Some advice re large capacity hard-drives please

Discussion in 'Storage Devices' started by longtalker, Oct 27, 2009.

  1. longtalker

    longtalker Geek Trainee

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    Hello everybody,

    I need a hard-drive of about 1 or 1.5 TB, and since I am not really up-to-date with the latest developments, I thought I'd ask people who have a better overall view of these things. My questions are:

    (1) Is it worth waiting a bit more until SSD drives become more prevalent, and then grab a cheap 1.5 TB traditional (electromechanical) drive? Although I need storage space quite badly, I'd be willing to wait a bit more if I had reason to believe their prices will drop sharply within a month or so!

    and

    (2) Is it true that large capacity (>1TB) traditional (electromechanical) hard drives are more prone to data loss and crashes than "normal" capacity ones (say, around 320 GB)? If so, are other technologies (such as SSD hard-drives, or perhaps even large-capacity USB flash drives) a better overall choice (taking both price and reliability into account), for the moment?

    Anticipated thanks for any replies, I really appreciate the help!
     
  2. Exfoliate

    Exfoliate Geek Trainee

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    While I'm by no means the leading authority on the matter I'd say go out and buy a 1+ TB drive now. They're becoming remarkably affordable and solid state drives are going to be ridiculously expensive for some time still. Even if there was a dramatic price drop before the holidays they'd still likely be an incredibly extravagant purchase.
    Don't get me wrong, solid state's going to be the way to go in the future but it'll be a long wait until it's a mainstream item.

    I could be wrong here but I think the slightly greater risk of data corruption etc. associated with having a lot more/denser platters is pretty much countered by high quality error protection and correction. I think you'll be all set with a big new drive.
     
  3. longtalker

    longtalker Geek Trainee

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    Many thanks for your reply Exfoliate!
     
  4. Exfoliate

    Exfoliate Geek Trainee

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    No problem, longtalker, I hope you get the drive you're looking for.
     

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