Jump to content

How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration

wpirobotbuilder
 Share
Posted
  • Author

I've updated some part references to more modern parts, notably the 850 Pro, the 730, the Ultra Plus, and the MX100.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
Posted

What are your thoughts on hybrid drives? They seem like a great middle ground between HDD and SSDs, but there’s not a ton of information on them. I am a moderate to serious gamer looking to build a desktop for basic needs plus a lot of games. I am trying to create a capable rig while keeping on a budget. From what I have seen on SSHDs, it seems as though most people recommend separate HDD and SSD drives. I know that a dedicated SSD will be much faster for what’s on it, such as the OS and some games, but they ramp up in price quickly and as I said I’d like to stay on a budget. Also, the automatic management of files is appealing to me, because the hard drive itself chooses which files to store on flash storage. This is not a huge deal to most people, but I am bad at making decisions. I can foresee myself always worrying about where to put my files, how fast I should fill up the SSD, which games I play most, what programs I demand the most of, etc. to impact my decision on where to put things. I like how a hybrid automatically knows which files are accessed most frequently, and stores those on the SSD portion. Yet, despite the seemingly great pairing of affordability and fast (not quite as fast as SSDs, but fast) speeds, most people seem to recommend, even insist, that one should get separate drives. I just don’t know if there is some obvious deal breaker, some downside that I am missing (aside from the obvious: the slight decrease in performance over SSDs).

In short, I love the price and ease of use provided by a hybrid SSHD drive, but I just want to know whether the performance drop is that bad that it’s just wasting my time and I should get a separate SSD like most people (besides Linus, apparently, in the AFAP episode on SSD Caching) seem to think.

By the way, this is my supposed build so far:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RpQqVn

 

Thanks for any and all of your help! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I'm in the process of tuning up an old PC (I hesitate to use the word upgrade as it's secondary machine) and I'd really like to replace the boot drive with an SSD. After getting used to my current PCs boot times going back to HDD boot times is a bit of a shock.

 

I'm looking at around the 60GB range as it only needs to have the OS on it and some basic programs. I was looking at the Intel 530 series but there are significantly cheaper options available for the same capacity. In particular this one and was wondering if it's a good SSD, there's just a part of me that thinks an SSD for £34 is too good to be true. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author

I'm in the process of tuning up an old PC (I hesitate to use the word upgrade as it's secondary machine) and I'd really like to replace the boot drive with an SSD. After getting used to my current PCs boot times going back to HDD boot times is a bit of a shock.

 

I'm looking at around the 60GB range as it only needs to have the OS on it and some basic programs. I was looking at the Intel 530 series but there are significantly cheaper options available for the same capacity. In particular this one and was wondering if it's a good SSD, there's just a part of me that thinks an SSD for £34 is too good to be true. 

Yeah it's fine. It isn't the fastest drive out there, but for basic use it's all you'd need.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 months later...
Posted

Say I built a computer with just a HDD as the storage. Now I currently own an SSD and I still have windows 7 on it's disk. If I add windows to the SSD and then mount both drives will one wipe the other because that is what it sounds like windows is telling me. If so how would I export the things I need onto an external? Also does this post belong here? Should I take this up with OS and Software?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
Posted

do you have to have a hdd or can i have an ssd then add a hard drive later on 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

do you have to have a hdd or can i have an ssd then add a hard drive later on 

 

 

yes you can add hard disk later. you can use ssd even without the hdd.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Posted
  • Author

Updated with information about NVMe drives and SMR drives.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
Posted

i'm a 13 year old kid who got 160gb sata and i ran with this 2 years, now i got another 160gb ide and im okay

why should you get 100tb storages

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...
Posted
On ٣٠‏/١٠‏/١٤٣٤ هـ at 7:02 PM, wpirobotbuilder said:

How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices

 

Everybody needs storage, some of us need more of it than others (I'm looking at you 10TB+ storage topic). The primary media for data storage these days is the hard disk drive (HDD) and, in recent years, the solid state drive (SSD). From the most basic of users to enterprise-level systems, these two devices are used to fulfill our storage needs in varying configurations to meet a given workload.

 

My hope is that this will serve as a tutorial to guide storage newcomers in choosing their own storage configurations. While this post will advise the type of drive to use, there will be additional posts linked here to shorter tutorials on:

 

First, we must ask ourselves: Exactly what ARE hard drives and solid state drives?'

Hidden Content

 

Now that you know what storage does, you might also be interested in a better or even “the best” (gasp) storage solution. You start asking some questions.

 

What type of drive is best for me?

Hidden Content

 

Okay, now you ask another question:

 

What size is best for me?

Hidden Content

Cool, so now you know if you need a little, average, or a lot of storage space. Now on to your next question:

 

How much does storage cost?

Hidden Content

 

Why pay more for a hard drive or SSD, you might ask?

Hidden Content

Now you might be worried that, at some point, your storage device is going to fail.

 

All storage devices will fail at some point, but the question is when?

Hidden Content

 

Let's talk about performance.

Hidden Content

 

Why is there such a range for random access on SSDs?

Hidden Content

 

Okay, now it's time to ask:

 

What will you be doing with your system?

Hidden Content

In the end, the choice is up to you, the user. I hope this guide has been successful in helping you choose the type of storage that will give you the most value for your money, and I wish you luck as you explore the vast possibilities of the wonderful world of storage.

 

I'd also like to give credit to Whaler_99 for reviewing and providing some critique on this guide, and to looney for directing me to Whaler.

 

Finally, I'd like to thank Linus for his videos, from which I learned much of my initial knowledge about storage, which was built upon by my years in the IT industry.

