Seagate HD / RAID / Upgrade Question

Hi guys,

Just bought a Malibal P150HM-S1 that comes with a Seagate 500gb hard drive (Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS ).

I'm seeking some advice. I definitely want to go Raid O with 2 hard drives (already had the optical drive taken out and a HD caddy put in).

1. Should I keep the Seagate and buy another one just like it and put them into Raid?

2. Should I upgrade the hard drive myself - buy 2 scorpio blacks and RAID them. Or Momentus XT (they're about $90 now).

My MAIN concerns are NOISE (will the scorpios make more noise than Seagate?), battery life (I know RAIDing 2 HDs will eat up more, but how much more), heat and practical performance boost.

I will be gaming, watching movies, editing video, etc. on the laptop.

(I have raid 0 on my desktop now and love it).

SSD is probably not the best option at this point for me (need space and low on money)

THANKS!

 

The laptop does not have a hardware RAID controller. It will not work. Remember also, that the ODD bay is only SATA II.

Buy an SSD. It is not even close what the difference in performance will be. Use the 500GB as storage drive in the caddy. You can get a SATAIII 64GB SSD for $100. 128GB SSD for $200.

If you can't afford, save for it. There is no comparision. Do not waste your time and money on another mechanical drive and trying to RAID in this laptop. It doesn't support it and a SATAIII SSD in the primary bay is unlike anything you've ever experienced before. You'll boot in 15 seconds. Many programs will launch instantly. Games launch in 1/4 the time.

 

The P150HM does not have an onboard RAID controller, so you actually can't run RAID at all. The primary bay is SATA 3 and the optical drive is only SATA II, so be aware of that if you ever want to run SSD's.

To answer your question on RAID though, you'd get no benefit from Momentus XT hybrid drives in RAID anyway as it would have trouble using the onboard flash. Scorpio blacks would be the best option for high speed RAID if you had a machine to run them (and currently SSD's are a non starter because they don't support TRIM in RAID, so they'd degrade quickly). Powerwise, most HDD's use around 5 watts, so it'd be a negligible increase in power consumption overall- maybe a few minutes difference.

If you want RAID, the only current Sandy Bridge model would be the P170HM. You may however get better results buying an SSD for your primary drive and bumping the 500GB HDD over to the optical drive. You'll get better speeds (primarily seek times) by using an SSD than RAID HDD's anyway.

 

The Hybrid hard drives are a good, cheaper alternative though. And what 128 drive is going to hold a plethora of games? My games drive is 465GB and currently has 62 GB free.

Here's a little proof.
AnandTech - Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD

 

I'd have to agree totally. SSD's are small, but with a little fandangling (move user folders, change location of hibernation file/page file, move/disable the index) in Windows you easily make it work. I run a 64GB Agility 2 SSD in my desktop with a 750GB secondary drive - I can boot in 15 seconds flat, open most of my apps in milliseconds, and still have lots of space for storage of things like movies, music, and games. You have to be careful where you install things, but with options like symbolic linking in Windows now you can even fix things without reinstalling .

Indeed I'm starting off with a Momentus XT in my Pollux 1611, and in the next year or so plan on upgrading to an SSD when prices drop (as I'd like to keep my optical drive). If the optibay is an option for you I'd look at a 64GB SSD and move your momentus to the optical bay. If waiting is an option, I almost garuntee you that holiday or post holiday 2011 prices will aggressively drop for the larger SSDs (talking out my butt here).

Hope this is helpful.