Extra HD for 6860

Hey all, quick ? for you... I want to add an extra HD in my 6860.

I will link the one I'm looking at cause I want to make sure that it is compatible before I buy. By the system info in windows I have a WD scorpio drive now so I planned on getting a similar model:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314

and in case the link won't work it is:

Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - OEM
-will this one work?

Thanks in advance

 

yes that will fit. but if you plan to use a raid0 set up (which by no means are you forced to) I would reccomend getting a matching drive. which would be this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136197

 

I see, I wasn't planning on doing the raid 0. If I understand correctly the performance gains are only mediocre.

Since you have the Raid 0 setup tell me, do you essentially have only 320 GB of total storage space or do you still have access to the full 640 GB? Also, what do you feel about the performance gains as far as gaming? I kinda figured going with a 7200 rpm drive would be better for gaming performance but I honestly don't know, just a guess.

Thanks for you help.

 

I didn't measure any fps or anything before my RAID was initialized so I can't really vouch for any noticeable improvements. It did speed up my boot time. I had I think 594GB of storage to utilize but I recently set up a dual boot with Ubuntu so i now have 500GB for windows and 90something for Ubuntu. From reading through threads and the minimal amount of research I've done into the subject a 7200rpm drive will give about the same performance (if not a tad better) than 2x5400rpm's in RAID0. Glad to help.

 

Actually the preformance gains are pretty significant in a RAID set up. You just have to determine if the risk (in RAID 0) or the loss of capacity (in RAID 1) is worth it to you.

With dual 7200RPM drives i get as close to a 10k RPM Raptors preformance as you can in a notebook, and alot better burst rate than a single drive. Plus i get the ease of having all of my drives act as a single drive and not have to worry about what goes where due to space limitations.

Also if your going to try RAID or a 7200rpm drive and expect any gaming increase your going to be sorely disappointed. Your hard drive has next to nothing to do with gaming. The only thing you'll get is faster stage load times... not really that big of a deal honestly.

The reason i use raid is for faster transfering of data, thats the only real thing its good for. I cant get 10K or 15K drives in a laptop so this is the best substitute for that. But honestly when the 7200rpm 500GB drives come out i'll probably break my raid so i can go back to tribooting, ans till have plenty of space