[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hookem /img/forum/go_quote.gif The 640gig WD AAKS's are pretty fast. They 2 320gig platters which have a higher denisity versus 2 250gig platters. You can get them for about 65 duckies. Much better choice in my humble opinion.

The one I'm after has 32MB cache, surely not slow in any way?

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeonvB /img/forum/go_quote.gif Get the RAID edition instead. They're much more reliable, they do come at a higher cost though.

My friend works in a computer shop, I'll get it at trade price, don't think they do RAID[yes I know its not a make].

 

[xxbaker]

The one you're getting isn't going to be slower than other drives, just the 640 is faster than other drives. If you're just storing music though, you won't really be taxing the drive.

When LeonvB mentions RAID, I believe he's referring to WD's external drives. Since you're getting an internal...? then it doesn't relate.

 

[ZoNtO]

Regardless of what you do internally, I would still have at least one external source that isn't powered constantly.

I have all my lossless stuff on my PCs 500gb internal drive as well as an old 250gb IDE drive I put in an external case. Technically my 160GB classic has it all too, just not the cuesheets and logfiles and such I guess...

 

[Chri5peed]

I know externals go into a sleep mode when not in use. Can you make internals do this?

 

[Jaska]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know externals go into a sleep mode when not in use. Can you make internals do this?

This is what I posted about previously. If the rest of your hardware supports this and the system doesn't suffer any adverse effects, then it might be a good option (so the answer to your question is yes). Generally speaking, though, in my own experience it works best to set both internal as well as external drives such that they never go into sleep mode.

I just set up a 1TB eSATA drive with my wife's laptop, and it works like a dream. I have it set to never sleep, but closing the lid of the laptop and putting the computer to sleep automatically puts the external drive to sleep, and it wakes up with the computer when the lid is opened again. So, in this case, even though the drive stays plugged in all the time, at least it isn't spinning when the computer is sleeping or powered off.

 

[oogabooga]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeonvB Get the RAID edition instead. They're much more reliable, they do come at a higher cost though.

Only in a RAID array, or with TLER disabled (see below).

Quote:

Originally Posted by xxbaker /img/forum/go_quote.gif When LeonvB mentions RAID, I believe he's referring to WD's external drives. Since you're getting an internal...? then it doesn't relate.

Not true. WD makes a "RAID edition" (RE) which is an INTERNAL drive optimized for use in RAID arrays. They do have some better specs (like longer MTBF) but nothing speed related IMHO. That being said, the RE drives are not recommended for use outside of a RAID array, as they have REDUCED error recovery. Basically if a RE drive has error reading a sector, it will make less of an effort to read the data and the RAID controller will read the data off another drive - this is faster for the user. If you have only one drive, then this sucks, because the RE drive simply reports an error while a normal drive will try again and possibly succeed.

This "feature" is called TLER and can be disabled using an MS-DOS tool if you (like me) already bought RE drives.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know externals go into a sleep mode when not in use. Can you make internals do this?

You mean internals go into sleep mode when not in use if set this way via power option in control panel.
For external take a look at this Vantec enclosure with power management
Newegg.com - VANTEC NST-360S2i-WH Aluminum 3.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure - External Enclosures

 

[analogbox]

Yeah. 1TB drives are so cheap nowadays it's almost stupid -no pun intended- not to get a TB drive when buying a new hard drive. I'm running very close to my 500GB RAID drives myself, I might have to get a couple of those hard drives to accommodate my ever expanding loseless library.

 

[Chri5peed]

I'll have a spare 250GB drive just for a copy of my music...not doing a lot, rather have it essentially turned off.


Quote:

Originally Posted by analogbox /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah. 1TB drives are so cheap nowadays it's almost stupid -no pun intended- not to get a TB drive when buying a new hard drive.

I doubt I'd ever reach 1TB in music...besides my back-up drives reach about 500GBs anyway.
Even if I did, I'm not going to worry about buying new HDDs later on.

 

[jfiveeight]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know externals go into a sleep mode when not in use. Can you make internals do this?

The "green" western digitals run at a slower speed than the 7200RPM drives, you could just unplug the hard drive when you aren't using it.

 

[LeonvB]

Quote:

Not true. WD makes a "RAID edition" (RE) which is an INTERNAL drive optimized for use in RAID arrays. They do have some better specs (like longer MTBF) but nothing speed related IMHO. That being said, the RE drives are not recommended for use outside of a RAID array, as they have REDUCED error recovery. Basically if a RE drive has error reading a sector, it will make less of an effort to read the data and the RAID controller will read the data off another drive - this is faster for the user. If you have only one drive, then this sucks, because the RE drive simply reports an error while a normal drive will try again and possibly succeed. This "feature" is called TLER and can be disabled using an MS-DOS tool if you (like me) already bought RE drives.

Perhaps some think I don't know what I'm talking about, but at work we sell them by the hunderds, and use them for normal PC's too. Several other resellers have also turned to this series of drives, and with good reason: our return rate has NEVER been this low. In the past we've always shipped drives back by the box (20 pcs), today we just send them out if we have some with a malfunction. And that drop has come despite the higher amount of drives sold.
In our experience, TLER has no effect on the reliability. In fact, think of it like this: despite the "lack" of extensive error recovery, this drive STILL maintains a much higher 1.2M MTBF. The reality is TLER has little effect because of the "time limited" part: if a disk really is in need of a deep recovery, the complex rebuilding process can take many minutes (manufacturers say hours, but haven't seen one take that long and come back ok). Whatever the exact time is, the OS has likely kicked it out already because it thinks it's dead anyway. So it doesn't matter if the RAID controller does it or the OS, the effect is still more or less the same.

 

[oogabooga]

The "Not true" was in reference to xxbaker's comment about RE drives being externals.

As for the rest of my comment, it came directly from the horse's mouth - I was troubleshooting an unrelated issue with my RE drive with WD's technical support a couple years ago, and the tech strongly suggested I use the TLER utility to disable TLER.

That being said, that was two years ago, so I did a little more digging and you are 100% correct:
Though TLER is designed for RAID environments, it is fully compatible and will not be detrimental when used in non-RAID environments.

 

[ooeric]

my advice for you people..
since HDDs are getting so cheap now, if you buy a large drive and install into your system.

dont go and immediately copy like 500gb of data into it.
let it run and cycle and few days, similar to how we burn in cables and gear.
or settle in a new car.

people complain like on newegg ' ya this thing went bad 2 days later '
yes, i know sometimes things DO fail.. but doing PC/macs for years
i have never kill or had a bad drive after installing it.
ive had a drive die here and there but not 2 days. more like 2-6 years.

 

[csshih]

go for SSD for super fast access!

 

[Chri5peed]

Whats the best way to format it?