As stated in the subject, i'm considering getting a new hard disk. i want to know what i should look at when buying one, like the RPM, uata/###, etc. my mother board is an abit kt7a raid-- if this should make any difference on choice.
most new drives are ata100 anyway. the 7200 and 5400 are the rotation speeds, 7200 drives are a fair amount quicker than their 5400 counterparts, but also more expensive, I recently bought a 40 gig 7200 ibm deskstart, and the difference between that and my old 5400 17 gig is immense.
I would go for Western Digital drives, since you get a very good quality product (the best actually) at a good price with excellent support and a very good waranty.
here is prob what you are looking at:
western digital 400ab 40gb , ( 2mb ) - ultra ata100 - 5400 rpm
western digital 400bb 40gb , 8.9ms , ( 2mb ) - ata100 - 7200 rpm
western digital 600ab 60gb , ( 2mb ) - ata100 - 5400 rpm
western digital 600bb 60gb , ( 2mb ) - ata100 - 7200 rpm
western digital 800bb 80gb , ( 2mb ) - ata100 - 7200 rpm
Again I'll go for the 7200 rpm drives since they show quite some speed increase. Hope this helps...
Western Digital makes "best buy" hard drives that run forever, and forever, and forever. If you need performance the ibm drives will serve you well, but if need something that is afordable, well balanced and will last forever go western digital. What ever you do, don't buy a maxtor. Fujitsu drives are fine as well, but most people in the know go with either western digital or ibm.
I'll cast a vote for IBM. I have one of the 5400 rpm ones in my son's machine and it is inaudible. The 7200 rpm drives in the other machines seem more quiet than comparable SEagate, Maxtor or WD's. Some tend to equate quiet with quality.
It's amazing how different people's opinions are on hard drives. I have heard nothing about Western Digital except that they fail a lot. Well, that's the main thing I've heard, I mean.
IBM seems to be the only brand everyone can agree on, good or bad.
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Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?
The trick is to take all the opinions you read with a grain of salt, recognize the bullshit from the good info and establish a good concensus that's only a single factor in the many factors involved in deciding which hard drive to get. Forums like this are an invaluable tool - I've been able to use them to make good decisions on everything I buy, but I would hope that jackey has also spent some time over at www.storagereview.com and other sites like it, spent some quality time on machines with the hard drives in question and kept an open mind all along the way.
Somebody shoot me before I ramble more.....
I've had a couple WD's with no problems. At least no problems that I don't attribute to windows. I've gotten some bad sectors, but they're gone when I format.
<font color=red>Yeah, I took a crap on your lawn. Whatcha gonna do about it?</font color=red>
Yea, amazing isn't it. I wouldn't buy another western digital. I kinda wound up with mine. Its a 15gb 7200rpm ata-66 drive. It runs quiet and smooth. My old maxtor 6.4gb 5400rpm is still running smooth and has been on since the day it was bought. My first choice if i was gonna buy a new hard drive would either be a maxtor or ibm. I think they are both good drives, although i have never owned a ibm i've heard good things about them.
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