Two physical HDD vs two partation?

Thayk · Rated PG Joined: 20 Apr 2009 Posts: 1

Hi im new here and this my first post. The topics here are very interesting, no-nonsense discussions.

Neways, you may enlighten me on my doubts on hardware.

Which is better? two physical 500 GB hdd versus 1TB HDD in two partitions.

Better means power consumption, data safety, seek speed etc. I intend to use the drive(s) as my OS and data.

nolonger · Rated R Joined: 19 Apr 2009 Posts: 98

Two 500GB's would, in general, spend more energy and be slightly more expensive. Two physical HD,s however, enable you to make a RAID0 or RAID1 set-up. What this means is in a RAID0 data is split between the 2 drives, so half of each file is written on each HD. In a RAID1 set-up you have each file written in both HD's, so in case one fails, the other one has the same exact data. I'd reccomend a RAID0 set-up in case you don't have too many important files and use the computer for gaming in general. RAID0 has little benefit over writing small files and reading them, but in larger files, reading and writing speed doubles. I would say other RAID set-ups aren't worth it, but some people do like to keep RAID0+1. That does require 4 disks though.

SAMSAMHA · Rated NC-17 Joined: 28 Feb 2005 Posts: 112

yep, 2 hds will consume more power (~10~15W more). In terms of performance, it usually is better to have a hd that is unpartitioned though I often partition my hd into different sizes.

As for data safety, it's never guarante which one is better or more secure. Backing up is always the best option. having 2 hds setting up in raid usually is the safetest way to go.

curly haired boy · Rated PG Joined: 20 Apr 2009 Posts: 21

i'd get the two hard drives and set them up in RAID 1. that way you never have to do backups!

m0drix · Rated PG Joined: 25 Apr 2009 Posts: 8

Personally, I wouldn't go with a RAID setup because it uses up more power and speeds with a single 7200 RPM SATA drive are more than enough for everyday tasks and gaming. You'd probably save a little more in the long run by going with only one HDD.

rambow70 · Posted: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:05:36 Post Subject:

i would do raid 0

SUSHRUKH · Rated NC-17 Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 137

Two HDDs would consume more heat & energy but you can set them as Raid 0 for greater performance.

zachig · Rated XXX Joined: 22 Mar 2005 Posts: 313

I also recommend on RAID 0, Stripping)
That's the setup I have (RAID 0 - Stripe) with my 2x250GB WD HD. Grin

Than of course, I'm doing an image backup on an external drive every week or so... Rolling Eyes