Can't decide on what hard drives to buy

[The_Matrix]

As per the title really. Looking for some drives for storage. I've read on another forum that the "green" 5400 drives are not up to the job of streaming a single stream let alone multiple streams so it looks like I should go for a 7200 drive. If I want to be able to stream, say, 4 streams together can I do that off the same hard drive or only off different drives?

Also, looking for 4TB. Is it better to go for, say, 4x1TB or 2x2TB?

What RAID should I choose?

[bluntpistol]

Love to know where you read that 5400 drives are not up to the job. I use them and they are just fine. Maybe they were referring to one particular make/model???

Anyhow, I use the WD EARs series. A mixture of 1tb and 2tb drives, built up over time, hence not all the same size.

raid? Well, you should be looking at raid5. Ubuntu supports raid5 or you could go with a dedicted raid card. I think a raid card is better because processing is handled by the card and your not using cpu time calculating the parity. Less buggy too.

by the way, love the matrix films

[thinmintaddict]

I have a caviar green 5400 1.5 TB drive, and it has no problem streaming two different HD streams to my fiance's computer and my xbox at the same time.

I really like my drive, just don't buy it for the "Green." the actually power difference is minimal from everything I've read. I just like them because they're nice and quiet.