new hard drive for large video files

ringo747 · 7 Feb 2006 at 15:46

Hi,

I am looking for a reliable hard drive to store large video files (13Gb approx for each hour of footage).

I have used maxtors before and have had one failure already.

Anyone have any recommendations?

I was looking at the two 300Gb Maxtors with 16Mb cache. Not sure which one is best for video files though.

Reliability is my main MUST!

Any information appreciated,
Jonny

div0 · 7 Feb 2006 at 15:58

Seagate drives all have a 5 year manufacturers warranty as opposed to 3 year for most other manufacturers.....

worth considering if reliability is so important to you.

ringo747 · 7 Feb 2006 at 16:04

i can get a 5 month warranty on the maxtor 300gb too!

johnnyb · 7 Feb 2006 at 16:18

only reliable hard drive is one that is raided for backup.

ringo747 · 7 Feb 2006 at 16:26

yeah unfortunately i cant afford that kind of setup johnnyb! are the maxtors good in your opinion?

Just when you mention RAID, what different configurations are there?

Thanks

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:17

been through these forums for around the past hour.. it seems very much a case of maxtor v WD. I like the sound of the WD 250Gb with 16Mb cache..

It is either this or the 300Gb MAxtors.. anyone willing to recommend either one of the Maxtors? there are 2 300gb maxtors and id appreciate some help on which one to go for for video filles storage purposes..

I have read some dodgy reviews on maxtors but the new ones seem ok.

I am curious to know about this NCQ business.. Im a total newbie on this. Does this work on all motherboards? I dont know what motherboard I have. All i know is something about nForce 3?

Any help appreciated.

smids · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:46

Reliability is Seagate without a shadow of a doubt. You need reliability - buy a Seagate.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:47

well yes reliablility is important but also the fact that I will be working with video files on this disk at around 13Gb in size!

Anyone else got helpful advice?

smids · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:48

Oh so you need speed and reliability? Then you need a Hitachi

. Probably the fastest 7200rpm drive and seemingly solid reliability.

I see why you are driving for the Maxtors and WD's 16MB cache. Have a gander over at storagereview.com and see what you can find there.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:57

yeah i read in some places that the 16mb cache doesnt make too big an impact.. another problem is that i dont know if these disks will work with my motherboard.. all i know is that its runs with nforce 3 drivers i think??? The disks I have right now are SATA-1 Maxtor 250Gb

smids · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:59

See my sticky at the top of the HDU forum. Short answer: SATA-II works on SATA1 ports

.

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:04

cheers smids, just found it after i posted!

ok so now that i know any disks on ocUK will work on my machine its just down to my choice!

i hate making decisions like this! so many differing opinions!

div0 · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:10

i can get a 5 month warranty on the maxtor 300gb too!

I think you meant "year"

but you should note that the Maxline III drives are the only Maxtor drives with a 5 year manufacturers warranty (the others (as I said) tend to be 3 year)

Maybe it would be easier if you gave us an idea of how much you can spend?

Seriously - if you have ANYTHING that you consider important, you MUST have a backup!!

You say

Reliability is my main MUST!

and to me that implies, forget just about everything else, "I cannot afford to lose this data".

If the files you are using are ~13Gb then that rules out CD/DVD backups. Which leaves you with only TWO options IMO.

1) A 2 disk setup, preferably RAID1, but a simple backup scheme may suffice

2) A single disk + external hard drive with a simple backup scheme

Forget considering the pro's and con's of Maxtor/Seagate/WD/Hitachi, the simple fact is ANY HARD DRIVE CAN FAIL AT ANY TIME!!!!!

Anyone who has this as a desiding factor:

Reliability is my main MUST!

should NOT be relying on a single drive setup.

smids · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:14

I only ever buy 3 brands of HDU. Seagate (first and foremost), Hitachi and WD. I personally do not trust maxtor at all. Have you seen my poll? I know it cannot give a proper actuarial type analysis, but it is a decent indication.

I just bought 4 Hitachi's for a RAID0+1 array (4x80GB = 160GB RAID0 mirrored onto a RAID1) for £135.

