harddrive recommendation

[ekdya]

Hi
I am in the market for a harddrive to replace my small hda, ebay australia shows some units, any input from onces to avoid and once to buy?
my mobo is abit bx6 rev.2, so it will be ide harddrive.

thanks

[Dan]

Hi, ekdya

First up, Please understand that the following opinions are completely subjective, but based on my personal experiences.

1)Going with an off-brand is false economy. Stick with a major brand.

2) Seagate works well, but not necessarily in conjuction with other brands. Especially if the other brand is a WD and on the same IDE chain. In short, they don't play nice with others.

3) I've replaced a lot of Western Digital drives that died long before I thought they should have.

4) Maxtor put out a batch of 120Gb, 2mb cache drives about a year ago that qualified as fail-o-matics. Since then QC has erradicated the problem, but some of those dang things are still in the product stream. Just make sure you get the 8mb cache units and you should be OK.

5) Any Fujitsu 2.5" is a solid performer, but the Toshiba fluid bearing jobs impress me. They're a tough lot. However...

6) No matter what you choose, I have yet to see any make and model survive a lot of jars and impacts in a laptop environment. Even the so-called "Tough Duty" drives cannot survive an impact that causes a head slap.

Again, this is purely subjective.

Hope it helps!

Dan

[ekdya]

TangledWeb:
thanks for you input.

the drive will replace the current IBM hda, hdb is an IBM as will, it is a disktop system that is 4 years old, mobo Abit BX6 rev.2 which is Ultra DMA/33 IDE

[Dan]

What do you mean by "small"? Do you refer to physical size, or capacity?

EDIT: Using a 2.5" laptop high capacity drive with an adapter, in a desktop box, can sure help heat and space issues. It also gives you an extra edge in flexibility. should you ever want to move it into a laptop, you're good to go!

D

[ekdya]

capacity. 10Gb

[Dan]

Ouch! Is your capacity limited in the BIOS? Something that small is going to be a bit hard to find. The smallest I've seen is a 2.5" 20gb laptop drive.

[ekdya]

Ouch! Is your capacity limited in the BIOS? Something that small is going to be a bit hard to find. The smallest I've seen is a 2.5" 20gb laptop drive.
how would I check?
I just looked at the mobo maual,
Setup of HDD operating mode - Normal, LAB, Large
The HDD auto detection option in the Main Menu will automatically detect the parameters of your hard disk and the mode supported.
so lets go for 160GB new ibm unit from ebay, execpt there are not any in Asutalia ebya.

[ekdya]

oh, plus hdb is 20Gb

[Dan]

Looks like it'll take anything in the 10-100+gb range, but the limiting factor is DMA/33. BTW, Buy new! used HDDs on Ebay is a really risky investment.

Dan

[Seve]

Hello:
The best way is to have a look at your motherboard's manual. If you do not have one then you can go to Abit's web-site and download or have a look see.
Since your motherboard is probably at least 7 or so years old you may want to check with Abit first, to see if the drive you are looking at is compatible.
It may save you some money.

Seve

[Dan]

Evening Seve!

How goes the North Land tonight?

Dan

[ekdya]

Looks like it'll take anything in the 10-100+gb range, but the limiting factor is DMA/33. BTW, Buy new! used HDDs on Ebay is a really risky investment.

Dan

I am shooting for a new unit to reduce the risk, but again who knows how "new" it will be.

[Dan]

Hmmm. Hit this link and do some looking around and pricing of new drives. I think even the possibility of ending up with a used drive isn't worth the risk.

www.globalcomputer.com

Dan

[LocutusOfBorg]

I usually use seagate - they have a 5 years warranty. BTW, recently Seagate Corp. bought Maxtor...

[ekdya]

one point on my mind to ask is, having hda as prim/master and hdb as prim/slave, both ibm now, once I change the samll capacity one to another brand, would it be advisable to use prim/master for hda and second/master for hdb so that they be on different cables?

the set up now is
hda ibm hard drive
hdb ibm hard drive
hdc asus dvd burner
hdd plexwriter cd burner

[Dan]

I usually use seagate - they have a 5 years warranty. BTW, recently Seagate Corp. bought Maxtor... I had heard that. Ruined my whole day! :p

[Dan]

one point on my mind to ask is, having hda as prim/master and hdb as prim/slave, both ibm now, once I change the samll capacity one to another brand, would it be advisable to use prim/master for hda and second/master for hdb so that they be on different cables?

the set up now is
hda ibm hard drive
hdb ibm hard drive
hdc asus dvd burner
hdd plexwriter cd burner Both HDDS on one chain will force them to share bandwidth and slow them down. Best to put them on seperate chains if possible.

[nhydra]

OK. Let's describe my point...
So, I thought that WD are the best but ... after 6 months my hard drive just gone.... just stop to work. Because of that i buy Samsung hard drive and i think this is very good drive.
Samsung and Hitachi are the best drives in the market now. Seagate has some bad models and i know some people that now have already white hair because of Seagate.

So, I suggest Samsung and Hitachi, but Hitachi has high temperature so it needs probably additional cooling or good computer box.
But this is recommended for all hard drives, Seagate, WD, Maxtor, Samsung, Hitachi.....