martyjr

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maybe i have missed something i don't understand why one would want a hard drive the size (nowadays) of 40,60 gig that would take hours to run a thorough scan and defrag instead of buying amotherboard capable of running say 4 drives of 15 to 20 gigs like abit kt7a raid one with programs,one for napster one for photo and video and one to play with linux to expermient with. i personaly don't get it .I would like everyone like to have a 100g drive but you will be waiting all day to use your comouter to do these tasks even if you run them at night.the initial cost of the board is cheap compared to large drives.maxtor isselling 15g drives now for $39 after rebate I know i'm opening a can of worms now.you could scan each drive at your leisure
 

ejsmith2

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I run two OS, and can easily fill 20 gig if I install 50% of the games I have to hard disk. There's games that pull upwards of 1.5gig nowdays. There's all kinds of stuff you can put on the drive, but there's another perk to the 40+gig disks. Speed. I get upwards of 38meg/s on my IBM 45gig drive, and the 75 gig are slightly faster. A 30 gig pulls a little less than 32meg/s, and it spirals downward from there.

If you're just running office or checking net/email, you'll never notice the speed difference. Bottom line is get something that will work for you. Take a look at the speed rating, and subtract at least 10% off the manufacturer's speed 'rating' for the actual data rate.
 
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maybe i have missed something i don't understand why one would want a hard drive the size (nowadays) of 40,60 gig >>that would take hours to run a thorough scan and defrag instead of buying amotherboard capable of running say 4 drives of 15 to 20 gigs like abit kt7a raid one with programs,one for napster one for photo and video and one to play with linux to expermient with. <<

It's cheaper.

>>i personaly don't get it .I would like everyone like to have a 100g drive but you will be waiting all day to use your comouter to do these tasks even if you run them at night.the initial cost of the board is cheap compared to large drives.maxtor isselling 15g drives now for $39 after rebate I know i'm opening a can of worms now.you could scan each drive at your leisure<<

There are better defrag programs than native Win9x. This is also another plus for modest partitioning for today's larger drives. Rebate? well remember ..there's no free lunch. We don't need to say anymore about that.


***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***
 

machow

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Well, not every one has 2 onboard IDE controllers. Most motherboards sold can support up to 4 IDE devices. So when you subtract 2 ports for DVD and CDRW, you are left with 2 more. Add one hard disk and you are left with one. And add another one it's total goodbye. I think we should manage our IDE ports usage wisely.

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This site is cool.
 
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Did u Fdisk the drive?

or use some software that came with it

Fdisk is best

-- They have found a way to harness the power of a thunderstorm and expell it with great force!--
 
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That's something I need to decide for myself as well, for I'm considering building a new system.

However, I found out that the price difference between, say, a 30GB drive and a 40GB drive (the same make, etc.) is usually some measly $15-20. Certainly, not the worth of the extra 10GB. So, should I get two 30GB drives or two 40GB drives instead (in either case, for a RAID 0 configuration)? I'm leaning toward the latter option.

Leo
 

Spdy_Gonzales

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You can have as many HD as you want...just add a controller board. However, if you have a large hard drive you can have as many logical drives as you want. Ideally, the boot partition (drive c:) should only be about 3 or 4 gig and contain Windows, and your program files. This way it will only take a few minutes to defrag the boot partition, especially if you do it often. You can defrag the partitions containing data files selectively as needed. You only need to defrag the windows and program files to facilitate a speedy boot up.

<b> JOHN HANCOCK </b>
 
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>>However, I found out that the price difference between, say, a 30GB drive and a 40GB drive (the same make, etc.) is usually some measly $15-20. Certainly, not the worth of the extra 10GB<<

Let's just hypothetically say you can get a 7200 RPM drive for 130, which is reasonable. That's $4.33/Gig.. and let's just say for an extra $30 since we're being reasonable you get 10 more G, which $3/Gig. Certainly worth it. In general although you pay more overall, you get more Gig per dollar with the larger drives.

***check the jumpers 1st then check em again***
 

dmcmahon

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Noise: A single large drive is quieter than a bank of smaller ones.

Speed: Larger drives are usually faster, since the transfer rate depends on the bit density on the platters (in fact, a 4-platter 40G drive is faster than an 8-platter 40G drive). You can get the same max transfer rate from a 80G 5400 RPM drive as you can from a 7200 40G drive, plus you get twice as much space!

Space: forget 72X CD-drives, try running those games entirely off the hard drive. Install MS-Office entirely to the hard drive, ditto Visual C++ and MSDN. Not having to fuss with CDs and sluggish CD speeds is a big plus.

Cost: there is a fixed cost for any drive, so up to a point you can get more storage for less $/G. The price optimum is about 40G these days -- you pay more per G to go to 75/80G but that will change when the 120s come out this summer.

IDE device limit: you only get 4 on most boards, as others have pointed out.

Only reason two drives would be better than one large one: swapping. If you are clever, you can arrange things so that your windows pagefile or Linux swap area is on the second drive. This is lots faster because the head can stay over the swap area regardless of what's happening on the main drive. However, it's cheaper and better to just add lots of memory to your system so you don't need to swap (at least under Linux).
 

Spdy_Gonzales

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I think that is what he was saying...the "worth of the extra 10G" was MORE than the $15-20. My reading is HE thought it was a bargain too.

<b> JOHN HANCOCK </b>