Can anyone recommend a good HD?

TorqueTorque
edited June 2003 in Hardware
i need a new hd, prolly 120 gig or higher... but im not that savvy in this area (or any area for that matter :D ) and i want to know if there is anything i should look out for?

im not really even sure what RAID is... and that is all i see on these forums, so as you could see... im lost...

right now i have 2 hd's connected to my mobo on one IDE cable...

was hoping i could just buy a new hd and slap that in.. maybe getting rid of one of my hd's....

so can anyone help a lost soul?

THANKS
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Comments

  • zelig2zelig2 Columbus, OH
    edited June 2003
    Personally I'd recommend the Western Digital 120GB SE hard drive. I've had no problem with mine and neither have any of my friends who use it. The SE part means it has an 8MB buffer which helps out nicely on large transfers.
  • dydxdydx Cymru, UK
    edited June 2003
    Anything that doesnt say IBM on it. My Travel Star just failed and im well annoyed.

    I like Western Digital personally. Make sure its 7200 rpm, and has 8 mb of cache.

    What mobo are you running, you could get SATA if you have the controller on board, unless you want the expense of a PCI controller.

    RAID - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Basically a way of spreading storage over several disks.

    There are several levels of RAID, I will explain the 2 most common arround here.

    RAID 0 - Usually 2 disks. Data is chopped in half, half is written to each disk. This is called striping. No redundancy, but an increase in performance.

    RAID 1 - This is known as mirroring, and as the name implies, the data is copied to two disks rather than one. If one disk fails, you still have a copy of the data on the other disk. This is for redundancy only and not performance

    RAID 0+1 - Combination of the two on 4 disks, data is striped over two disks, and is mirrored to the other 2 disks, a combination of performance and redundancy.

    Ill spare you the details about RAID 3, 5 etc. :D


    mD
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    First off, sorry to hear about your hd... always sucks to have that happen

    my current mobo is Asus A7A266 ... and that 120 gig WD SE HD (whew.. too many abbreviations :D ) sounds like a good deal at newegg for 107...

    so do u recommend that i leave my two current hd's in... if i can?

    or just chuck the other two and just use this one.... ? im just talking about performance wise...

    and which should run my OS...?

    anyway... my two current hard drives are:
    WD 172AA and
    WD 295BA

    not sure about the specs on either of them :(

    so, what do u think? i dunno if my mobo suppors RAID.. probably not since its quite old... and i dont think id buy a controller... since im gonna buy a new mobo when the 64's are cheap 'n ready....

    so ill prob just smack this one on my IDE...

    but just for knowledge purposes... how would u set up a RAID 0 on an onboard controller.... i always wanna learn

    THANKS
    p.s. sorry for the rush of questions
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    again... it wont let me edit... ARG

    but i forgot to add a link... is this what u meant?

    http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=N82E16822144118
  • EQuitoEQuito SoCal, USA
    edited June 2003
    I used to hate Maxtors but they've gotten better lately, specially the native SATA ones.

    Anyway, here's a good deal for you: 160GB 8MB cache for $70

    http://www.icronticforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=320
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    will win2kpro have any truble seeing a 160 gb drive? that is, seeing the full amount, and not something like 120...

    cuz i was reading somewhere that there are some problems...
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited June 2003
    The controller and/or your bios has to be able to handle it as well as the OS.

    Tex
  • WolfmanWolfman
    edited June 2003
    Only buy retail WD. The WD OEM's are junk. The 120gig se oem are garbage.
  • PaulPaul Member
    edited June 2003
    Originally posted by wolfman
    Only buy retail WD. The WD OEM's are junk. The 120gig se oem are garbage.

    Since when was there any difference?
  • WolfmanWolfman
    edited June 2003
    I rma a WD 120, wd sent me old refurbished one year old drive, I sent them a retail box made in may 03, figure it out. They cheated me. I will fix WD and rma both drives after I break them.:D :D:D
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2003
    Originally posted by wolfman
    Only buy retail WD. The WD OEM's are junk. The 120gig se oem are garbage.

    They are exactly the same. Just retail comes on a prettier box and may have a cable and manual.

