Jerold

There's a sale on a seagate 1.5TB SATA HDD and I'm thinking about getting one for my home system.

It's a DELL Precision Workstation 650
4GB RAM
WinXP Pro SP3 (32-Bit)
3.2GHz XEON Processor ( I can add another CPU)

Right now, I've got 2 500GB SATA HDD's installed and the system runs fine. I'm just not sure if the system can handle 1 super huge HDD.

I was actually thinking of keeping one of the 500GB HDD's as the Primary OS HDD and then the 1.5TB partitioned and used a a 2nd data drive. I like to partition my HDD's to better organize my files.

Do you guys think that the system can handle my proposed setup?

On another note, is there any place on the system where I can find the exact model/description of my CPU so I can price out a 2nd one? The descripition on device mgr doesn't have all the listings that I've seen for CPU's on retailer sites.

linderman

download the free program CPU-Z to learn all about your cpu

as for 1.5TB drives ................... until you have to recover data off a bad 1TB or larger hard drive ............. you will never know how nice it is to stay at 750GB and smaller

same with making back-up images of the drive........... huge drives have plenty of down falls too !

I would MUCH rather have 4 @ 500GB drives .............. then 2 x 1TB !!

raptor_pa

No doubt about that Linderman. The cost of recovery goes pretty vertical when you hit the 500GB point. The headstacks, tolerances, and cost of donors makes recovery on those beasties a major undertaking! ( Read as expensive ) Another part of the cost is that the larger drives have rolled out on the scene so fast, that a lot of recovery shops are just getting their people up to speed on recovery of the newere large capacity drives.

Jerold

How often do these 1TB+ HDD's break down?

I've only had 1 300GB 3.5" HDD fail in the past and I learned my lesson after that to back up to DVD or REV drives.

My biggest concern with multiple HDD's is heat in the summer months. I've got the machine on the floor on a piece of wood so it's off the carpet and in the summer, I put a fan that blows towards it. Dust has been a big problem with the machine on the floor and a fan blowing on it, so I have to vacuum it out a few times in the summer.

raptor_pa

Heat is always an issue sounds like you have a good plan for controlling that. Keeping the dust cleaned up is the biggest issue. The total heat depends a lot on the model of the drive, generally multiple drives will create a bit more heat, but 1 larger drive will generally create more heat than one smaller drive. So long as the heat can be moved out it is usually not an issue. I can't give you a real failure rate for a comparison but from what we have seen coming in for recovery it just seems to be an unusually high number of drives less than 18 months old coming in the last year or so, and in data recovery circles, some of the newer series are getting consistent problems in very short time periods.
If you are doing good backups then give it a shot and see how it works!

linderman

my personal take on hard drives in the last 2 years has been; qualityl control and manufacturing tolerances are suffering.

Drives are dirt cheap compared to the old days............ how much quality control and fine tolerances can a manufacturer hold when costs of raw materials and labor are skyrocketing, yet the selling price is staying the same or in a ratio evaluation ...... the sell price keep dropping!

drives are NOT dependable ........ so as long as you are constantly vigilant about backing up whats important to you.............. you will be fine ..........

I dont think you will want to back-up a 1.5TB drive to DVD's LOL

always remember the nature of the beast says: the harder and more involved our back-up procedure is ............ the less often we will execute it ! thats a guarantee


if you buy the 1.5GB drive from one of the premier retails like Newegg............. they will swap the drive for you if your system wont play nice with it .......... other vendors really put you thru a dance ......... but not the egg .............mwave.com has also been VERY good to me .............. tigerdirect not so hot ............ two thumbs down for them ...... I dont like sending brand new defective parts to manufacturer's !! 30 days or less I EXPECT to get replacement from where I bought them !!

linderman

there are programs which allow you to put a hard drive to "sleep" when not in use >>>>. I thing such an animal is called Revosleep or something like that .............. sleeping drives make no heat >>>> :)