Looking for efficient hard drive space

C

Cyde Weys

Hey everyone, I'm currently living off a 40GB hard drive in my new
college dorm, which obviously isn't nearly enough to keep up with all
the data I'm sucking in. Therefore, I'm looking for another hard drive.
I've been burned before: I got four 60 GB IBM whatever-they-weres 2
years ago in bulk and had 2 of them go bad on me. So I'm basically
looking for large storage capacity, RELIABILITY (I heard Seagates are
good?), and hopefully a price that is less than $1 per GB. Minimum read
specs are 5400rpm, 2MB cache ... preferred is probably 7200rpm, 8MB
cache. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

P.S. I'm looking for IDE ribbon cable drives, not S-ATA.
 
N

Norm

I've used Maxtors for years without problems but now their warranty is down
to 1 year. Western Digitals are still 3 years and my last purchase was a WD
120gb because of that warranty.
 
D

db

Cyde Weys said:
Hey everyone, I'm currently living off a 40GB hard drive in my new
college dorm, which obviously isn't nearly enough to keep up with all
the data I'm sucking in. Therefore, I'm looking for another hard drive.
I've been burned before: I got four 60 GB IBM whatever-they-weres 2
years ago in bulk and had 2 of them go bad on me. So I'm basically
looking for large storage capacity, RELIABILITY (I heard Seagates are
good?), and hopefully a price that is less than $1 per GB. Minimum read
specs are 5400rpm, 2MB cache ... preferred is probably 7200rpm, 8MB
cache. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

P.S. I'm looking for IDE ribbon cable drives, not S-ATA.

i've always used maxtors.
10gig about 4yrs ago, 40gig about 2 yrs ago and now 80 gig. all still
working excellently.
 
L

Lou Pratt

Hey everyone, I'm currently living off a 40GB hard drive in my new
college dorm, which obviously isn't nearly enough to keep up with all
the data I'm sucking in. Therefore, I'm looking for another hard drive.
I've been burned before: I got four 60 GB IBM whatever-they-weres 2
years ago in bulk and had 2 of them go bad on me. So I'm basically
looking for large storage capacity, RELIABILITY (I heard Seagates are
good?), and hopefully a price that is less than $1 per GB. Minimum read
specs are 5400rpm, 2MB cache ... preferred is probably 7200rpm, 8MB
cache. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

P.S. I'm looking for IDE ribbon cable drives, not S-ATA.

I've also used Maxtor drives with good luck. Something to look into is an
external HD. Maxtor has 40, 60 & 80 gb using usb 2 and firewire. I just
purchased a Maxtor 80 gb external usb 2. Easy to set up and very fast, plus
it can be transfered to different computers. Worth a look.
 
D

Duddley DooRight

I have bought 2 40Gig Drives lately. One was Western Digital with a 8 meg
Cache and one was a Maxtor 40 Gig with a 2 Meg Cache. Both are working
fine. You may want to look at a Western Digital 120 Gig with the 8 Meg
Cache. They may have some 160 Gig Drives or even larger. I have seen them
at Sams. Sometimes you can find retail stores have excellent prices if they
stock hard drives. Dont buy anything that looks like it has been dropped.
 
K

kony

Hey everyone, I'm currently living off a 40GB hard drive in my new
college dorm, which obviously isn't nearly enough to keep up with all
the data I'm sucking in. Therefore, I'm looking for another hard drive.
I've been burned before: I got four 60 GB IBM whatever-they-weres 2
years ago in bulk and had 2 of them go bad on me. So I'm basically
looking for large storage capacity, RELIABILITY (I heard Seagates are
good?), and hopefully a price that is less than $1 per GB. Minimum read
specs are 5400rpm, 2MB cache ... preferred is probably 7200rpm, 8MB
cache. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

P.S. I'm looking for IDE ribbon cable drives, not S-ATA.

Those IBM drives were the exception to the rule, in general they're
all a LOT more reliable these days. For general storage I'd go with
the cheapest $ per GB, not necessarily even 7K2 RPM or 8MB cache...
due to their popularity at local retailers that often makes Maxtor
drives the best value, especially since they seem to offer rebates on
a continual basis. If you really want avoid data loss then it goes
without saying that you should be making regular backups, but these
days IDE RAID 1 is also an affordable alternative.



Dave
 
C

Cyde Weys

Lou said:
I've also used Maxtor drives with good luck. Something to look into is an
external HD. Maxtor has 40, 60 & 80 gb using usb 2 and firewire. I just
purchased a Maxtor 80 gb external usb 2. Easy to set up and very fast, plus
it can be transfered to different computers. Worth a look.

I'm absolutely not interested in external hard drives. They're not even
an option for me. I'm totally comfortable with opening up my system and
mucking around with it, so why should I pay a hefty premium for reduced
performance? Also, I don't need it to be portable ... it's gonna sit in
one of my computers as storage.
 
L

Lane Lewis

Cyde Weys said:
Hey everyone, I'm currently living off a 40GB hard drive in my new
college dorm, which obviously isn't nearly enough to keep up with all
the data I'm sucking in. Therefore, I'm looking for another hard drive.
I've been burned before: I got four 60 GB IBM whatever-they-weres 2
years ago in bulk and had 2 of them go bad on me. So I'm basically
looking for large storage capacity, RELIABILITY (I heard Seagates are
good?), and hopefully a price that is less than $1 per GB. Minimum read
specs are 5400rpm, 2MB cache ... preferred is probably 7200rpm, 8MB
cache. Any recommendations? Thanks a lot.

P.S. I'm looking for IDE ribbon cable drives, not S-ATA.

I'd go with either Maxtor or WD but the important part is that these 7200
rpm drives need to stay cool so don't sandwich two together and keep a fan
on them. The big mistake of all the manufactures of 7200 rpm drives is that
they didn't warn people of the dangers of hot cases with drives packed
closely together.

Lane
 
M

mcheu

I've used Maxtors for years without problems but now their warranty is down
to 1 year. Western Digitals are still 3 years and my last purchase was a WD
120gb because of that warranty.

Minor clarification. As the owner of a WD drive, I thought I should
mention that the 3 year warranty is only on the drives with 8MB of
cache and the "special edition" drives (which co-incidentally also
have 8MB of cache). The regular WD drives only have 1 year warranty
like everybody else.
 

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