i file in, and then write the data back to your hard drive.

    If all that v2i file contains is a mirror of your main drive, you won't need to use the file unless you're needing to back up anyway.... as it's a mirror of the main drive.
     
  14. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    OK I think I got it now


    Last night I order my stuff, two 750GB WD 7200RPM, 32mb Cache "black edition" HDD because the 640's sold out, a RAID/SATA PCI card, and a couple of fan dampeners


    Wish me luck :rock:
     
  15. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Good luck :)
     
  16. TheBlackSwordsMan

    TheBlackSwordsMan Over the Hills and Far Away

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    My Mom said to me 'Son, Never drop all your eggs in the same Hard Drive'
     
  17. Aracos

    Aracos What's a Dremel?

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    Smart woman, you wouldn't want the other getting jealous cause it doesn't smell eggy like it's brother :thumb:
     
  18. The_Beast

    The_Beast I like wood ಠ_ಠ

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    It's been a year and a half that all my "eggs" have been in one basket. Now that I have data I actually care about I decided to spread my "eggs"
     
  19. TheBlackSwordsMan

    TheBlackSwordsMan Over the Hills and Far Away

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    If I was you, I prefer 2 x 640GB in RAID 0 than 1TB. Besides the black Series has 2 processor to analize the informations and they're solidly built.

    I Benched mine [​IMG]
     
  20. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Why would he want to do that? He'll have no back-up method if he uses both drives striped. Sure he'll have more drive space, and it MAY be SLIGHTLY faster, but he'll just have more data to lose.

    Unless you have enough free drive space to back-up your RAID0 array, you're a fool, as it's more likely to fail than a single hard drive. I've nothing against RAID0... if you have an equal amount of hard drive space to back it up.

    The sensible thing to do would be to have one of his new drives as a back up drive only. Or even RAID1 for redundancy. Personally, I'd just have it as a back up drive and use Ghost. That way you don't have to mess around rebuilding the RAID. Just whack in a new drive, restore from a back-up, and off you go.


    Like I was saying... not much gained with RAID0. I can get that with a single Spinpoint F1 :)


    [​IMG]

    That's a Samsung F1 as a single drive, and a Seagate 7200.11 as a single drive. Both drives 1 generation old now, and both faster than your RAID0 array :) All you've done is make it almost twice as likely you'll suffer data loss for absolutely no reason.

    Unless you also have another drive large enough to back up your RAID0 array, you're better off not doing so, and have half as much space by using the other drive as a back up drive, or make the array RAID1.

    Having more space and no back up just means you'll have more data to lose when it DOES fail.... and at some point, it will. If it's not happened to you yet, you've been lucky. If I had a Pound for every time I've read a "help.. my hard drive has failed" post in here and the person hasn't had a back up... I'd probably have enough to buy you another hard drive :)
     
    Last edited: 30 Nov 2009
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