What kind of hard drive should I get?

[portrower8]

I searched for a guide, and for articles and couldn't seem to find anything. I also seached forum... I am relatively new to all this and am just wondering what kind of internal hard drive should I get?

I was looking at the internal 300GB maxtor drive -- anyone know if it is good?

also, is there a difference betwee 150mb/s or 133mb/s because the lower ones are less expensive.

I'm not ever going to do professional work, but I would like to take family videos and turn them into DVDs -- and occasionaly do fun stuff and tinker with like a freinds wedding video or something.

Any suggestion? What's a good store to look at? Or is shopping around the best way? http://www.academicsuperstore.com seems to have good deals for students -- any other good places?

[Two2Tango]

Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor... They are all good. If you do videos go with the biggest HD you can find. Video file take a lot of space. One hour of video will use 12 gigs or better depending on the capture quality. Also, buffer size 2mb+ min and disk speed 7200 will make a difference in transfer rate.

[budz]

Any suggestion? What's a good store to look at? Or is shopping around the best way? http://www.academicsuperstore.com seems to have good deals for students -- any other good places?

check out www.newegg.com they have good deals on hard drives.....some of the OEM hard drives come with 3 year warranties for maxtor and western digital.....

[Capmaster]

IMO, avoid Western Digital and Maxtor, in spite of the ultra low prices. They're cheap junk.

Go for Seagate

Many people have had good luck with WD and Maxtor, but there are far too many who have been dissatisfied with crashes, bad sectors and drives going kaput.

Moving to Computer Forum ...

[portrower8]

Is this good:

It is only $195 at Newegg -- but it says it is
"Interface: IDE Ultra ATA100"

Is SATA better? There is one for $220 or something like that which is SATA.

What "interface" is best? SATA, ATA133, 100, 150??

Seagate 7200.8 300GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3300831A-RK, Retail (limit 5 per customer)


- Specifications -

Capacity: 300GB
Average Seek Time: 8 ms
Buffer: 8MB
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Interface: IDE Ultra ATA100
Features: SoftSonic motor, RoHS-compliant, Enhanced G-Force Protection
Manufacturer Warranty: 5 years
Packaging: Retail

Model#: ST3300831A-RK
Item#: N82E16822148067

[Capmaster]

Is this good:

It is only $195 at Newegg -- but it says it is
"Interface: IDE Ultra ATA100"

Is SATA better? There is one for $220 or something like that which is SATA.

What "interface" is best? SATA, ATA133, 100, 150??

Seagate 7200.8 300GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3300831A-RK, Retail (limit 5 per customer)


- Specifications -

Capacity: 300GB
Average Seek Time: 8 ms
Buffer: 8MB
Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM
Interface: IDE Ultra ATA100
Features: SoftSonic motor, RoHS-compliant, Enhanced G-Force Protection
Manufacturer Warranty: 5 years
Packaging: Retail

Model#: ST3300831A-RK
Item#: N82E16822148067

SATA is faster. If you have a SATA controller on your MB, get that. Otherwise, the drive you listed is an excellent choice The 300GB SATA is the same drive with a different interface.

The higher the number in the interface name, the faster the burst rate for data transfer ....ATA133 is faster than ATA100. But the interface should be at least as fast as the drive

[richdvd]

I have had many Seagate drives throughout the years. Have had no problems with them at all.

[Capmaster]

I have had many Seagate drives throughout the years. Have had no problems with them at all.

They're nice and quiet too. I have a 15 KRPM U320 SCSI drive on my workstation at work that's quieter than an average non-Seagate 7200 RPM drive 8)

Seagate's been in the business from day one with their old MFM and RLL servo-head drives. Good, old, mature company who knows how to make a hard disk

[budz]

all brands of hard drives have their failure rates, maxtor and western digital are just as good as seagate. i've heard of others who have had failures in all of those brands. in my opinion one isn't better than the other. buy what you can afford. sata drives are not that much faster than a ata 133. although having a sata hard drive for capturing and doing video editing is good.

[Phoebos]

My fav is Western Digital though I had Seagate ,Maxtor and others in the past

[AlecWest]

I can't judge quality but did have one thing to say. Unless they've abandoned the policy, Maxtor used to have a "no hassle" replacement policy on hard drives that went bad during their warranty period. Years ago, my kid's Maxtor 3.5 gig HD died. I called up Maxtor. They told me they didn't make 3.5 gig HDs anymore but would do a complimentary upgrade to their 5.7 gig HD (the smallest they sold at the time). All I had to do was give them my credit card number ... but they charged nothing on it. The deal? They'd send me the 5.7 gig HD, I'd mail back the 3.5 gig HD in the same box, and as long as Maxtor received it within 30 days, there'd be no charge on my card. No forms to fill out ... no surly customer service people to deal with ... in short, no hassles. That impressed me.

[studtrooper]

SATA is faster. If you have a SATA controller on your MB, get that. Otherwise, the drive you listed is an excellent choice The 300GB SATA is the same drive with a different interface.

The higher the number in the interface name, the faster the burst rate for data transfer ....ATA133 is faster than ATA100. But the interface should be at least as fast as the drive

I think its better to say SATA has the potential to be faster. As far as normal 7200RPM drives, SATA and PATA perform exactly the same...

