Which would you pick?

[rspassey]

I am thinking about getting a WD Raptor 10K SATA drive.
I plan to put only the OS, and the game files of the games I play frequently on it.

Would you get the 36.7GB or the 74GB drive?

I know it will boil down to the necessity of HDD space (for me), but I would just like to see what some of you would do in my case.

When I get either of those two, I will then RAID 1 my two 300GB Seagate 7.2k HDDs and store everything else one it, like music, school work, videos, and pictures to ensure that I have better fault tolerance and I don't easily lose some important documents and family photos.

I am also open to other suggestions, but I have always wanted a Raptor drive, and when I built this PC, I made the stupid mistake of getting 2 300 GB HDDs when I should have gotten one Raptor and one 300GB.

TIA,
Ryan

[jayb1234]

How much space do your OS and games need? If it isn't anywhere near 36.7Gb and you don't anticipate adding a lot more to it, there isn't any real reason to get the 74Gb.

[jfk]

Get the 74. Trust me, I just went through this. I started with a 36 when I built, saying "that will be MORE than enough". Right. It filled up faster than I ever thought. With the new games coming out, they just keep increasing in size. You won't regret buying the bigger drive. In my case, I ended up making out all right. I sold my 36 on eBay for $5 more than I paid for it.:):)

[rspassey]

But remember, I still will have 300GB more is 7.2k 8MB Cache Seagate drives for the rest of my files. I might consider getting the 36.7GB one soon, and then if I fill it up, add another one. That would be more expensive, but more drives means that it is easier to defrag and that I can more specifically store data on certain partitions and certain drives.

For 115$, that is still quite an expensive price for something that I really don't need on account of the 500GB of space I still have available right now. So, I might just hold onto the idea for a little longer before deciding to purchase.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[glc]

I don't know if this is still the case, but when the 74gb Raptor came out, it was measurably faster than the 36gb Raptor.

[rspassey]

I don't know if this is still the case, but when the 74gb Raptor came out, it was measurably faster than the 36gb Raptor.

Thanks GLC, I will do some searching to see if that is still true. If so, then I will be buying the 74GB flavour.

[jfk]

I don't know if this is still the case, but when the 74gb Raptor came out, it was measurably faster than the 36gb Raptor.

Yes, it is still true. Look around on the net for the reviews of the latest 150 Gb Raptor. There are comparisons of the whole family. Both of the major firmware revisions of the 74 Gb are faster than the 36 Gb Raptor.

As far as defragging ryan, I'm willing to wager that there would be VERY little difference in the time it took to defrag a single 74Gb, and two 36Gb's in RAID configuration. You can also set up various partitions on the same drive to accomplish what you seek. I guess I'm telling you this all based on my experience in having just done the same thing. Long term, a single 74Gb will cause less headaches than trying to RAID two together to obtain the same storage level. JMO.

[rspassey]

Thank guys, it will be the 74 GB one then, seems like it is faster.

I just have to wait till I know when I am headed back to the US or Canada or order it.