Hard Drives 2-3 months from now. ?'s

[korsen]

I'll be getting a new rig come dx10 but i need the space of a new HD now. I looked around the net but i couldn't get a good idea of how pricing and sizes were going to be in the next few months. Basically i'm asking if HDD will be the same in 3 months as they are now in terms of pricing and size?

I want to get a 400GB cause i loaded up both my 80's in two weeks and my current weak rig is seriously overdue for an Fdisk.

So can i get one now and expect GB/$ to stay the same? Or should i lay off for 3 months and wait for it to come down? If it comes down?

Please respect my noobishness, i couldn't find any solid forecasting on this subject.

(Also, would my restore discs from a 2004 (i think) emachines with XP on it put XP on my vagrant HD without me having to authenticate XP? If not i'll have to wait for Vista for a fresh install )

 

[Rashind]

I don't think anything world-shattering is coming down the line that shortly. The new tech out right now is perpendicular recording... that hasn't really affected prices of other drives, and probably won't. There's enough competition that the bottom end storage price is more or less determined by production price.

The next thing on the way is the hybrid drive, with a portion of the total volume being flash storage. Those may be out around the time Vista starts shipping... of course, I doubt it's going to much impact prices of other drives, for the same reason perpendicular recording hasn't.

Best bet is to look around for a big drive with a big rebate. I wouldn't suggest anything under 250 GB (definitely don't pay more than 100, and expect even less), and 500 GB is better. (Don't pay over 200.)

Make sure you're getting the right interface (like SATA 1.5, SATA 3.0, or ATA133...)
Note that most newer MBs (like the one in your new rig) aren't going to have more than one ATA133 port, allowing a max of 2 ATA drives... which you probably want to be two optical drives.

Your restore disks are unlikely to work on new hardware, so don't count on it. You can try installing on the new drive if you want, but definitely leave the boot partition of your old drive intact while you're doing it.

Here's the good news. If you plug in your new drive along with your old ones, you can copy all your files to the new one (NOT operating system files), and empty out the old drive until basically it's just an OS... then run diskkeeper and it'll clean it up in no time. Then you'll be able to run your old drive as just an OS drive until your new rig + vista.

 

[Euphoria5125]

I don't think anything world-shattering is coming down the line that shortly. The new tech out right now is perpendicular recording... that hasn't really affected prices of other drives, and probably won't. There's enough competition that the bottom end storage price is more or less determined by production price.

The next thing on the way is the hybrid drive, with a portion of the total volume being flash storage. Those may be out around the time Vista starts shipping... of course, I doubt it's going to much impact prices of other drives, for the same reason perpendicular recording hasn't.

Best bet is to look around for a big drive with a big rebate. I wouldn't suggest anything under 250 GB (definitely don't pay more than 100, and expect even less), and 500 GB is better. (Don't pay over 200.)

Make sure you're getting the right interface (like SATA 1.5, SATA 3.0, or ATA133...)
Note that most newer MBs (like the one in your new rig) aren't going to have more than one ATA133 port, allowing a max of 2 ATA drives... which you probably want to be two optical drives.

Your restore disks are unlikely to work on new hardware, so don't count on it. You can try installing on the new drive if you want, but definitely leave the boot partition of your old drive intact while you're doing it.

Here's the good news. If you plug in your new drive along with your old ones, you can copy all your files to the new one (NOT operating system files), and empty out the old drive until basically it's just an OS... then run diskkeeper and it'll clean it up in no time. Then you'll be able to run your old drive as just an OS drive until your new rig + vista.

Couldn't say it better. Great post.

 

[korsen]

thanks for the info it helps alot, and diskeeper is working well, but now i'd like to ask if you or anyone knows how i could separate system files from any other file? I can get most of my stuff out but after diskeeper defrags my drive and separates free space, system space, and normal files how can i just select anything that's not system? (I wasn't smart enough to put the OS on a partition i'm going to do so with my next build :] )

 

[Rashind]

Well, you should have a good idea of what's on your computer. Your my documents folder will need to be copied, any programs you use probably have a settings file somewhere you'll want to scoot over... games will have savegames to copy... My advice is to accept that you're going to lose some data. My policy when switching over is "If I didn't think to back it up, I didn't need it."

Then, just uninstall all the programs and stuff. Avoid deleting anything in C:\Win, C:\Win32, or any files in the root directory. There may be some programs you want to keep installed... make you own call.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

The restore disks will work on a new hard drive as long as the other components are the original OEM.

 

[Jinx13]

The restore disks will work on a new hard drive as long as the other components are the original OEM.

Yes, I used to have an emachines and upgraded to a 120gig back when that was a good amount of space. No problem installing onto the new hard drive.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Unless the computer is a Sony / New gateway. The recovery *disks are on a partition on the hard drive. You must either make the disks using the given program, or order them from the respective company. ... and they are expencive.