advice on hard drive + memory

  • Thread starter Thread starter Christo
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Christo

i basically want some advice on two products

Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR Memory

and

Wwestern Digital Raptor 10k RPM SATA HDD 74GB

i have read some bad reviews about the WD hard drives, saying that they pack
in after a few months and start crunching etc.

anyone any experience with these drives when they aren't being used in a
RAID of any type

as for the Crucial Ballistix Memory, i have every faith it is going to be
top quality and work great but does anyone have any experience with it?

does it do what it is meant to and is it better than buying standard RAM?

Cheers

Christo
 
not sure about the HDD, i know maxtor got a problem, but i've heard good
things about WD, and i build all my new systems with em(used to be maxtor
kid, still got two drives now, running fine i might add). but the raptor is
like the gem of their consumer range so it would suprise me if it goes a
wiry

as for the memory, unless your overclocking, or benchmark crazy, ram is ram,
whether is cheap or pricey with gold plated heat spreaders, it does the same
job, and with modern DDR400+ the differences are tiny, save the cash and
just buy more of it
 
Christo said:
i basically want some advice on two products

Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR Memory

and

Wwestern Digital Raptor 10k RPM SATA HDD 74GB

i have read some bad reviews about the WD hard drives, saying that
they pack in after a few months and start crunching etc.

anyone any experience with these drives when they aren't being used
in a RAID of any type

as for the Crucial Ballistix Memory, i have every faith it is going
to be top quality and work great but does anyone have any experience
with it?
does it do what it is meant to and is it better than buying standard
RAM?
Click to expand...


Do you plan to overclock the RAM past 200MHz ? If not, standard Crucial
PC3200 is fine.

As for the WD Raptors, they are fast, especially when striped on a hardware
controller. They can fail as suddenly as any other hard drive. Get in the
habit of making frequent backups or risk losing the whole shebang.
 
i basically want some advice on two products

Crucial Ballistix PC4000 DDR Memory

and

Wwestern Digital Raptor 10k RPM SATA HDD 74GB

i have read some bad reviews about the WD hard drives, saying that they pack
in after a few months and start crunching etc.
Click to expand...

.... as to a small number of every make and model. Those who
have drive failures are certain to be more vocal about it
than those who don't. All things being equal the higher
rotational speed would tend to make them shorter-lived
drives but not THAT short-lived. It is the best
higher-performance-on-budget solution out there, if that is
the goal rather than lowest cost or highest capacity per
$... that's your call to make.

anyone any experience with these drives when they aren't being used in a
RAID of any type
Click to expand...

LIke what?
It's a drive, it does what it's supposed to, but at higher
sustained throughput than most (excepting some very large
high density drives) and with a lower seek time (very useful
for OS use). For work with very large files, linear editing
and such, a Raptor is no better than a huge drive. For
"most" common uses it is better.

as for the Crucial Ballistix Memory, i have every faith it is going to be
top quality and work great but does anyone have any experience with it?
Click to expand...

Memory is memory.
You pay more for a slightly higher spec. If the minor
performance increase is worth the less-minor additional
cost, there you are... you gain nothing choosing Ballistic
memory of 2,2,2,5 timings than (any other) 2,2,2,5 memory.

does it do what it is meant to and is it better than buying standard RAM?
Click to expand...


No better or worse. It's simply capable of slightly faster
timings (and/or reducted timings for higher overclocking)
than some, with a price that corresponds to this. That last
5% of performance, maybe even the last 20%, always costs
disproportionately more to achieve.

Typically one weighs the performance of the rest of the
system to decide of these parts are warranted... one doesn't
usually spend more for faster memory if they didn't do so
for the CPU, video (thinking gamers), hard drive, etc, etc.
Then again for limited, specific workstation-like uses of a
system where memory throughput, particularly latency is the
more significant bottleneck, then the memory would of course
be one of the more important performance decisions.
 
The W.D. Raptors are designed for industrial use, and come with a 5-Year
warranty; unlike 1 or 3 year warranties for home harddrives.
 
The W.D. Raptors are designed for industrial use, and come with a 5-Year
warranty; unlike 1 or 3 year warranties for home harddrives.
Click to expand...


"Industrial"?
I don't think so. What industry do you know of that seeks
Raptors, prefers them?
 
kony said:
"Industrial"?
I don't think so. What industry do you know of that seeks
Raptors, prefers them?
Click to expand...
Its possible that theyre sealed for use at high altitudes and dusty
environments.
 
kony said:
"Industrial"?
I don't think so. What industry do you know of that seeks
Raptors, prefers them?
Click to expand...
I have checked > Business use only. Means theyre not "industrial" IE Sealed.
 
I have checked > Business use only. Means theyre not "industrial" IE Sealed.
Click to expand...


Sealed drives are very rare. Don't even know if there are
any spec'd for such environments, generally the solution is
solid-state storage instead, or for the dust an appropriate
whole-system filtration system.
 
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