What HD about 200-350 GB would recomend?

[Pares]

Hi i asking some advices on buyng my next HD, i updated nearly all the PC (asusp5bdeluxe,core2e6600,2gbram,7900gs) and i thouht tahat i colud keep my olds HD's nearly all new motherboards only have an ide connector and i'm not gonna a waste a pci (only 2) on a ide card so What serial ata 3GB/s wolud you recomend for a PC that is always on 24/7, 16 Mb cache neded?

I'm not sure even on the brand, the first HD that really crashed (chip smoking and craked while use) was my old 10GB WD, i had a partition page error on a 80 gb maxtor and..

Thanks for your help

 

[1Tanker]

Hi i asking some advices on buyng my next HD, i updated nearly all the PC (asusp5bdeluxe,core2e6600,2gbram,7900gs) and i thouht tahat i colud keep my olds HD's nearly all new motherboards only have an ide connector and i'm not gonna a waste a pci (only 2) on a ide card so What serial ata 3GB/s wolud you recomend for a PC that is always on 24/7, 16 Mb cache neded?

I'm not sure even on the brand, the first HD that really crashed (chip smoking and craked while use) was my old 10GB WD, i had a partition page error on a 80 gb maxtor and..

Thanks for your help

Without a doubt, the Seagate 320GB 7200.10. I, as well as many members on the forum have these, and they are an awesome drive. You'll find most posters will recommend this also. GL Just look at the reviews..It's been out less than a year, and 1000 reviews-overall rating..5 eggs.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140

 

[chuckshissle]

Also recommend a Western Digital 300Gb Cavair SE.

 

[jonkc]

Just got this in my e-mail from newegg

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 3.5" Hard Drive
Model #: ST3500630AS
· 500GB, 7200 RPM
· SATA 3.0Gb/s
· 16MB Cache
Price: $149.99
After $50.00 Promo Code: EMC123500GBSGTE

Here is the Link

 

[chuckshissle]

Nice deal.

 

[SCBUcFanTX]

Hi i asking some advices on buyng my next HD, i updated nearly all the PC (asusp5bdeluxe,core2e6600,2gbram,7900gs) and i thouht tahat i colud keep my olds HD's nearly all new motherboards only have an ide connector and i'm not gonna a waste a pci (only 2) on a ide card so What serial ata 3GB/s wolud you recomend for a PC that is always on 24/7, 16 Mb cache neded?

I'm not sure even on the brand, the first HD that really crashed (chip smoking and craked while use) was my old 10GB WD, i had a partition page error on a 80 gb maxtor and..

Thanks for your help

Without a doubt, the Seagate 320GB 7200.10. I, as well as many members on the forum have these, and they are an awesome drive. You'll find most posters will recommend this also. GL Just look at the reviews..It's been out less than a year, and 1000 reviews-overall rating..5 eggs.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140


Can I store my hard drive and games and such on a hard drive like that one? Does it matter what kind of HDD i use for my OS?? I'm sort of a newbie at this and am confused by the hundreds of HDD's claiming to be the best!

 

[1Tanker]

Hi i asking some advices on buyng my next HD, i updated nearly all the PC (asusp5bdeluxe,core2e6600,2gbram,7900gs) and i thouht tahat i colud keep my olds HD's nearly all new motherboards only have an ide connector and i'm not gonna a waste a pci (only 2) on a ide card so What serial ata 3GB/s wolud you recomend for a PC that is always on 24/7, 16 Mb cache neded?

I'm not sure even on the brand, the first HD that really crashed (chip smoking and craked while use) was my old 10GB WD, i had a partition page error on a 80 gb maxtor and..

Thanks for your help

Without a doubt, the Seagate 320GB 7200.10. I, as well as many members on the forum have these, and they are an awesome drive. You'll find most posters will recommend this also. GL Just look at the reviews..It's been out less than a year, and 1000 reviews-overall rating..5 eggs.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140


Can I store my hard drive and games and such on a hard drive like that one? Does it matter what kind of HDD i use for my OS?? I'm sort of a newbie at this and am confused by the hundreds of HDD's claiming to be the best! Yeah, you can. Perpindicular Magnetic Recording doesn't make it act any different than a regular HD. If it didn't say it had it, you wouldn't be able to tell. It's just a SATA3g drive, and is (like the others) backwards compatable with SATA 150. GL

 

[axjax]

This is an interesting thread to me because I've about had it with "IBM" Deathstar drives, and I'm hoping to build a new SFF PC this spring and I want to make sure that all my pictures, graphics projects, and other data is going to be safe and secure... and not lost to a flaky drive.

