Which internal HDD?

[nubbin]

I am about to buy a 250Gb hard disc to get extra storage capacity for my photos/videos. Any thoughts on the main choices i.e. Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate etc? I'm running XP Pro on a 1.7GHz Athlon with 500Mb ram. Thanks chaps!

[plotloss]

Why not go for the 400gb IBM/Hitachi?

[pdV6]

Obviously this is personal experience only, but I've had several IBM/H dirves fail.

Not yet had a WD Caviar drive give up on me...

[GregE240]

I'm running a 120Gb Barracuda in the home machine at the moment with 8Mb cache.

It is the quietest hard drive I've ever used.

Echo previous comments on IBM / Hitachi "Deathstar" drives - had a whole load of these fail at a customer site several years ago.

[plotloss]

Few people on here seem to say that about the Deskstars.

Its all I use and they are all fine generally speaking.

[docevi1]

Maxtor apparently were great a few years ago, but recently there are rumours that they fail more regulary and are very noisy.

Western Digital are meant to be good, but the Seagate Baracuda's are meant to be the quiestest and one of the most reliable...

Thats whats on my current order, a 7200.7 160Gb Seagate Baracuda

[robdickinson]

plotloss said:

Few people on here seem to say that about the Deskstars.

I have a 75gxp deskstar (or whatever) I've run the IBM check tool, says its fine. But I do get the clicking noise (of doom?) from time to time but its ran fine for a couple of years.

[plotloss]

Theres a nifty bit of software called ActiveSMART I think which reads the SMART headers on the HDD and can fairly accurately predict a crash...

[Frik]

My deskstar's served me very well. The maxtor has the occasionaly wobbly however.

[GregE240]

plotloss said:

Theres a nifty bit of software called ActiveSMART I think which reads the SMART headers on the HDD and can fairly accurately predict a crash...

Used an Insight Manager plug in a while back on a customer site.

Every client PC had the SMART plug in installed.

First user: went to them armed with new drive, told them to back up, replaced the drive, one happy (and amazed user)

Second user: jumped up senior manager, told engineer to eff off as he was busy, drive continued to chuck out errors spinning up, called him a few more times, no joy, then his drive packed in, losing him 2 days work. [nelson]Har-har![/nelson] twit even logged a complaint against us, until we showed the customer the Insight log, which nicely tied in with the call logging system log.

One of the few customer sites I'm aware of who used the technology.

[ErnestM]

All drives will eventually fail. Fact of life. I tend to guage HD manufacturers on their replacement policy:

IBM/Hitachi - No worries. Fill out online RMA. Pack up the drive (after suitably nuking the data if possible). Replacement arrives a week or so later.

Maxtor - Ditto the above

Western Digital - Go to website. Search in vain for RMA process. Download their "check the drive out" software so that you can verify that the drive is dead. Make sure that all of the stars are in alignment to be issued an RMA. (At this point have thoughts of the Python Parrot sketch: "'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This hard drive is no more! It has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! 'Is data storage processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-HARD DRIVE!!")

Just my 0.02

ErnestM

>> Edited by ErnestM on Wednesday 27th October 14:02

[nubbin]

O.K. What the feck have I bought?

I have taken delivery of a Seagate Barracuda 200Gb SATA150 drive. Fine. Except the standard ribbon cables don't fit the pins on the HDD, and there's no jumpers. Err, so what the hell do I do now?

Have I ordered the wrong HDD? If so, why?

I thought they were all standard pins - no-one told me they's decided to change power/data supply pin arrangements. Why was I not informed?

What do I need now?

[GregE240]

[bleedin obvious]
Nubbs, please excuse me, but have you got a SATA interface on your moboard? If not then you wanted an EIDE drive and have indeed bought something incompatible with your current system.
[/bleedin obvious]
If you HAVE got an SATA interface, hopefully someone else can jump in because my SATA experience is best summed up by whats in the brackets below:

()

I hope this helps, mate.

Greg

[GregE240]

Re-reading your post Nubbin, I think you need an EIDE instead of a SATA drive....

[Bodo]

Nubbin, you bought a SATA "serial ATA" but you need an ATA drive (with 40 pin data connector and four pin power connector).

You can now either give the SATA back for the ATA, or buy a controller card for the SATA bus. Example: Adaptec SATA Connect (ASH-1205SA) This card allows you to connect the SATA drive to your existing system.

[gopher]

nubbin said:

O.K. What the feck have I bought? I have taken delivery of a Seagate Barracuda 200Gb SATA150 drive. Fine. Except the standard ribbon cables don't fit the pins on the HDD, and there's no jumpers. Err, so what the hell do I do now? Have I ordered the wrong HDD? If so, why? I thought they were all standard pins - no-one told me they's decided to change power/data supply pin arrangements. Why was I not informed? What do I need now?

It depends on what you mean by "Standard ribbon cables" - if you mean those wide, grey IDE cables then no, you've bought a sata drive and the connection is different, as is often the power connector.

The next question is what motherboard do you have and does it support sata drives?

Cheers

Paul

oops must be quicker

>> Edited by gopher on Thursday 28th October 22:29

[agent006]

You'll need a power adapter for an SATA drive as they've changed that for no reason at all too.

[nubbin]

Thanks chaps - I have my answer - perhaps I should read the descriptions on dabs.com a little more closely - No wonder I always failed multiple choice exam papers!

[cirks]

keep the new drive and just order a SATA controller PCI card and then at least you'll have a drive you can use in your next machine!! This is what I've done (not completely for the same reason as you - i.e I can read ). The controller card came with the power adaptor cable too.

[nubbin]

cirks said:

keep the new drive and just order a SATA controller PCI card and then at least you'll have a drive you can use in your next machine!! This is what I've done (not completely for the same reason as you - i.e I can read ). The controller card came with the power adaptor cable too.

So, this card just goes into an ordinary PCI slot and is recognised as Plug and Play is it? Sounds better than messing about with returns, and I get faster data transfer I suppose....