New storage drive upgrades help!

Hello everyone i just have a few questions about some drives i would like to put in my alienware m17x R2! i have a few questions?


I know this is a very stupid question but i have a budget of 400 dollars and i know many people have talked about HDD vs SSD!

i was either thinking about raiding two 7200 rpm hdd or having one ssd and one new 7200 rpm hdd!

If anyone has any ideas or recommendations please inform me any information is great!

To note i have a toshiba 320 GB 5400 rpm drive in right now

 

OCZ Vertex 3 SSD (550MB/s 500MB/s read/write) 120 Gig (around 270 USD) + Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid 500Gb w/ 32Mb SSD cache (around 100 USD)

That would be my choice for my alienware if I had 400 USD for disk space. I'll then use SSD as my main drive with OS & games on it. Use Momentus for everything else. I would not RAID my setup as well. Not needed if you have Vertex 3 series with 500Mb/s already ! Saves money, gives same performance as Vertex 2 in RAID (can every achieve) & also gives you more capacity.

Thats just my point of view for 400 USD well spent!

 

that is what i was thinking and just to note the vortex 3 will fit in my R2 right? and there are two versions of the seagate momentus XT hybrid the

Seagate STAN500100 Momentus XT 500 GB Solid State Hybrid Hard Drive
and the
Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive
any difference?

also one more question dell support said i needed to buy a part to install new hard drives is this true?

thanks for all your help

 

There is no point in using a momentus ssd hybrid for a second drive. That drive was designed to speed up boot times and load of often used files.

If you are using an SSD for your boot/primary drive then you would be better served for your money going with a Western Digital Scorpio Black 750Gb. More storage and you will not notice a degradation in performance given its use. More bang for the buck, essentially.

That is my couple of cents. I would spend the money on a decent sized SSD and a 750Gb black.

 

@OP, don't bother with a vertex 3. It is SATA III. The max an r2 can support is SATA II (max read write somewhere in the neighborhood of 280~)

I would go with an intel 320 or last gen intel x-25. The ocz vertex2 has a long documented history of failures (just check the ssd thread). I also would advise just getting a 750gb western digital or waiting for a 1tb 9.5mm. The seagate momentus xt is nice, but if you get a ~240-256gb ssd, you will be able to store everything necessary and can then just store media and other stuff on the hdd, where you'll be glad you took the mass storage option.

Also, both of those drives above are indeed the same

I would open up your lappy to see if it has the everything you need. I think it needs a cable or something? I'm no tech guru, wait for one of the other far more experienced guys to chime in

 

No cable is needed. Just the barebones drive.