Hitachi's are fast and seemingly the best all rounder out there, possibly taking WD's crown in this department. Seagate's aren't the fastest but they are no slower than any other 7200rpm drive - we are talking milliseconds here.

EDIT: as the above poster has said, you need a backup solution of a secondary disk/possible RAID - though that isn't really backup so much as redundancy.

As you can see, I'm going for RAID0+1 as my main windows drive and this will be a very fast, very reliable setup - chances of 2 drives failing at the same time? Very low.

Have a look into the WD RAID edition drives which are superior reliability still. These drives are more expensive than their normal Caviar SE drives but worth it if you go the single drive route.

div0 · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:22

I'd agree with Smids completely.

My experience of Maxtor has been quite poor - and it seems to be a "fairly" common trend. Unfortunately people will always have "untrusted" Hard Drive manufactures because if you ever have a hard drive fail, it is a SERIOUS issue (especially without a backup scheme). So ONE failure can lead to people saying "I'll never buy a XXXXX drive again".

The simple fact (as I have said), is ANY DRIVE CAN FAIL AT ANY TIME.

Personally I'm a Seagate/Western Digital fan (at the moment), but I'm not naive enough to think that my driveswon't suddenly develop a fault.

The new Hitachi's are meant to be very good all-rounders just now, as Smids says.

I would SERIOUSLY consider at least a TWO disk solution for your needs!

Do you NEED 300Gb, would 2 * 200Gb drives in a mirrored RAID1 array do?

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:33

thanks for info guys,

at the minute I have 2x250Gb Maxtors, I want an extra disk to put video on. I always keep my backup video tapes so if a drive fails i can always recapture but it isnt ideal. Therefore a drive that is going to be reliable will be a better option.

For my disk to run the operating system I would considering running two disks in parallel - one imaging to the other - is this RAID 0 ? Sorry but I am a RAID newbie!

I just hate having drive failure and having to reinstall windows again and all my programs.. would running RAID on my windows drives be a good option and then keep two separate drives for video?

Thanks guys

smids · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:37

RAID0 is striping i.e. half data each disk - fast, extremely unreliable.
RAID1 is mirroring which copies exactly one disk to the other.

div0 · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:49

Ok now we're getting nearer a solution

So you've got 2*250Gb drives already (rough age?)

And you want another drive (for additional space)......

Can you give a summary of your current disk usage??

EG:

2Gb Windows (this is fairly typical)

5Gb Documents / files

100-180Gb Video files

30-40Gb Music

20Gb Games

And maybe list which you consider CRITICAL (can't be lost).....

For example, I'd say "games", can afford to be lost (ie fairly easily to re-install)

Music files, maybe cant be lost (cd backups take too long to transfer or re-burn etc)

Documents, cant be lost (backup on cd, BUT new docs written all the time, dont want to lose un-backed up work)

You MAY be best to buy a NEW drive and install the O/S on a PARTITION, then install other NON-CRITICAL work onto other partitions on that drive. If the drive fails then you will possibly lose everything. But if widows gets corrupted, you only lost the Windows PARTITION - a re-install is EASY!.

You can then use your 250Gb drives in a RAID1 (mirror) for CRITICAL data. NOTE: data is "copied" (like a mirror) from one drive to the other, so you effectively HALF your storage space! This much reduces the chances of you losing data though

ringo747 · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:49

ok smids, I think RAID 1 is what I want to go for then.

I was thinking up a plan just now.

I can buy two new disks and run them on RAID 1 as my windows drive.

Then I can use my 2 existing 250gb disks to store all my video stuff.. Having to reinstall windows and all my apps is more painful that recapturing all my video!

In RAID 1 you are almost guaranteed that your windows disks will be safe i.e. if one messes up the other should still be ok?

smids · 8 Feb 2006 at 15:56

jonnyc747 said:
In RAID 1 you are almost guaranteed that your windows disks will be safe i.e. if one messes up the other should still be ok?

Not quite. In RAID1, the drive is copied exactly so any virus problems etc will affect both drives. However, if one drive fails, then the other will run as normal and tell you to replace the broken drive. This is what I meant when I said it wasn't a backup. As long as you have a decent Anti-virus, nothing else really should go wrong in this regard.