Internal SATA for storage?

[SoundWolf76]

Hello there,

I've got an xw4600 with the approved PCI-e SIIG card.

The good news.. it works for the digi003.

The bad news.. it won't see my digi003 and harddrive at the same time.

Digi/Avid has been notorious for squelching most of the throughput on the 1394 ports since day one, so I'm probably going to convert my LaCie drive into an archive.

This means, I need to get some storage. Given the basic math (and the warnings from Avid/Digi regarding 1394 performance).. I'm looking to work with internal storage.

Does anyone have any recommendations or experiences with the latest SATA models?

Seagate Barracudas were always pretty strong performers, but Seagate drives took a dive the last time I was looking for internal storage (mid 2000's). The literature on the web doesn't make it seem like they've had much success in turning that around. Oddly enough, based on what I've been reading.. they are my front runner. (7200.12 or later to be specific. The XT's are also nice but pricey...).

I was always a HUGE fan of WD, but I've seen a lot of bad reviews of their latest models. The "intellipower" features seem great for the environment, however the thought of the variable RPMs makes me wonder what the consequences are when trying to start writing while the disk is idle. Applications like ProTools ask for disk resources quickly and hungrily.... I imagine the idling disk at low RPMs will cause all sorts of underruns when trying to write to disk. I've actually got a mirrored set of WD Raptors from back in the day used at my house for work, and the darn things are loud as hell when mirrored. (I suppose it's the aggregate of the two spindles writing at the same time.)

Hitachi has always seemed "late to the party" to me. Last to market, poor performance, etc.

The Samsung F3R looks pretty hot to trot to me right now. They are also the only drive I can find under 100 bucks(or right at in this case) that offers a 5 year warranty. That's either very impressive confidence in their craftsmanship.. or a really bad business decision.

Naturally I'm looking for a minimum of 7200 RPMs to meet the Avid specifications, however I'd also like something that's fairly quiet.

(Great link btw....http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24...est-hard-drive)



and for fun....

http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/04/08...bolted-rather/



I'd love to hear from others regarding their experiences? Thanks in advance!

[zedhed]

Originally Posted by SoundWolf76

I was always a HUGE fan of WD, but I've seen a lot of bad reviews of their latest models. The "intellipower" features seem great for the environment, however the thought of the variable RPMs makes me wonder what the consequences are when trying to start writing while the disk is idle.

I think this is so of only thr 'Green' range of WD.

Alot of guys here are using WD caviar black's with great success.

[Benoni]

Originally Posted by zedhed

Alot of guys here are using WD caviar black's with great success.

I know I am. SATA II 32MB cache and SATA III 64 MB cache Western Digital Caviar Black hard drives run great for me.

Also I have a WD Scorpio Black 16MB cache drive for my Laptop's OS drive.

[sunburst79]

I like internals, they simply seem to cause the least amount of problems. I leave the FW stuff for notebooks and if Apple had the sense to add eSATA i would toss my FW drive under a bus.

WD Black are the current PT top choice. I also have a bunch of Seagates running without issue.

Last I knew Samsung and Hitachi where built in the same facilities. Popular consumer drive. People I know have had some issue with them recently involving slow sustained writes. There was a issue with the intel P35-P45 back in the day. I'm not going to say their junk but I would stick with the WD or Seagates. they are nice quiet drives for regular desktops and HTPC's.

The only thing louder than 2 Rapters in RAID 0 is 3 Raptors in RAID5 with a hotswap spare In a Lain Li V1000 (aluminum mesh G5 style) case. Sounded like a popcorn popper. And in RAID5 somethings always getting written somewhere. 4 Raptors in RAID.... what was I thinking.....

[albee1952]

I run both Seagate Barracuda and WD Caviar without issues. The Black version is built like a tank. There is also an "AV" version of the BLUE that is 32 meg cache and built like a tank(if you can find them). Of course, backing up everything is ALWAYS a good practice. I run 4 internal drives on my setup and only use externals for archive/backup and transfers.

[SoundWolf76]

Thanks folks.. now if I can get my 003 running for longer than 45 minutes.. we should be in business.

Damn digi003 might have cost me a client tonight. I'm fuming over this upgrade.

[SoundWolf76]

I'm probably going with the Black Series.

[pianosound]

I really like the WD caviar blacks. I noticed before this build that they where used by a lot of guys,, so thats all I've used since. WD also has great service. I had a drive quit on me, (but I'm sure it was an OS screw up), tried a few things, and then gave up. RMA'd it to WD and had a replacement drive back to me in a couple days,,, no questions asked! To me, that is quick and just good buisiness!! I have 9 WD drives, 2 machines. (Make sure you get the 32 MB cache, I believe thats all the black comes in,, but be sure). Mike