Which is better?

[archangelhawke]

I need some insight. I am looking to add storage to my build. I started out with a ssd for the boot drive, but now want to add storage.

I have a couple of questions:

Is it better to buy 2 larger drives and use 2 partitions on each or buy 4 drives of the same size and use 1 partition on each?

I have used WD Green drives in my other machine and have pounded them into the ground and they work without problem under constant use under Windows 7. Would I be better to use a Blue or Black drive for storage under OS X or would it not matter?

Thank you for all of the help in advance.

 

[YWO]

You haven't given any indication of what you're specifically trying to achieve with your storage configuration, so it won't be possible to provide you with specific advice. It sounds like you might be trying to set up a RAID, but advice on number of partitions and drives will vary depending on exactly what you are trying to set up. Any current hard disk drive that works under Windows should work just as well under MacOS.

 

[archangelhawke]

Sorry, I was thinking about setting this build up like my windows machine. 1 drive for storing music, 1 for os, 1 for storing programs and work files, 1 for backups. I wasn't planning on doing raid, but if that is recommended, I will look into it.

 

[ashman70]

RAID offers only redundancy and therefore protection from single drive failure, it still requires backup, it is itself, not a backup, a point missed by many.

It does not matter whether you use Green or Blue drives for storage, or how you partition your drives, that is more a personal choice, it will not affect the performance of OSX.

If you want to look into RAID, there are two kinds, software and hardware. Software is an option offered my many motherboards these days, the feature is built into the board, however its performance is not as good as hardware RAID, but it is cheaper. Hardware RAID, involves using a separate hardware controller, different controllers offer different kinds of RAID such as RAID 0 which is called striping, two drives are combined to one, to two 1TB drives would become one 2TB drive, however if one physical drive fails, all is lost as there is no redundancy. RAID 1 is called mirroring, two drives are mirrored, the data coexists on both drives simultaneously, if one drive fails, all data survies on the other drive. RAID 5 requires a minimum of three drives and is called striping with parity, three 1TB drives would become a single 2TB volume, if one drive is lost, all data survives on the remaining two drives, replace the failed drive and is is rebuilt.

One of the beauties of OSX is the simplicity with which time machine backs ups data, how well it works and how easy it is to recover data. While you can employ RAID solutions, I really see no need, as long as you have time machine configured and running. Just be sure to have enough backup storage to backup your data. External enclosures that employ RAID are common solutions, perhaps you should look into those.

 

[YWO]

archangelhawke: it sounds like a three-drive configuration (MacOS and applications on SSD, data/music on HDD, backup on HDD) would be fine for you. If you want a more discrete configuration, you could divide the data HDD into two partitions (one for data, one for music) and the backup HDD into two partitions (one for Time Machine, one for manual backups), or go to five drives. If you are going for one SSD and two HDDs, you might want to consider WD Black models for your data/music and WD Green models for your backup.