Hard Drive Questions

[Oh_Jeebus]

1) is it better to have one really big hard drive like say a 200gb or 2 smaller ones like 80gb each?

2) is it a good idea to get a fan for your hard drive?

 

[kof2000]

just split the 200 gb into 2 partitions one for ur boot side and one for storage.

depending on ur pc u may or may not want a hardrive cooler.

 

[Praetor]

1. Depends on your overall storage vs versatility needs. Smaller drives tend to be faster (99% of people wont notice the difference but people running mass file servers and such might). Smaller drives also mean less crap is lost if the drive fails. On the otherhand, a bigger drive means more space. You can still make partitions to split that 200GB drive into, say, 80GB chunks if you wish.

2. Suppose you leave a computer on all day (room temp ~20C) ... the end of the day the drive is pushin 50C ... pop in some cooling (even a basic 80mm case fan you tape/tie to the case or just plain point in the general direction of the drive) and the drive will be in the 30C range. I dont think the drive will incur damage or anything at 50C (or 60C as ive seen from time to time) and most likely the big motivator is personal preference. A simple fan should do the trick for most people ... if you're gonna be doing something like say a file/media/app-server and/or will have the machine on 24x7 you might even wanna get a "premium" fan which will knock the temps down to the 20-25C range. Watercooling is available but overkill for 99% of people

Basic Cooling:
http://www.xoxide.com/evhardrivcoo.html
http://www.xoxide.com/evinhddcool.html

A Step Up
http://www.xoxide.com/aoculhardriv.html
http://www.xoxide.com/vavohadrcosy1.html
http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/bus-37.html

Overkill
http://www.xoxide.com/ha.html


Hope that clears things up

 

[Oh_Jeebus]

ya that helped alot thx. ill just get a regular fan then and ill get the big 200gb instead. My computer wont' be on 24/7....maybe ill leave it on all night to download stuff sometimes but thats it. Ill just slap a fan in my computer. THANK YOU!!

 

[Praetor]

Glad I could clear things up!