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What size HD is in your main machine?

Unknown_K

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Sep 11, 2003
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Ohio/USA
Just curious what you guys are using for HDs on your main machine (OS and app drive not a dump drive).

I have been using a 250GB drive for a few years and recently swapped it for a 1TB HD. Seems like 1TB drives are super cheap at $55 or so shipped.

My largest dump drive is 4TB used for videos mostly, have a 2TB one I got a few years back still in use as well. Old gaming machines get the older 120-320GB HDs (mostly IDE and a few SATA). I think the 2TB model was before hard drive prices spiked.

Anybody still using old IDE drives as their main HD?
 
I'm using a 500 GB Western Digital Blue SATA drive in my desktop.

I have a 160 GB Hitatchi 7.2k SATA drive in my laptop. I always run out of space on it however I don't have anything to replace it with at the moment.
 
My desktop machine has a 350GB "system" disk and a 4TB disk for the rest (/home among that). It's not a "dump" disk, but I do keep a /mirror area there where I mirror stuff from the net just in case. But the other reason it's so large is that I process satellite data, and I also have a bunch of VMs running (clones of customer's systems) which need large data areas too. I expect to need more capacity in the not so far future.

-Tor
 
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I've been using a 500GB disk for some time. My new computer, which I hope to be using for a long time, uses a Western Digital Black - WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5".

The thing is that operating systems and applications take up very little space by today's drive standards. It's all about how much of your archive that you want readily available in your home directory. In other words the ratio between your available files and your archived files. I recently added a 1TB Western Digital Red - WD10EFRX 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" mounted as /home/archive. I may add another one of those in the future, but don't see any way to use a main drive that is larger than 500GB. Even that is quite large, but I think 500 is at the best price/performance point at this point in time. I could use a 250GB drive (even less) and it would not make a noticeable difference to the way I use the computer.
 
4x 60gb sata3 ssd drives for OS and apps (raid 0)
4x 640gb WD-black for games/video recording/etc (raid 0)
1x 2tb dump disk

the speeds of sata-3 ssd drives is AMAZING. The technology is finally coming out of its infancy. Its a shame my machine only has a sata-2 controller, but it pegs it at maximum (1.2GB/s total) and when i eventually upgrade, i already have the drives. The WD blacks get a respectable 500mb/s so video editing is smooth and game load times are practically non-existent.
 
I'm using 512Gb SSD (PCIe). I hate unreliable, noisy, hot hard drives. I don't even like to use them in my vintage computers. I've got flash drives in my Amiga, Atari, TRS-80. It's solid state all the way, baby.
 
Main OS drive is Samsung 840 EVO 500GB SSD Mobo (DX58SO2) Marvell Sata3
Games drive is 2x 60GB SSD in RAID 0 hanging off of Adaptec 5805
"Data & Docs" drive is 2x 1TB Seagate somethingorother in RAID 1 hanging off of Adaptec 5805
"other games" drive 3x 250gb WD somethingorothers in RAID 0 hanging off of Adaptec 5805
SSD caching drive for the 3disk raid 0 hanging off of Adaptec 5805

My Home server has 3x 4TB drives in a RAID 5 hanging off of Adaptec 31205, I will have to OCE in another 4TB disk when my last Terrabubble is used up...
 
Main (REMTech):
OS [W7]: Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 -500GB - SATA
OS [Arch64]: Seagate ST3500630AS - 500GB - SATA
Backup: Verbatim - Toshiba MK5055GSX - 500GB - USB 2.0
Secondary: Digitus - Seagate (something) - 500GB - 2x USB 2.0
WTB: Tandberg RDX - Cart. - SATA

Server (SunFire):
OS: Seagate Barracuda ATA 5 - 200GB - IDE/ATA

Client (SunRay):
Diskless
 
I'm currently using 2 WD 600 GB (10K RPM) Velociraptors, one of which is a cloned backup. Also, I have a 2 TB Seagate Barracuda in a USB caddy which I use for archiving and Windows OS Images. I don't trust RAID setups any more. Somewhere down the line I'm going to replace the WD's with a solid state drive(s) - haven't made my mind up on exactly how that's going to go down yet. My 'main' machine is my gaming machine.
 
I have a 146GB 15K SAS drive for the OS and some core programs, and larger stuff (mostly games and whatnot) is installed on a 500GB WD Velociraptor.

I've also got 1TB, 2TB and 640GB drives for general storage, a few 500GB and 1TB external drives for things I don't need to access very often, and finally a 6TB NAS for everything I need to share between computers.
 
This is starting to feel like a pissing contest. Okay, I'll add to what I wrote previously: In addition to main desktop 4T RAID-5, I have a 4T RAID-5 NAS, both have hot spares, and both are backed up offsite (1200 miles away from my current location) automatically. My house could turn into a smoking hole in the ground and I wouldn't lose any data that is important to me.

(I'm sure the next post will talk about someone's LTO-6 tape library in their outdoor shed, or someone's holographic storage, or the 12-disk SAS storage appliance...)
 
I have yet to try a SSD drive, people with laptops swear by them. The last 2 1TB HDs I purchased were around $55 shipped on sale, figured that would be the sweet spot these days.

Trixter I am still using LTO-1 for backups as well as DDS2/3/4, AIT-2, DLT depending on the system.
 
I have yet to try a SSD drive, people with laptops swear by them.

Laptops or desktops, there is a massive difference between being able to complete 200 IOPS vs. 60000 IOPS. On a regular SATA drive, Windows 7 took 6-7 minutes to boot; after migrating to an SSD, it takes 45 seconds. Applications load an order of magnitude faster.
 
Main systems been dead for a while (new motherboard loves to run at some stupidly slow speed taking OS installs 2-3 hours to fail before I try again then get tired of trying).. but dunno I have a few several TB drives that are full laying around waiting to get reconnected.

Been meaning to do a raid-5 2 or 3TB setup but need data up first then I'll debate the undesirable cost. But that's what I'm using to archive software and also my dvds so the kids don't ruin them after a watch or two.
 
My W520 came with a 500GB SATA but I have installed a 256GB or 128GB SSD now (my memory fails me). My W500 and W510 have low 100s GB SATAs. I use DVDs for backup.

I use a 360MB HDD in my ValuePoint and connect my other desktops to it with a LapLink or IPX to play games.
 
Currently in my non-working main system:

• Main work Station
○ Areca ARC-1680ix-12
§ 512MB Cache (DDR2 667 240PIN)
§ 3 x IPC-BR-SAS34-D1 SAS 2.0 Hot Swap Bays
§ OL I - Boot RAID 5
9) Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 ST3450856SS
10) Seagate Cheetah 15K.7 ST3450857SS
11) Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 ST3450856SS
12) Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 ST3450856SS
§ OL II - Data RAID 5
1) Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS
2) Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS
3) Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS
4) Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS

There is room for another four drives for further expansion.

I am also with Trixter on off site backup through a commercial provider. There is another 7.5TB in my main server (maxed out) and the NAS has another 7TB with drive bays free so it can grow to ~84TB as needed.
 
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