I'm assuming that when I build it, the motherboard will handle SATA drives (obviously), and I'll probably use a external USB drive as a backup. I recently bought an IOmega 250 Gig USB 2.0 drive and its worked like a charm (so far).

But it seems like the Seagate ST3320620AS is a well-supported recommendation here. One of my questions for the more experienced, is whether it's risky to put all your eggs in one basket (OS/Programs/Data all on one large fast drive) or use a smaller... say 125 Gig HDD for OS/Programs and a second bigger drive for data? Of course, not many SFF setups like having two HDDs... right? If it were _that_ reliable, then that 500 Gig version for $149.99 with rebate might be interesting as the primary drive for my new rig. $95.00/320 Gigs vs $150.00/500 Gigs?

 

[techgeek]

One of my questions for the more experienced, is whether it's risky to put all your eggs in one basket (OS/Programs/Data all on one large fast drive) or use a smaller... say 125 Gig HDD for OS/Programs and a second bigger drive for data? Of course, not many SFF setups like having two HDDs... right? If it were _that_ reliable, then that 500 Gig version for $149.99 with rebate might be interesting as the primary drive for my new rig. $95.00/320 Gigs vs $150.00/500 Gigs?

Well I have personally only run one drive for many years. What I like to do is make a small (less than 20% of total drive space) partition to put all my downloads, patches so I don't have to re-download these. The rest of the drive I use for OS/apps/data. If I deem it necessary to re-install windows, I copy anything from My Documents (like pictures, music, videos) over to my other partition. Then I reformat the windows partition and re-install everything. I don't have a lot of data, so I don't really need a huge second partition, others may have different computing habits/needs and therefore want a larger storage partition. Of course if the drive itself (not the file structure) goes bad, you're SOL. Either way you should have a backup of anything you can't replace. That's what DVD's are for.

To the OP, as many have said here, and as you can see in my sig, the 320 Gig from Seagate is awesome. Fast, quiet, reliable (so far) good features. I have it running SATA 300 with NCQ enabled. I don't really think there is much of a difference with running it in SATA 300 versus 150 or for that matter with NCQ, but I like to use the features the drive comes with.

 

[axjax]

I hear ya... I've done this (primary/secondary partition) before with partition magic, but haven't done this recently. Is PM still needed? If not, how do you do it?

I've never installed XP before, and I just bought a temporary SFF PC without an OS from a forum member. The machine has a 80 Gig SATA drive. Do I have to format the drive before installing the OS. I have my W2K Pro from my now-dead pc, or I can buy XP. Undecided at this point, but I have to decide next week when the temp pc arrives. On this machine I will probably forget about partitioning... I just need it to work with very few programs.

 

[1Tanker]

I hear ya... I've done this (primary/secondary partition) before with partition magic, but haven't done this recently. Is PM still needed? If not, how do you do it?

I've never installed XP before, and I just bought a temporary SFF PC without an OS from a forum member. The machine has a 80 Gig SATA drive. Do I have to format the drive before installing the OS. I have my W2K Pro from my now-dead pc, or I can buy XP. Undecided at this point, but I have to decide next week when the temp pc arrives. On this machine I will probably forget about partitioning... I just need it to work with very few programs.

I use PM, or (from a bootable Linux CD) QT Parted(works great).

 

[techgeek]

If this is a new installation on a new drive (ie no existing partitions) you don't need any special software. You just create your main partition during the install, allocating as much of the space as you want. You can leave making and formatting the second partition until Windows is installed. Once Windows is installed go into Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management, select the unused space and create a partition consuming the rest of the space. Once that's done format it (FAT32, NTFS) and your good to go.

Of course if you already have a partition on the drive utilizing all the space, it becomes more complicated than this. Then you need third party software. Like someone mentioned most Linux install CD's include a basic partition manager to resize your windows partition so you can make room for a linux partition. So you can use it to free up the room, then cancel the install (ie don't install Linux cause that's not what you are doing this for) and make a windows partition in the space you freed up. This way you don't have to pay anything, it just takes time downloading an ISO and the cost of a CD to burn it to. As with any post install messing of partitions, back up any data that you can't replace.

