DiamondMax10, 2k450, 7200.8, which to choose??

[LandShark]

I'm looking for a new HD now. and I'm wondering which one of the following would you recommend for (in order) quietness + reliablility + speed??

Matox DiamondMax10 300GB 16MB cache (w/ NCQ)
Seagate 7200.8 400GB (w/ NCQ)
Hitachi 7k400 400GB

reliablity is the main concern, then quietness too! (gonna use in my HTPC in the living room storaging lots of videos/movies!) speed could come last and given all of these are some of the fastest drive right now, speed isn't my main concern and I might run raid0 on them too depending on size.....

I was going to get the Seagate 7200.8 400GB drive, but it's very very hard to find a sata one and the only one I found (zipzoomfly) is charging an arm and a leg for it!!

next cloest one is DiamondMax10, it also support NCQ and has 16mb cache! but I'm not too sure about Matox's reliablity and same as the Hitach..... I had both brands' drive failed on me before (much older Matox and 75GXP).....

do you think running raid0 on any of these HDD would be awesome especially for a media/video server that serve video to about 2-4 client. or I'd better mirror them for reliability?? (if they doesn't last long.....)

 

[attack]

Well if you have the DVD's and media backed up elsewhere and arn't too concerned with having to dump it all on a new array then RAID 0 would be alright. However, I'd run 2 drives, not RAID'd and have one backup the other at like 2-3 in the morning, this way you don't get the performance loss of RAID 1 and if the main drive goes down you only lose the days worth of new data....that's what I do for my desktop.

Also it's hard to say which is more reliable, I'd go with whoever has been making that size drive/plates in the drive the longest because I think most and maybe all might be new platter sizes.

 

[LandShark]

how's the "reliable history" of Matrox?? are they pretty good reliable or had over ave. failure rate?

I tend to 2 Matrox especially b/c office depot has they on sale for just 159 for the 300GB 16mb cache drive!

 

[Tebore]

how's the "reliable history" of Matrox?? are they pretty good reliable or had over ave. failure rate?

I tend to 2 Matrox especially b/c office depot has they on sale for just 159 for the 300GB 16mb cache drive!

Clearly I think you mean Maxtor. Matrox only made video cards. And out of all the Harddrive Manufactures Maxtor has one of the highest failure rates. Not counting IBM for their "DeathStar" fiasco. Seagate has one of the better reliability rates.

 

[larva]

All three are competent 7200rpm designs. All three could fail. If you can't bear the possibility of a drive failure, don't buy one. Drives fail, all makes, and whenever they should choose. Nature of the beast. There is no drive you can choose that alters this balance.

 

[LandShark]

All three are competent 7200rpm designs. All three could fail. If you can't bear the possibility of a drive failure, don't buy one. Drives fail, all makes, and whenever they should choose. Nature of the beast. There is no drive you can choose that alters this balance.

that's so true! I think I'll just go get 2 DiamondMax10 drive for the price/space. tks all!

 

[jlin453]

I had a raid 0 setup once. The performance vs risk of failure wasn't worth it for me personally. I had one drive fail and lost some info that I wish I had now. I was careful with everything; crap just happens.

Now, I have a backup drive and burn my stuff regularily on dvd-rw's.