PCA Forums

What do you think the best larger drives are now, fast and low cost with a long life?

My plan is to start adding some drives for specific use,

I got into this 3D image animation stuff. Not any good at it, but I have tons of content I need to save the install files and the actual working runtimes folders.

I am thinking, to avoid the problem I have now with systems being different and Windows drive letters for drives being different I might install new drives just for 3D stuff. Present;y because various things are on drives I can't change the drive letters because I would break all the paths to programs and stuff.

My thought is install a large drive broke into various logical drives, Say a 600 gig as 3 200gig drives or a 1TB as 4 250gig drives.
Then start as R: with these new drives. I think the most any system has is been around K:

Starting at R: (for runtimes, all the working content folders) then adding S: to "Store" the downloaded install files, then T: for all my created works and such. With a system like this I think I could keep everything organized on any number of computers all the same.

Anyone see a problem with this? Starting at R: and keeping the rest of R-Z reserved for specific use? My thought is that I never had a system get any where near R: yet so I should be able to clone and install the exact same file system to any number of computers on dedicated drives starting at R:

Also using this system as I am thinking, it would give be a backup on each computer and an external drive all exactly the same.
Basically as I get new files and install them I install to the External drive for back up, then I make a back up of that drive and restore to each computer.
I would have at least 3 drives exactly the same most of the time, however well I keep up with the system!

Also would incremental backups work for this? Install new stuff to the External drive, just back up the new stuff, restore that new backup to the other computer drives?

The big problem I have sometimes is jumping from 2 or 3 systems and the laptop. If the content is not installed in the same path on each system then files I create on computer 1 do not open correct on computer 2 etc...
Also I think with this system then all hard drives are in use on a system, nothing just taking up space and money sitting there, and then if 1 goes bad I have several others should be exactly the same for backups!

All my programs I would probably install to C: or D: etc... since they would be computer specific in some ways like how set up for graphics cards etc.. or I may install them to a P: for programs to keep them away from Windows!

I'm assuming sharing the files on a file server or a NAS is not practical? If everything will be networked I'd really recommend a NAS, let every PC access it over the network, and then backup the NAS. Then you'd still have redundancy with the RAID array in the NAS, and the backup of the NAS. I've been using the NetGear ReadyNAS RND4250 for a couple of client's projects recently. A cheaper alternative is unRAID which lets you build a NAS from any old beige box you have lying around.

As for your scheme, yes that would work to keep the location of your data consistent across different PCs. I assume you are aware that you can tell Windows to assign a specific drive letter to a partition and if you start at a high enough letter you'll avoid any issues when Windows auto-assigns letters (although if one does encroach it will just pick the next available letter above your assigned drives). Keep your programs on the boot partition, and just keep the data on the high partitions and synchronize the data between the different PCs.

You will need some kind of synchronizing backup program. I've been using Allway Sync which Exec recommended a while back. Good program for that sort of thing. You can set it up to sync files automatically, even bidirectionally, and either on a schedule, automatically when a removable drive is connected, or manually.

As for drive make I would recommend Seagate drives with a 5 year warranty. I have been very disappointed in the failure rate of WDC drives using perpendicular recording. I have seen a huge number of failures of newer WDC drives among my clients - especially those over 500Gb.

I am also quite annoyed with WDC's RMA procedure lately, having gone through a nightmare with them. Just last week I had a client who had TWO 1 year old WDC 320Gb HDDs fail within days of each other (both were installed on different PCs at the same time). When I requested an ADVANCED RMA it took a ridiculous 21 days for them to send me a drive!! When it arrived the replacement was STONE DEAD. No power.

Seagate RMAs are very smooth and you'll get an advance RMA in 2 -3 days. I never have a problem with them.

HOWEVER keep in mind that "long life" and "reliable" does not go hand in hand with "big drives". The highest density drives use new tech that pushes the limits. The areal density of >1Tb drives is such that I wouldn't exactly consider them "reliable" in the long term. That's why I have my clients stick with <500Gb drives for anything mission critical.

Not to contradict, but the failure rate on Seagates have been up as well (though WD certainly takes the cake). I've been hearing nothing but good things about he Samsungs lately though.

Like this one with only 1 negative review out of 132 (very rare on Newegg):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822152175

This of course is referring to the 1gb+ sized drives. Seagate has been good to me though. Haven't run into anyone with one over 320mb yet (other than my own), & those were from more reliable times. That said, the 4 Seagates I personally own all still work fine. Definately consider FP's suggestion on a NAS or at least consider getting a RAID 1 setup going if you care for your work.

I won't always have the computers at the same locations all the time so I think a Server or NAS is pretty much out. I also want the files to load fast as they can, sometimes with 3D content and scene files they get big and take awhile to load up. I'll look into the NAS though, sound useful for another thing I want to do.

Yep. I know I can assign the drive letters, so this way I can go to the end of the list
My problem now is that I already had things installed on drives I am using so I can't change those letters now.

I will look at that Allway Sync , thanks, sound like what I need for this.

I only had to RMA 1 drive in the last couple years, a Maxtor after Seagate bought them, it went pretty smooth. Didn't know about the other makers RMA's.

OK, so I should probably stick with 500gig drives? That's still larger than I have now and maybe do me awhile. I was thinking 1TB maybe as the cost per gig is less and I plan to have at least 3 drives nearly always exactly the same, 2 computers and an external.
I have plenty of Sata ports for now, so I can add more drives later if needed.

Although I don't want to loose any work I do, the big thing really is it is such a pain to setup the runtimes for the 3D content files. Stuff just gets jumbled around hard to find and use, seems like no real system!
I want to install the files once, arrange them so I can find stuff, then never have to do it all again! Keep every system the same.
If I ever lost it after I get done I'd never get it done the same way again.
When I'm trying to work on an image and I know I have an item like a sword, but can't find it, it wastes a ton of time and very irritating.

Actually, the 500gb ones are where the trouble started, but they seem to be getting things in order. Definitely check the reviews before buying.

Well, so long as you are backing your stuff up on another drive regularly, then I'd definitely recommend a RAID 0 setup.

I haven't been doing any raid and forgot which is 0
I don't want to span drives to get better speeds if that was 0

Basically I want the files to load and save fast as the drive will go and that should be fast enough. A little wait time is ok, gives me time to get more coffee LOL
Just don't want any bottlenecks slowing anything down any slower than it should be.

RAID 0 is no redundancy (thus the "zero"), spans 2 drives and improves access time

RAID 1 is a mirror array, each drive mirrors the other drive for full redundancy

That's kinda what I thought the Raid 0 was.
I don't think I want to do raid.

Seems like you're a bit contradicted then. You want faster access times, but you don't want to do a setup with faster access. I guess if a single drive's access times are good enough for you, then so be it. If I had to wait lengthy times to access stuff though, I'd go nuts.

Ive always ran Raid 0 but I keep all my good stuff on a seperate hdd. Two 1TB in raid 0 right now.

For fast access times I basically want a decent fast drive and have it run fast as it will go, no bottlenecks or anything to slow it anywhere.

I have a habit also of moving my drives around, system to system sometimes, so Raid 0 would be a problem for me I think. Also I would need 2 drives for each system running the Raid.