 

[techgeek]

First I would suggest Windows XP and conversely steer you away from Vista. You don't need bleeding edge, but you don't want to be two generations back either. In fact you should be able to get Win XP Pro with a free upgrade certificate right now, so it's a win win situation (pun intended).

As for the used 80GB drive, it probably has a partition on it. Since it's not going into the system it came out of, you have to re-install windows. This is great if you want to partition it. During the install you have options to create/delete partitions. First delete the original partition. Then if you plan on doing two partitions, create one but don't allocate the full space of the disk (the amount you allocate is up to you). Once that's done, proceed as my above post shows.

 

[Wonderwill]

I edit video, and have a WD 320Gb that runs like a charm. For only $89.99, it's a pretty sweet deal.

 

[1Tanker]

I edit video, and have a WD 320Gb that runs like a charm. For only $89.99, it's a pretty sweet deal.

I'm a longtime WD fan, but this Seagate is great. That said, the WD would also be a good choice. I was gonna get one of their 500GB server-class drives...YS i think?

 

[xal85]

Does it make a difference if you buy a drive OEM or Retail? Do you get all the parts and warranty with OEM?

 

[1Tanker]

Does it make a difference if you buy a drive OEM or Retail? Do you get all the parts and warranty with OEM?

No difference in quality or performance.

Retail:
-Comes in a fancy package
-Comes with a small manual
-Comes with mounting screws
-Usually has the longest warranty
-More expensive
-Comes with a "drive utility' CD

OEM:
-Comes in an ESD-proof "bag"
-Cheaper
-Comes without mounting screws
-Comes without a manual
-Most come with a shorter warranty
-Comes without a "drive utility' CD

OEM is fine.

 

[techgeek]

Does it make a difference if you buy a drive OEM or Retail? Do you get all the parts and warranty with OEM?

No difference in quality or performance.

Retail:
-Comes in a fancy package
-Comes with a small manual
-Comes with mounting screws
-Usually has the longest warranty
-More expensive
-Comes with a "drive utility' CD

OEM:
-Comes in an ESD-proof "bag"
-Cheaper
-Comes without mounting screws
-Comes without a manual
-Most come with a shorter warranty
-Comes without a "drive utility' CD

OEM is fine.

I have seen the exact opposite from WD in regards to warranty. I got a 3 year warranty for a OEM drive, but only a 1 year for a Retail drive. It didn't make sense to me at the time.

 

[lyall]

Personally I would say a seagate SE4. I upgraded my 40GB to 320GB with 16MB cache and windows went form booting up in 80 seconds to 30. Make sure its a newer model with perpendicular storage, model No: ST3320620AS. I got this off ebay for $112.5AU (bout $85 US) but that was a sweet deal. It's hard to find someone bagging a seagate hard drive on the internet.

 

[Athalus_nubie]

Best thing to do is get re-use a few ole 120G barracudas in RAID 0 and then get yourself a new 300+ barracuda to put windows on, make yourselfa 20G partition to install windows plus whatever small programs etc on, that way something goes fubar with your windows instalation (hey it DOES happen) all you lose is windows and none of your documents, music, videos etc.
Plus if you put your games and any large files that you need to access quickly on the RAID disk youll see an improvement in level loading times or media copying times etc ;p

at least thats what i did!

 

[1Tanker]

Best thing to do is get re-use a few ole 120G barracudas in RAID 0 and then get yourself a new 300+ barracuda to put windows on, make yourselfa 20G partition to install windows plus whatever small programs etc on, that way something goes fubar with your windows instalation (hey it DOES happen) all you lose is windows and none of your documents, music, videos etc.
Plus if you put your games and any large files that you need to access quickly on the RAID disk youll see an improvement in level loading times or media copying times etc ;p

at least thats what i did!

A couple ole 120GB drives(most anyways...even say WD 8MB ones, or 'Cudas) aren't likely to outperform the 7200.10 320GB(yet bring in the risks associated with RAID 0). Your idea of splitting up,etc. for disaster's sake is good, though.

 

[axjax]

Just out of curiosity, is there a easy to understand tutorial for a guy who's never used raid) on setting up a Raid system and is that a better option to ensure not losing data? Do you use a 3rd drive as you primary root drive, then have two identical drives using raid? And are there different types of raid like IDE and SATA and SCSI?