The Maxtor vs WD with a twist

[WSU]

Long time reader, first time poster.

I just purchased a 40gb WD 400jb and have no problems at all. But, as I was window shopping Best Buy they had the Maxtor hard drives on sale (with rebate) for $40 each bought 2. Here is the problem.. Should I run raid-0 or not? These are the points that I have been compairing.

Maxtor 2mb cache / WD 8mb cache (8mb doesn't improve raid)
Maxtor 1yr warrenty / WD 3yr
Maxtor=7200rpm, ata133, 40gb, $40ea diamondmax plus L01j040
WD = 7200rpm, ata100, 40gb, $80ea 400jb

Raid gives me 80gigs but is the extra performance worth the risk to the data content?

My Nforce2 board supports onboard raid.

I'm so confused...

I've done considerable research on this (think my eyes are bleeding) but have no expirence with raid-0. I need some advice.

Thanks

 

[KaHNZa]

I personally would go with Maxtor. But my opinion is slightly biased because I have very little experience with WD. And most of the hard drives that I have owned have been Maxtors.

 

[gruvin2]

Warrenty is always a plus. RAID0 you will definately have a nice performance increase. From what i've read 2mb vs 8mb isnt a HUGE difference. The difference from having NO cache and any is a BIG difference. Again these are my personal views. I've owned both Maxtors and WD drives and been happy with both.

 

[stan03]

definitely do RAID.

 

[WSU]

I'm going to test these to setups. Which program should I use to test them and what settings? I need to make a fair comparison. I want to look at read/write and cpu %.

 

[gruvin2]

Use ATTO for HDD benching. Just do a search on the forums for it.

 

[drshivas]

I've had good luck with WD over the past 3 years, (knock on wood). I explored the RAID option a while back and decided against it because risk and hassle though. I like the flexibility to pull and swap drives anytime I want. Tieing drives up in a pair like that reduces the flexibility, and doubles the chance of data loss (since the same data is at the mercy of two drives.)

Just my opinion. I like to overclock, but am conservative when it comes to messing with data.

HTH, and good luck with whatever you do!

 

[mata2974]

Just my opinion. I like to overclock, but am conservative when it comes to messing with data.

Thats where Norton Ghost comes in handy. A spare HD would just act as a backup, its messy, too many cables....but you gain the benefits of both worlds

 

[Jarlax]

I say go for the raid0 and use the Maxtors.

If I read your post right you already have 2 40gig maxtors and 1 40 gig WD. So put the Maxtors in a raid 0 and use the WD as a backup/secondary drive.

Doing the raid will be a new expierance for you and that is always fun. Also you could get a nice performance increase out of it too.

But my philosophy is different then most I guess. I never worry about a drive failing as to me that means that worse case I need to rebuild my machine which is not a big deal to me. I run everything off of drive C and have a second drive that I keep backups of anything I want to make sure I don't lose. If it is that important that I am so worried about it, then back it up. Otherwise I will be able to get it back again after I rebuild. That is my philosophy.

 

[tycanadian]

Western Digital owns.
Also, RAID0 is not that risky as long as you do what you should with ANY hard drive and back up the stuff you can't afford to lose.

 

[WSU]

So far its been about a 50/50 respones. This tells me that people could go either way and that the benifits of raid-0 are really not that big in my case. Now if I would have posted 2 raptors in raid-0 I would expect that almost 100% of people would say to go raid-o due to the performance increase. It looks like I will be returning the 2 Maxtors and just keeping the WD. Thanks for the replies!

 

[DAGO]

Have had several WD drives with no problems from any of them...
Recently got a Maxtor 60 gig ATA133 and only had it installed for a few months when it had a catastrophic failure...Died so totally that I could not even run the diagnostic on it...RMA is in the works now, so I am back to my trusty old WD drive that had become a spare...sure glad I didn't sell it off...
Maxtor still has a stellar reputation tho, so I'll give em a chance to make good on their product...After ATA133, the old WD ATA66 is simply dogg-arsed slow...Gotta be patient now...

 

[WyrmMaster]

Warrenty is always a plus. RAID0 you will definately have a nice performance increase. From what i've read 2mb vs 8mb isnt a HUGE difference. The difference from having NO cache and any is a BIG difference. Again these are my personal views. I've owned both Maxtors and WD drives and been happy with both.

actually the performance difference is close to 50% (according to ATTO benchmarks). With my IBM 60gxp 40gb (already a fast drive on its own) my max read rate was about 35mb/s and my max write was about 37mb/s. With my WD 120gb SE my max read is about 49mb/s and my max write is almost 50mb/s.

I dont know if the extra cach makes much difference in raid, but normally it makes a big difference.

 

[Kopfab]

actually the performance difference is close to 50% (according to ATTO benchmarks). With my IBM 60gxp 40gb (already a fast drive on its own) my max read rate was about 35mb/s and my max write was about 37mb/s. With my WD 120gb SE my max read is about 49mb/s and my max write is almost 50mb/s.

I dont know if the extra cach makes much difference in raid, but normally it makes a big difference.

Now the question is, where those two drives made at the same time, e.g. do they use the same technology ?