[Capmaster]

SATA is faster. If you have a SATA controller on your MB, get that. Otherwise, the drive you listed is an excellent choice The 300GB SATA is the same drive with a different interface.

The higher the number in the interface name, the faster the burst rate for data transfer ....ATA133 is faster than ATA100. But the interface should be at least as fast as the drive

I think its better to say SATA has the potential to be faster. As far as normal 7200RPM drives, SATA and PATA perform exactly the same...

Splitting hairs there. SATA is faster, assuming the drive attached to it takes advantage of the difference. It is probable that the 300GB drive is limited by the interface, and is better off with the SATA interface.

[rkr1958]

IMO, avoid Western Digital and Maxtor, in spite of the ultra low prices. They're cheap junk.

Go for Seagate

Many people have had good luck with WD and Maxtor, but there are far too many who have been dissatisfied with crashes, bad sectors and drives going kaput.

Moving to Computer Forum ...

I've had bad luck with Maxtor ... Had one failed ... still under warranty ... sent it back ... and that one failed in less than 6-months.

I also had an IBM drive fail after 3.5 years ...

I've had good luck with Western Digital. I currently have two WD IDE drives, 120-GB & 250-GB ... both seem to be working fine. But maybe I'm lucky.

I also seem to having good luck with my Seagate 160-GB SATA drive.

Anyway, harddrives are relatively cheap now ... but whichever brand you get make sure you backup your critical data (e.g., pictures and such). In fact, I'd suggest making multiple backups and keeping one is another location. You can always reload your O/S and applications but you cannot replace pictures and such if not backed up. A friend of mine at work lost a HD with pictures of his children from birth to 3-years. No backup and was not able to recover them.

Bottom line ... backup critical (irreplaceable) data/pictures and back it up often. For example, I wrote a DOS BAT script that I've scheduled through MS task scheduler to run late at night. This script copies my critical data (i.e., My Documents & picture folders) to one of my data drives and to an external firewire harddrive. Both drives are physically separate from the drive where the originals of these are located. It also get critical files from my wife's computer, which is networked to mine, and backs them up also.

[Capmaster]

Good advice from rkr1958

My motto: "There are two types of people in this world ...those that backup ...and those that will"

[portrower8]

Thank you all for the feedback. I am digesting, weighing, and saving $$$.

Right now I think my motherboard will do SATA, I am double checking. If so it is between the 300GB Maxtor and Seagate -- the SATA ones with 16mb buffers.

rkr1958, your right about the backup thing. That's one thing that concerns me. I have a 30GB laptop right now that has EVERYTHING important on it, photos, some video etc. Over 3,000 photos from the last 10 years of important stuff...not to mention everything important I've ever done.

I had an awaking when I lost everything a couple years ago -- and was lucky had recently dumped stuff on zip and cd-rw ---- but the sliding of the laptop off the car seat in a sudden stop -- made me realize how vulnerable it all was.

I got from firewiredirect.com a Firewire 800 PCMICA card, and a Firewire 800 external hard drive and Acronis TrueImage to take a picture of everything every day. I'm so paranoid now that I think I need one for home too so I get it in both places!

I know hard drives fail -- which scares me about having everything important on on big 300GB hard drive -- I feel like I need a whole other 300 GB hard drive just to backup the first -- but then if one fails I just have that ONE backup -- I need a backup for the backup AAHHHH.

Anyway, I dig what your screaming.... the Seagate and Maxtor SATA 300GB drives are both about $200 bucks -- but I found at academicsuperstore.com the $250 (or maybe 200gb) for $145...so that's kind of appealing too.

About setup - SATA means something called "RAID" right? Is that where I could have two 200GB hard drives operate like one 400GB drive?

But isn't there a disadvantage -- if one drive fails -- all the data is lost because peices are stored across both drives? I would be worried about that.

Any reccomendations on 'setup' and/or backup? Anything cheap that could just email me 'complete' or 'failure' notices daily?

Port

[rkr1958]

About setup - SATA means something called "RAID" right? Is that where I could have two 200GB hard drives operate like one 400GB drive?

But isn't there a disadvantage -- if one drive fails -- all the data is lost because peices are stored across both drives? I would be worried about that.

Any reccomendations on 'setup' and/or backup? Anything cheap that could just email me 'complete' or 'failure' notices daily?

Port

Your motherboard has to support SATA Raid, my does, or you'll need a PCI card for it. My supports Raid 0 & Raid 1. Simplistically put, Raid 0 is where you have two harddrives configured as one. So two 160-GB drives in raid 0 appear as one 320-GB drive. It's fast because a file is written (stripped) to both drives. However, if one fails you lose everything. Raid 1 is where one drive is an exact copy of the other. So when you write a file it is written to both drives. If one fails, you're data and files are o.k. However, in a raid 1 configuration the two 160-GB harddirves would only give you 160-GB of space. In effect, you're giving up one drive for redundancy.

For me, I'm planning on using raid 0 for a data / video capture drive. If one goes down, or gets corrupted, then I don't lose anything that I cannot recover from.

