Ok guy,
troubleshooting and recovery led to nowere without a new hard disk.

I need a suggestion for a solution.

I basically need a new Mass storage for my computer.

I was thinknig of a SSD for the bare minimum, or little more letīs say 50 t 60 GB and then a main storage system, letīs say a 200 or 300 GB HDD.

I do not need much more īcause I alread have 2x1TB Repository in external drives.
I read that many early adopters of SSD Actually had trouble with defective or quick-braking units.
Is there a all-included solution for a RAID device in the 300 GB range?

And suggestions?
Many thanks in advance, and sorry to bother.

Basically, mass storage = good old platter hard drives. Get the 1TB-3TB ones. SSDs are more for money burning holes in your pocket, or if you want a faster boot-OS drive. Recommend at least 120GB SSDs, 256GB if you can. Higher GB = faster performance.

The lower 'native' capacities for current desktop system HDDs are 500 GB and 1 TB. Standard desktop HDDs are 3.5" form factor and you can get a 500 GB that has 1 disc and 2 heads. Better reliability IMO than multi-disc drives.

I'm of the opinion any more that SSDs are going to last OK - Intel is offering 5 year warranties on theirs. Pair an SSD, or an HDD, with a good daily backup strategy and you will be fine.

There are hybrid drives in 2.5" FF but the jury is still out on those. I tried a hybrid for DCS A-10C but was unhappy with stuttering so I moved the install back to a regular HDD - now the stuttering may have been due to my new graphics card settings and I've resolved those, so hoping that later this week I can re-install A-10C on the hybrid to see if was part of the stuttering issue. ...waiting for the next A-10C patch...

WC

Thanks to the both of you.
Gettinīhalf an idea.

Please, keepīem coming. (suggestions I mean)

128 GB SATA 3 SSD + 1 TB WD VelociRaptor

http://wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=20

Hey guod, nice find.
Is it a system you use? Any suggestion for SSD brand?

WHOA, best bang for buck.

Impressed by WD and Crucial...

Has anyone bought this "Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB"?

Seems a very good compromise between 10K rpm and a "normal" HDD...

I have the 2TB version, and there's definitely a performance gain for data xfer compared to most 7200rpm drives with the high cache and double platter (IIRC the 500gb ver. uses a single platter). My year+ old install of Windows7 still takes well less then a minute to load from POST.
I've had it for over a year, and overall it was a good compromise until I can find a good deal on an SSD

I have the 1TB WD Caviar Black and it's the fastest 7200 RPM drive I have ever owned. All my games except Rise of Flight are on it. I also have a 600GB 10k RPM Velociraptor for my OS and apps and plan on getting the 1TB 10k RPM Velociraptor drive this September (Maybe sooner) for my gaming storage. Then I'll move over the 1TB Caviar Black for backup and storage.

Awesome! Thanks to all!

i have a 1.5 TB Western Digital BLACK, and it loads windows 7 quickly even after 3 months of adding programs left and right,

its all about managing start up items and services. 60% of the services that are set to AUTO that startup with windows arent needed by the normal home user.

my windows Boots from Post to usable desktop in less than 20 seconds. I dont need a SSD.

SSD by it self is asking for trouble,

I'd Recommend a 60-128 GB SSD With a 1+TB Traditional HDD, and have it set to make backups to the Traditional HDD.

for the SSD only have windows on it, set programs and "User" folders (my pix, my vids etc) to the traditional Drive.

I'm running 2 Crucial M4 SSD's in my game machine. Don't have the need for a 1TB drive but if I did, it would be the new VelociRaptor 1TB.

http://www.crucial.com/store/ssd.aspx

Ok awesome the HDD arrived.

What? I do not sound too happy? Well Iīm absolutely not.

I ordered through a "trusted" site --> Redcoon.

All is good, price is cheap and shipping is fast.

Turns out the HDD they sent me was just in its antistatic plastic bag, in a brown paper envelope...

Yeah, you got it right:
no bubble wrap, no padding no anything.

Rightfully me wife accepted the package only after having the courier to acknowledge that in a written form.
I already wrote the support and Iīll take my time to check the goods.

Any suggestion on a good HDD scanning software?
If it boots at all that is...

So bad, men, soooo bad.

Boot it, Align it.

I dunno if scanning the entire thing would be good for it or not.

Pardon me...

Align it?

Why it could be bad to scan it?
What would(nīt?) you use?

Google SSD Alignment.

Im not sure if a Scanning program wouldn't damage an SSD by reading/writing to the entire flash array. something that has been known to completely render an SSD Useless.

Might need to Google an SSD Compatible Scan program as well.

Windows 7 should be able to run disk/error check fine though.

Just I maybe forgot to remark that I actually bought not a SSD but a WD platters HDD.

Does the same applies?
Thanks in advance.

PS: I did google "align HDD Windows 7" but the results were a bit vague...
It basically only applies to raid, is it?

traditional HDDs?

Boot it, format it, and then run error checking in windows.

monitor SMART Status's.

Should I manage to install the new HDD, and to find out that the old ones still holds usable data, what would you use (possibly freeware) to port all my old stuff onto the new stuff?

Ok then, it's sorted.

SMART at the boot up tells me that the new unit is no more trustable and to backup data and change it as it may soon fail.

*groan*

At least costumer support answered me really fast and will send me another one.

Or should I ask a refund and just buy it somewhere else?

RMA and ask them to ship it correctly.

i bet if you ship it back to them the same way they shipped it to you, they would refuse it.

So, send it back in a static bag, wrapped in bubble wrap, in a box.

hehehe I really was thinking the same!
They contacted me already and seems fine so far. Willing to replace.

just let everyone in the house know, if it comes in a unpadded envelope again, refuse it.

HDDs should be shipped in a Small box, with supports on both ends of the hdd

like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v150/aznhomig/CIMG0894.jpg

Last request for PROTIP,
what is the performance difference between Caviar Black, Green and Blue?

'Cause I've found a 2TB Caviar Green for the same price as the 500GB Caviar Black...

Is all that padding important? I understand just static bag+envelope is quite stupid, but I bought a HDD from an eBayer who just had a static bag, a small fitting brown box, then a semi-padded envelope (one layer of bubble wrap). Did a scan of the HDD and found nothing after two runs. Should I be worried?

If I were to sell my HDDs, would the plastic container most HDDs come in be a good protection device (plus bubble wrap, of course)?

Thanks!

The black is about 50% faster. If you can find two 1TB greens for the same price as one 500GB and make a RAID0 drive, you have about the same performance.

I was googling some new video card too, actually...

Since I have a very nice 9800 GTX Black edition, that's now my bottleneck, what would be a 150$ card that would give me some graphic boost?

Doesn't have to be DX11...

I think all cards around the 150$ mark would give you a nice boost. For an AMD card around that price would be a 6850. I don't know if an nVidia 550Ti will outperform a 460.

greens are way slower than blacks... and also have a shorter warranty period.

Got a new 1TB Caviar Black:

Installed all works all cool Iīm half happy.

Only half because I still have a problem recovering data from the old SATA Drive.
I plug it and it make the sound of a Floppy Disk drive trying to read a bad diskette.

Now...
Itīs not really much I want out of that old drive.

I just have my Drawings.
Itīs not much for an average Joe, but it took a painstaking month of adjusting Layers and splitting the drawing into them to allow for after work...

Itīs my best job so far, the Mosquito for CombatHelo.

I really hold it dear.

Any tip?

Any?

Thank you guys so much in advance... :P

That sound is called the click of death for a reason. Either the platters are not turning or one of the heads is stuck to a platter. Probably a goner.