Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

Which type of hard drive is best?

Jan 23, 2012 10:21AM PST

I'm purchasing an NAS for use as general storage on my home network. The setup will be for 2 HDDs in a Raid configuration. Mainly I'm using the NAS for storing music, video, and documents. I will be streaming the music to my PS3. As I'm searching the HDD market, I'm having a hard time figuring out what type of hard drive is best. I'm looking at 1TB size. But there are different versions. for example, Western Digital has Caviar Green, Blue, and Black. While the Green ones tend to be slightly cheaper, will they be sufficient for my planned usage or would I be better off spending a little more and going for the Blue or Black?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Clarification Request
Which RAID?
Jan 23, 2012 11:37AM PST

I found RAID 1 to be trouble since there is no safety there. An error in some write is duplicated on both so both copies are gone.

RAID 0 is harsh but fast as one drive fails or gets a little corrupted and both are now corrupted.

RAID 5 starts to get there with you being able to pull a failing drive out and popping in a new one and it automagically starts working (see the DROBO).

Tell more.
Bob

- Collapse -
I had thought RAID 1...
Jan 23, 2012 2:38PM PST

I had only planned on having the 2 drives. I thought the point of RAID 1 was to allow for one drive failure without data loss.

I do have an external drive also that I could set up to back up whats on the RAID drives...

- Collapse -
Nice theory.
Jan 23, 2012 2:47PM PST

But data loss in my experience is the person that tapped the delete key. RAID 1 offers no protection from that or mirroring a directory flaw.

And let's cut to the chase. It's no substitute for a backup copy since any electrical fault fries 2 drives instead of one.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Which type of hard drive is best?
Feb 13, 2012 4:51AM PST

i would recommend that you get the solid state,these are durable and is cost worthy.

- Collapse -
I do not reccomend SSD.
Feb 13, 2012 4:54AM PST