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What hard drive is best for this

Octygone
in The Technology Shed

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I've got permission from SWMBO to get this

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-NF435

and I need help now :rolleyes:

and the only other thing I need is a hard drive to make it fly :thumbup: all the other bits I will move over from my existing PC .........................

hard drive only needs to be about 80GB but which one would be best and I want to pick it up at the same time as the PC so any ideas form this page?

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/products/a502x1y0z1p0s0n0m0

I can then visit scoobychris on the way down to or on the way back from Portsmouth on Saturday :D

Would say any of those would be grand in it. More cache is better for performance, but to be honest 8Mb should be fine to make it fly, for what you'll use it for :D

Chris

I'd spend a bit more and get the Maxtor DiamondMax plus 10 200gb Serial ATA for 70 quid. It makes a lot more sense than an 80 for 45 quid.

  • Author

When I phoned up to reserve it bloke said I would need to get a serial ATA hard drive I take it serial ATA is faster read/write

When I phoned up to reserve it bloke said I would need to get a serial ATA hard drive I take it serial ATA is faster read/write

Serial ATA connections have a higher bandwidth than normal parallel ATA connections although the drives themselves are only just starting to be able to use the extra speed at the mo.

Still S-ATA is definately the future so it would be daft not to buy one as they are now about the same price. You could use normal ATA if you wanted to , but there is no point

They use different power and data cables but you should get all the required leads included in your barebones bundle.

Installing windows on an S-ATA machine is a little different as there are no drivers on the win-xp cd so you won't see any available disk drives. As you start the install you will need to press F6 at the appropriate time to tell it that you need to install additional drivers. Nothing appears to happen , but in a couple of minutes you will be asked to insert the driver floppy disk (FLOPPY!!!!) which you will have had to have made using the utility on the cd that came with the hard drive (good job you have another PC eh!) , and you can then continue to install as normal.

I just had a temporary connection to a spare floppy drive hanging out of the case on my machine then I disconnected it once I'd built it.

I'm not far from them either. If you come down to buy. consider using the ring and reserve as they do get really busy.

Another local and reasonably priced company is http://www.refreshcomputers.com/

I'm not sure if it's still the case but they only used to sell MSi boards as the quality is good on them. I am a fan of MSi boards.

I'd go with the SATA as well. It is the current standard.

  • Author

It sounds like I am going to have fun getting this up and running....but it will give me something to do...............I have got a floppy on my pc at the moment (hope it works can't remember the last time I used it)

The new pc is put by for me already and the rest I may phone up and reserve as well......................to save the hassle a cheap copy of XP might have to got as well................

I'd say S-ATA too. As Alex has so wonderfully described, they are faster for shunting data around.

I haven't checked the link yet, but Maxtor are very good. Samsung Spinpoint drives are very quiet, though don't know if they do S-ATA yet and I've not tested reliability too much. I've got one, and it's temperamental, though thats more to do with the flaky USB caddy it's in than the drive itself I'd wager.

The Hitachi (nee IBM) "Deathstar" Drives are currently being engineered to the very limits of the technology (moving over to Perpendicular Bits.........uber-geeky but :cool: )

If I was in a position to do my rig at home, I'd go S-ATA. Only hitch being it would mean a completely new core system (mega expensive with my choices :D )

to save the hassle a cheap copy of XP might have to got as well................

If you do, please go the XP Professional route. Always seems more stable in my limited (yet semi-professional) experience. :rolleyes:

  • Author

Got XP pro on my present pc but I'll bet all hell breaks loose if I try to register it on another pc at the same time so XP home for the new one could save a lot of hassle

Got XP pro on my present pc but I'll bet all hell breaks loose if I try to register it on another pc at the same time so XP home for the new one could save a lot of hassle

If it's been more than 90 days since it was activated on the old machine it will work fine with the same key

if you want performance get [url=http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?WD-740GD]http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?WD-740GD[/url'] hands down i recon! have one on a machine here and its super fast...

Yes, Western Digital are IMHO the make to have, in 'normal' IDE guise seem reliable, unlike Maxtor and the SATA drive as above is a good performer

But it's odd, because someone else will say 'ooh never touch Western Digital, yuck etc, but Maxtor are great.' Then someone will praise Seagate drives with their five year warranty. Etc etc etc

So you can only go on opinion and who shouts loudest...

I've got a dual sata raid setup - 2 160gig drives acting as a single 305gig drive that absolutley bloody flies. if you can use raid on the new motherboard, it's definitley worth considering two smaller drives that you can use together :)

I've got a dual sata raid setup - 2 160gig drives acting as a single 305gig drive that absolutley bloody flies. if you can use raid on the new motherboard, it's definitley worth considering two smaller drives that you can use together :)

And then you have double the chance of a hard drive failing and losing all your data

So you can only go on opinion and who shouts loudest...

TBH, having no loyalty to any specific manufacture I've used loads of different makes, and at any given "price point" there really isn't a whole lot between them, ie. you're not safe just because you buy from a certain manufacturer... ;)

Rob.

at any given "price point" there really isn't a whole lot between them' date=' ie. you're not safe just because you buy from a certain manufacturer... ;)

.[/quote']

So true. I did have a Deathstar drive fall over, Quantum Fireballs live up to their name with startling realism, and Fujitsi drives just disintegrate for the sheer fun of it (an entire bath of them..... within 2 months of each other.... :D )

Fujitsi drives just disintegrate...an entire bath of them...

I think I may have found your problem... ;)

Rob.

I think I may have found your problem... ;)

Rob.

Wondered why the made a fizzing noise...... ;)

i meant "an entire batch..." but was momentarily distracted.... :o

So true. I did have a Deathstar drive fall over, Quantum Fireballs live up to their name with startling realism, and Fujitsi drives just disintegrate for the sheer fun of it (an entire bath of them..... within 2 months of each other.... :D )

I had a couple of Deathstars go pear shaped , and then a third one that has run for ever.

Still don't think I'd buy one again though.

I've got a 200GB seagate in my current machine and it seems very good so far.

Without wanting to tempt fate, all my Deathstars are still up and running 24/7 and have been for the last 5 or so years ... well pretty much - they got switched off and lugged around the coutry a bit during house moves ;)

Chris

There were only two models of deathstar that had bad problems.

60GXP and 75GXP IIRC. The nerwer or older ones were much better.

There were only two models of deathstar that had bad problems. 60GXP and 75GXP IIRC. The nerwer or older ones were much better.

Yep I have one of each of those and an older and a newer one :D

Chris

Dr. Z,

Thanks for pointing out the extra chance of things going pear shaped when using RAID 0. Would you be so kind as to teach me how to suck eggs while you're at it? ;) I build raid setups for a living and am well aware of the sense of using redundancy based systems - RAID 1. However, on a home PC, I never have anything on there that would be "mission critical". All I want is a fast boot and no bottle necks when it comes to reading and writing data.

Professionally egg suckingly yours, Mark :)

I'm sure you do know the extra risks , but if you are recommending that as an alternative for someone it's only fair to point out the disadvantages as well as the benefits

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