Discussion Forums > Technology
What HDD should I buy?
sdedalus83:
--- Quote from: psyren on October 30, 2009, 02:53:23 AM ---Just buy the Green and short stroke it.
--- End quote ---
Short stroke a storage drive? Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!
Seriously, short stroking is appropriate only for situations which require high, consistent sustained transfer rates. It doesn't do much for access times and it severely reduces the drive's capacity. It would be great if you need a cheap scratch disc and damn near pointless for anything else.
If you really do need the speed and feel that short stroking a big cheap drive is the best option, partition it instead and use the inner partition as a backup drive, only mounting it when needed. You'll gain all of the advantages of short stroking, and won't be wasting two thirds or more of the drive's capacity.
psyren:
Instead of buying a black/raptor drive, you could do what I suggested. Short stroking is for performance at the expense of storage.
sdedalus83:
--- Quote from: psyren on October 30, 2009, 03:08:35 AM ---Instead of buying a black/raptor drive, you could do what I suggested. Short stroking is for performance at the expense of storage.
--- End quote ---
Partitioning accomplishes the same goal without losing most of the drive's capacity. When you need to ensure the best possible performance, just unmount the larger, interior partition.
kureshii:
Some guys on some forum somewhere did some acoustical tests on the Green, and it turned out to be spinning at 5400RPM. Too lazy to google links now, but I'm sure you can easily find it. Its performance numbers look decent enough, so I see no reason to knock it just for that. You'll be fine with it as long as you use it for its intended purpose; anyone who tries to use a Green drive for gaming or workstation operation and then complains that it's slow is stating the obvious (and is obviously an idiot).
If it's just for storage, go for lowest price/GB from a drive manufacturer you trust. typically this means either Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung and/or Hitachi (for internal drives only; I have no idea what the hierarchy is like for externals). YMMV with drives from either manufacturer, so from this point on it's just a matter of who you listen to and who you trust.
If you buy the Black, do make sure to get plenty of airflow over it — it runs hot when under load!
Sakura90:
What is "short stroke"?
I found a WD Green 1.5TB at $160 (1TB at $110). I'll buy the 1.5 this Saturday. The greens run at 5400 RPM, that's enough for storing things. I think this is the best choice :D
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