Team-BHP - 1TB USB drive for a song

Quote:

Originally Posted by d_payne (Post 1357765)

2. 7200rpm is more than enough for any HD needs, its not your HDD its your proc/gfx which are bottlenecks for HD content.

Is this correct?

1. many Graphics workstations and most servers nowadays come with SAS drives with 15,000 RPM (to minimize drive latency).

2. Being an electro-mechanical devise, the HDD is bottleneck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by d_payne (Post 1357765)

2. 7200rpm is more than enough for any HD needs, its not your HDD its your proc/gfx which are bottlenecks for HD content.

Hmm, not sure I agree with that. Generally hard drives are the slowest component in the computer, being mechanical and all. 7200rpm is good enough for most purposes, but it is still the slowest component. I have IBM xSeries servers from 2004 with 10K & 15K rpm which can still outrace new PCs with 7200 rpm drives in case of I/O operation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by d_payne (Post 1357765)

The WD Essentials 1TB USB is priced at Rs.5300-5500 in Mumbai. Samurai, I would urge you to look at TE's dealers, they're bullet-proof reliable and are very quick in service.

Finally, 1TB HDDs have been hovering around 5.5-6k since 6 months now. :)

Damn, I bought half TB WD drives last month for 6.5K.:Frustrati

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandeepmdas (Post 1358246)

I've got 15K rpm SCSI drives from 2004, funny even now 15K rpm is the fastest drive.

what about the passport series, They look really slick.
what you need to focus on is which company gives better warranty. WD usually gives 5 years for an internal HDD. maybe the same for external Drive also. AS HDD are more prone to Crashes compared to solid state drives.
another question.
Some newer car stereo's give option of plugging a pen drive to play music. Can these HDD be used for this purpose as they are also usb based.

@Samurai and Sandeep: I agree that the HDD is the slowest component in the entire PC. RAM, CPU Buses, PCI lanes, Ethernet all run in the range of GBps but HDDs run 1000s of times slower at ~50-150MBps.

And 15k rpm drives (the Raptors) easily trash any 7200rpm drive. But HDD are not all about speed, they are as much about reliability, low-energy consuming and low-noise as well.

BUT, read what I said carefully, I am talking about playing HD content. Not server-side random access operations, or rendering or game load times but simply HD content. And a Blu-ray 1080p rip runs without any hitch on 90% of drives out there, the bottleneck then comes down to the integrated graphics that most PCs are equipped with.

I re-iterate my point, HDDs are not all about raw speed. For a HTPC Hard-disk, you need something that's super silent while going about its task as well. The WD Green based Essentials is meant exactly for that. If you want it for gaming/rendering (which you don't), then look elsewhere.

Cheers!
Payne

PS: SSDs are the future. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 1359011)

Ok, I have decided to go with WD 1TB drive. I have to choose between My Book Essential and My Book Home Edition.....

Same pinch. So far i have no complaints with the essential. Its quiet and runs fairly cool too. Its very shiny though.

Feature Comparison : Desktop Overview

cya
R

PS - What makes you say that the Home Edition is more rugged? The build?

PS2 - I think it comes pre-formatted as FAT32 so remember to switch to NTFS first, before wasting time copying stuff only to have it choke at a >4gb file! (Happened to me!...though i guess in your case most of your files will be >4gb)

Two months back i bought WD 1TB My Book Home Edition, invested 1K extra just for eSata and Firewire interface as they are faster than USB ones, paid 69XX in Bangalore SP Road(many dealers quoted exact 1K extra for the same model).Even i am using USB for watch Movies and listening to Music but for backup and coping files from my comp i am using Firewire interface.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rehaan (Post 1359029)

PS - What makes you say that the Home Edition is more rugged? The build?

I read it in some review, can't find that link now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rehaan (Post 1359029)

PS2 - I think it comes pre-formatted as FAT32 so remember to switch to NTFS first, before wasting time copying stuff only to have it choke at a >4gb file! (Happened to me!...though i guess in your case most of your files will be >4gb)

Already discovered that myself with the 500GB drive.

^^ Hahahaha. No compromises eh? :)

Have fun, they're both good machines. The Home by default comes with eSata, FW400 apart from USB 2.0. The Essentials is equipped with just USB. And there's a cool "Capacity Gauge" to show how much of free space is left. That's the difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by d_payne (Post 1359370)

....The Home by default comes with eSata, FW400 apart from USB 2.0.....

Nope i don't think it does. Please see the comparison link i have provided in my post earlier on this page.

The only differences between the two mentioned models seem to be the capacity gauge and automatic backup feature.

Active cooling or not, we shall see when Samurai receives his drives...

cya
R

EDIT : You are correct :) The home does have FW400 and eSata, even though the comparison chart on the WD website neglects to highlight those features (they only mention FW800+eSATA in the comparison)!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samurai (Post 1359011)

Ok, I have decided to go with WD 1TB drive. I have to choose between My Book Essential and My Book Home Edition. The latter appears to be more rugged and 1000 bucks more expensive. Any comments? I'll be only using the USB interface.

Hi Samurai San,

we used to buy Lacie 1TB drives for our DC at US$130/disk. Try e-SATA port instead of USB, you will get better speed. In some Linux versions, there are chances of USB stack crash if multiple ports are being used for bigger storage disks. In those situation, reboot will be the only go.

Thanks
Rajesh