[piano632]

I have some questions along the same lines:

I am in the market for another hard drive (have 6 already) but I need a large one (300-400GB) to store video files.

This is the motherboard I have:
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=865GM2-LS&class=mb
It appears to support SATA, but I think I want PATA since I like to be able to put the drives in external cases sometimes.

1. Is there much difference in speed between 8MB and 16MB cache?
Does anybody know when Seagate is coming out with 16MB cache drives?

2. Since I use NTFS, what cluster size is best for large video files (about 1GB each)? And what cluster size is best for small jpeg files (15-300KB)? NTFS seems to be quite slow dealing with thousands of jpeg files (with default 4K clusters) so I wonder if I should use a different cluster size for them or just use FAT32.

[portrower8]

So if i get a 250 GB SATA drive now -- and another down the road, I can put together in raid 0 for 500GB drive? or do they need to be done 'at the same time' ?

[Capmaster]

So if i get a 250 GB SATA drive now -- and another down the road, I can put together in raid 0 for 500GB drive? or do they need to be done 'at the same time' ?

No. You can get just the one drive now, run it non-raid, then raid0 the two later. Just make sure you use the same size drives

[portrower8]

oh really, interesting -- same size drives for raid?

okay...if I run it raid 0 later... will I loose files I had when it was non raid.. ie...will it involve any reformatting???

[studtrooper]

Splitting hairs there. SATA is faster, assuming the drive attached to it takes advantage of the difference. It is probable that the 300GB drive is limited by the interface, and is better off with the SATA interface.

Advantage of what difference? There isn't a single consumer HDD on the market (SCSI, PATA, or SATA) that could possibly bottleneck a ATA-100 interface (not counting fluke burst rates, which don't mean a damn thing), let alone a ATA-133 one. With the exception of the new SATA 1.5/2 drives (and compatable mobos) and their new NCQ function (which provides a negligable advantage, if any), they are the EXACT same as their PATA bretheren (assuming we are talking same RPM speeds and cache sizes). Max data burst rates mean nothing...

Anyway, I'm not trying to start a fight. I just want people to know the true down and dirty difference between SATA and PATA, that's all.

[Capmaster]

I'm not anxious to fight over it either. Life's too short

Suffice it to say that all specs are wildly optimistic

oh really, interesting -- same size drives for raid?

okay...if I run it raid 0 later... will I loose files I had when it was non raid.. ie...will it involve any reformatting???

Yep. Both the same. I'm not sure about the reformatting ...perhaps. I've never run RAID so I can't say for sure. But for doubling my speed I would certainly consider it a good tradeoff if you do have to reformat. You can always back up your files before you do it

[zzyzzx]

I have had several WD drives fail on me. I haven't had a Maxtor drive fail yet, even one that's really old.

[rkr1958]

oh really, interesting -- same size drives for raid?

okay...if I run it raid 0 later... will I loose files I had when it was non raid.. ie...will it involve any reformatting???

I not 100% sure of this but I believe there is a migration function, or something similar, that would take the files currently on one drive and write (stripe) them across both drives when you configured it for raid 0. The same is true for raid 1, except an exact copy of all files would be made on the new drive. However, I'd check the specs on your specific raid controller and setup to be sure.

In the case of raid 0 setup file migration, I've read somewhere where this takes a long time if the drive is nearly full. Again ... I'd backup any files that are irreplaceable before doing any of this.

[gmatov]

If you belong to Sam's Club, you can buy a 250 gig WD, 8meg, 7200 for 130 bucks + tax..

Two would give you 500 gigs for not much more than one 300 gig.

I don't think I would use RAID for video. You don't need the minute increase in data transfer rate, and you don't need the threat of losing ALL your data if one fails, or, if you are mirroring, you don't need to buy 500 gigs to have a final 250 gigs storage anyway. If you are truly paranoid about your data, back it up to DVD, the irreplaceable stuff, anyway.

Yes, the drives SHOULD be the same size, because they will only be twice as large as the smaller if they are not. A 60 and a 250 will raid as a double 60, or 120 total.

I just bought a 200 gig Seagate this past week. Price was right, after rebate. Best was the big sunburst "Now with 5 year warranty" stuck on the box. Inside the box it said "Made in China". Wonder if that's why the 5 year?

Most others are made in Taiwan or Malaysia. Do not particularly like buying made in China stuff, too goddamn many of our sellers, Sam's and Wallymart, included, sell nothing but, right down to a bag of garlic.

Ah, well.

Cheers,

George

[makntraks]

Opions are like.....
I say whatever works for you....
Although others can comment....Knowledge is power so make your own decision..... Only you know what is best....

makntraks

[studtrooper]

Opions are like.....
I say whatever works for you....
Although others can comment....Knowledge is power so make your own decision..... Only you know what is best....

makntraks

Post whoring at its finest. That post didn't help anyone :P

[greymalkin]

only you know what is best?

if that were true you wouldn't have a thread to ruin or a forum to post in.

[Capmaster]

only you know what is best?

if that were true you wouldn't have a thread to ruin or a forum to post in.

How did that post ruin the thread? Maybe some piling on going on here?