Non Sata Hard Drive Advice


BaDToaD

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I want to upgrade my boot HD from it's current 40 GB 5400 RPM to something bigger and faster 120 or 160 GB 7200 RPM will do. I don't want to spend a lot of cash and I don't want SATA as my motherboard doesn't support it.

I've found some Maxtor 7200 RPM 8MB cache 120's @ £52 and 160's @ £54.

I'm happy to go with 120 GB if they are more reliable.

A couple of questions. Firstly are Maxtor drives ok. I haven't owned a maxtor for years and secondly do these prices seem ok.



Thanks in advance for any help

ToaD
 
Avoid Maxtors, they run really hot and burn out quick. I've had 5 Maxtor drives (2x160gb 1x250GB, and 2x300gb) burn out on me in the last year.

I'm sticking to Western Digital drives from now on, theyre not as quick/cheap but they do have a 3 year warranty.

I do however run my system 24x7 and it's constantly up/downloading so the drives are in use pretty much full time.

YMMV

Can't help on the prices, check pricerunner
 
Maxtor are unreliable and nosiest drives on the market but are the quickest

Seagate are by far the most reliable and no slouches plus second quietest drives around Samsung being first
Western digital slightly above seagates in termsof performance but i found them rather noisy.. mine drives me up the wall lol! Dread to hear a maxtor ;)

try www.storagereview.com for all you Hard drive info ;)
 
skysnapper posted on Oct 26 2005 at 01:37 PM said:
Western digital slightly above seagates in termsof performance but i found them rather noisy.. mine drives me up the wall lol! Dread to hear a maxtor ;)
I can't hear mine at all!
 
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Empyre posted on Oct 26 2005 at 12:51 PM said:
skysnapper posted on Oct 26 2005 at 01:37 PM said:
Western digital slightly above seagates in termsof performance but i found them rather noisy.. mine drives me up the wall lol! Dread to hear a maxtor ;)
I can't hear mine at all!

Depends if the rest of your compononts drown it out ;)

But they are not the quitest of drives.
 
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Empyre posted on Oct 26 2005 at 12:05 PM said:
Avoid Maxtors, they run really hot and burn out quick. I've had 5 Maxtor drives (2x160gb 1x250GB, and 2x300gb) burn out on me in the last year.

Mmmmm I was afraid of something like that.

With the recent bad press some of you guys have given ebuyer I wondered where you all get kit these days. I often but from a local store that also has an online shop but they only seem to stock the Maxtor drives these days.

Can anyone recommend any places to buy drives online?
 
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£52.17 - 120 GB Barracuda® 8MB Cache 7200rpm ATA100 (5yr Warranty)

£52.52 - 120 GB WD Caviar 8MB Cache 7200rpm ATA100 (JB)

£58.05 - 160 GB Barracuda® 8MB Cache 7200rpm ATA100 (5yr Warranty)

£62.63 - 200 GB WD Caviar 8MB Cache 7200rpm ATA100 (JB)

£67.80 - 200 GB Barracuda® 8MB Cache 7200rpm ATA100 (5yr Warranty)

If thats cheap enough, try Micro Direct
 
I did my last upgrades via by komplett.co.uk and overclockers.co.uk found them as cheap as ebuyer for the parts i was after and i did spend a lot of time price matching.
 
I had better back up my important stuff liek school work off my maxtor external hard drive (which slowly has taken over the internal one and is now my boot drive!
 
I currently use:

2 x Maxtor Maxlines (250 +120gb) SATA - Great, not too loud and very stable.
1 x WD Caviar IDE - LOUD OH GOD SO LOUD
1 x Samsung Spinpoint IDE 250gb - Silent as hell. I mean whisper quiet. Brilliant drives.
1 x IBM Deskstar IDE 80gb - It's in my xbox and it's clicking and grinding a lot. It's a broken, loud hunk of crap really.

1 x Seagate Barracuda IDE - 160gb - Replacement for my xbox hd. We'll see how good it is when I can install the bugger.

If you are looking for silence I'd recommend the Spinpoint series. Otherwise, all of the current major brands are pretty much equals.


The most important thing about having storage is having backups. Don't buy a bigger drive and not back anything up, you'll be in tears when the head decides to smash into the side, killing it.
 
I am useing ibm and seagate drives for ages, i have yet to see any drive dieing, through i heard that the newer ibm drives are quite shitty, so i sugest seagate.
But keep in mind that evry drive is thankfull if you put a fan in front off it, else most drives run pretty hot (50°+) wich makes them live shorter and also makes them slower.
 
had a 10 gb WD for like 10 years and that hdd has stuff writen to it all the time and a 120 GB WD for about 3-5 yrs not too sure and that's still doing good
 
Won`t buy anything else except Seagate, Barracuda line, The best drives ATM. Ibm deskstar were once the dogs danglies, But had 2 go down on me plus all the complaints on the net about them put me off. Wouldn`t touch maxstor with a barge pole, Nuff said.

Trooper
 
Never liked Maxtor, I've seen far too many go down. I myself own a 20, 40, 80, and 120gb Western Digital drives. I just keep going up the line as I need to upgrade. The 20gb one is about 7 years old or so, and my 120gb is about 8 months. Never had a single problem with any of them. Although I had heard that the first 8mb Special Addition Caviar's had come defects. As for Seagate, I haven't touched them since the early 90's. There were a lot of recalls then for failed 420 and 850mb hard drives, I myself went through 2 of each, and ever since then I haven't touched Seagate. I'm sure they are surperb drives, especially the Barracuda line, but for me it's like if you get bitten by a dog when your 3 and then when your 30 you wonder why you've always been affraid of dogs.

Hi-ho.
 
sam fisher posted on Oct 29 2005 at 11:50 AM said:
My brother just dropped my mouse on the removable hardrive i have. What bad things do i have ot expect from this external harddrive now?

That would be a very mild impact so nothing.. hd are a lot more tolerant than you think. i have kicked over my external by accident on a few occasions no harm done.. a few weeks back while uploading tunes to my i river (40 gig HD inside) i tripped of the cable flinging it off the desk on to the wooden floor.. a quick scan disk no harm done.

Just Scan disk it
 
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