    You just need to go by the rules of;

    Made by WD, Seagate, Maxtor
    Has 8MB Cache

    NS
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    The controller and/or your bios has to be able to handle it as well as the OS.

    How can i find out if it could?
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2003
    By telling us your mobo. They you can just look up some info and specs on that particular mobo.

    NS
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    my current mobo is Asus A7A266 ...

    as mentioned earlier in the thread :D
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2003
    Ah, so you did. Well protty much and 'non-ancient' hardware will support the drive. And as that board isnt old then it should be fine, its only things like old 500mhz Slot A boards and such that would have issues.

    NS
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    Well, i was looking for the specs of the mobo as you suggested and came across this site :
    http://www.mypccity.com/proddetail.asp?linenumber=565

    For my IDE cables it says : 2 x UltraDMA/100.

    This HD is Ultra ATA/133 interface...

    do you think it will work... cuz i cant find much information, other than i just found out my mobo supports ddr ram only up to pc 2100 :(
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited June 2003
    All ATA133 drives will run ATA66/100, but you can't get an ATA100 motherboard controller to run ATA133 speeds... basically, the ATA133 drive will operate at the maximum speeds of the controller, which in this case is ATA100.
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    thats what i was thinking... but mine is "UltraDMA/100"...

    i was wondering if that worked with ATA
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2003
    Yeah, an ATA133 drive will work on a ATA33 board, they are all backwards compatible (but you have to use an ATA66 cable for ATA66 or above (which are standard nowadays)).

    NS
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2003
    UltraDMA, ATA, UDMA etc, they are all the same thing (when they are refered to in this context anyway)

    NS
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    UltraDMA, ATA, UDMA etc, they are all the same thing (when they are refered to in this context anyway)

    ahh.. didnt know that.. thanks for the help...

    btw... when you say it will work... does that mean that i will get the full -or close to- 160 gigs? Or is that a different bios/OS thing?
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited June 2003
    Originally posted by Torque
    btw... when you say it will work... does that mean that i will get the full -or close to- 160 gigs? Or is that a different bios/OS thing?

    Hmmm... good point, I don't know if your mobo will understand drive larger than 120GB... may need to refer back to your mobo specs to be sure of that, otherwise you may need a PCI controller card to run it.

    You could always partition it to 120GB :0
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    well, im doing that staples 70 buck thing... and the only maxtor 160 gig drives they have at my local staples comes with a free pci ATA133 card in it.. or so it says..

    what would i have to do with that if it does come... just stick it in and what?

    thanks

    edit: i was looking at my mobo specs.. and i cant find anything on hd size... :(
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited June 2003
    Would be better off just using your Motherboards built in controler, as 100-133 difference is marginal if non-existant, plus it wouldnt be worth the tiny difference as cards make life harder for installing OS's etc.

    NS
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    im not worried about the speed difference... i was just wondering if i could get the full 160 gigs or not :)
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited June 2003
    Originally posted by Torque
    im not worried about the speed difference... i was just wondering if i could get the full 160 gigs or not :)

    With the pci adapter card you will get ATA133 and 160GB from that drive. Pretty sweet in that case, grab it! :p
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    but how does that work... as i know nothing about anything...

    do i just stick the adapter card in and keep my hd's on my onboard controllers or what?

    :) im clueless
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited June 2003
    Originally posted by Torque
    but how does that work... as i know nothing about anything...

    do i just stick the adapter card in and keep my hd's on my onboard controllers or what?

    :) im clueless

    Nope, you plug your hard drive(s) into the PCI card, you're taking the motherboard's controller out of the picture altogether.

    You can still use the motherboard's controller for the cd/dvd rom/rw drives if you want... or even just run the 160GB off the PCI and leave the rest of your setup the same.
  • TorqueTorque
    edited June 2003
    ah... i see..

    well its worth a try.. if not, and NS is right (too much of a hassle that is) then i could just use it as a 120... and when i get my new mobo (waiting on 64) it will notice the 160...

    sounds like a plan... thanks for your help guys!!!!!
  • dydxdydx Cymru, UK
    edited June 2003
    Couple of interesting bits of info on the register on the Athlon 64 today, check it out.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk



    mD
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