Hello,

Thank you for your description. It was spectacular.

 

But i have a question which is:

Will the defragmentation and disk clean-up effect on "SSDs" when i do it?

Some people said defragmentation will sure effects on "SSDs", i want you please to insure it for me.

In other way, Disk clean-up doesn't effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
14 hours ago, H_ALHUSAM said:

Hello,

Thank you for your description. It was spectacular.

 

But i have a question which is:

Will the defragmentation and disk clean-up effect on "SSDs" when i do it?

Some people said defragmentation will sure effects on "SSDs", i want you please to insure it for me.

In other way, Disk clean-up doesn't effect.

You should not run defragment an SSD, there is no real need to, and it shortens the lifespan of the drive.

 

Defragmentation was invented for mechanical hard drives, where read performance is very good when all the bytes for your files are stored together, in order. There are some other benefits to defragmentation on hard drives, such as better usage of the amount of storage on disk, but I would say they're less important than the performance.

 

Generally, your files are written as a set of contiguous bytes, however modification of the files may require putting different parts of the file in different places. When you later want to read that file, your hard drive cannot read the whole file as a single operation, so it must perform multiple reads on different parts of the disk, lowering your read performance.

 

SSDs do not have this problem because it takes the same amount of time to read from every cell regardless of its physical location. Defragmenting will not give any performance benefits. Additionally, because defragmentation does a lot of physical data moving, you will perform lots of write and erase operations, which reduce the lifespan of the SSD.

 

 

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
2 hours ago, wpirobotbuilder said:

You should not run defragment an SSD, there is no real need to, and it shortens the lifespan of the drive.

 

Defragmentation was invented for mechanical hard drives, where read performance is very good when all the bytes for your files are stored together, in order. There are some other benefits to defragmentation on hard drives, such as better usage of the amount of storage on disk, but I would say they're less important than the performance.

 

Generally, your files are written as a set of contiguous bytes, however modification of the files may require putting different parts of the file in different places. When you later want to read that file, your hard drive cannot read the whole file as a single operation, so it must perform multiple reads on different parts of the disk, lowering your read performance.

 

SSDs do not have this problem because it takes the same amount of time to read from every cell regardless of its physical location. Defragmenting will not give any performance benefits. Additionally, because defragmentation does a lot of physical data moving, you will perform lots of write and erase operations, which reduce the lifespan of the SSD.

 

 

Thanks a lot, you were very helpful.

but the disk clean-up does not effects on SSDs in anyway?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
2 hours ago, H_ALHUSAM said:

Thanks a lot, you were very helpful.

but the disk clean-up does not effects on SSDs in anyway?

It provides no benefit, and slightly harms the SSD.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
4 hours ago, wpirobotbuilder said:

It provides no benefit, and slightly harms the SSD.

Ok that's what i want, thank you so much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 months later...
Posted

I have a WD Scorpio Blue 320 GB laptop hard drive. It can be used as portable usb device, but OS can't be installed on it. What to do to install OS(Windows 7) on it??? Help me plz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted
  • Author
On 7/24/2016 at 11:46 AM, SmartGamer278 said:

I have a WD Scorpio Blue 320 GB laptop hard drive. It can be used as portable usb device, but OS can't be installed on it. What to do to install OS(Windows 7) on it??? Help me plz.

I would paste this question as a new thread in the Storage section of the forum.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
Posted

SmartGamer278.

You need to find some 'Cloning' software.

 

I use XXClone (they have demo and free versions), but there are others out there.

 

from their web-site....

What is XXCLONE?                              

 

  • XXCLONE copies (clones) your Windows system disk into another disk with the system files, installed applications, and all of your data files.

     

  • It is an ideal tool for periodic system disk backup on a regular basis.

     

  • It makes the target disk Self-Bootable that can replace your main disk without further steps (such as the Restore procedure).

     

  • It can migrate your Windows disk into a new one with a different capacity (typically to a larger one).

     

  • Our proprietary HyperSync algorithm makes the periodic backup operation extremely fast.

     

  • XXCLONE operates inside the Windows environment which allows you to use your computer while XXCLONE runs in the background.

     

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted

goodevening sir, im from the philippines I just want to ask for help because I will buy a hard drive for my pc's, laptop, etc. What brand of hard drive can you suggest? only 1TB and cheap maybe 85$ like that. thankyou sir!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Author
On 9/4/2016 at 10:56 AM, jabi said:

goodevening sir, im from the philippines I just want to ask for help because I will buy a hard drive for my pc's, laptop, etc. What brand of hard drive can you suggest? only 1TB and cheap maybe 85$ like that. thankyou sir!

Any brand is fine, the two most popular I know of are Western Digital and Seagate. The WD Blue, or the Seagate Desktop drives are good choices.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use, and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. - Galileo Galilei
Build Logs: Tophat (in progress), DNAF | Useful Links: How To: Choosing Your Storage Devices and Configuration, Case Study: RAID Tolerance to Failure, Reducing Single Points of Failure in Redundant Storage , Why Choose an SSD?, ZFS From A to Z (Eric1024), Advanced RAID: Survival Rates, Flashing LSI RAID Cards (alpenwasser), SAN and Storage Networking

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 1 month later...
Posted

Procssor: intel core i5 2500

motherboard: pegatron 2ab5

ram: 7gb

hard drive: 5gggb sata

ps: arecool rave 500W

 

What graphics card can you suggest to my pc? I'm a gamer. Is there anything i can upgrade?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 5 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing Storage Devices

×