Second Hard-Drive

[g_shocker182]

I recently bought a new DELL computer with a 60Gb Hard drive (you can see the other details by moving your mouse over my "computer details" button above). This computer will be used for video editting. I've heard comments and suggestions about using a second hard drive, so today I opened my new and old machines up to see what I could do. On my new computer there is a IDE (i think thats what they are called) cable connecting the main board with the physical hard-drive(this just has two female connectors, one at either end). Trying to transplant my old hard-drive into the new computer, I used the IDE cable from the old computer (that was used from the main board to connect two (2) cd-rom/rw drives) to connect the new computers main board to both hard-drives (because this IDE cable has 3 connnections, not two like the one that came with teh computer). This has made a 60Gb as master (with Win. XP), and a 3.5Gb (Win 98, but I plan to erase that OS) one as slave. My first question is will the old IDE cable that used to connect the cd-drives to the computer fare the same as being used with hard-drives?
My second question is should I put XP on the 3.5Gb hard-drive, and just use the new 60Gb one for video storage?
I'm sorry this is such a long post but I am thankful for your responses.

[Craig Tucker]

It is possible the old cable which was for cd drives is only a 40 wire cable you should use an 80 wire cable for your hard drives. You can tell them apart by looking at the ribbon cable, with the 80 wire the diameter of each individual cable is smaller than that of the 40 wire, and obviously you have 80 rather than 40 wires. Yes use the small drive for your os and the large one for video capture.

[g_shocker182]

Ok. How would I going about putting XP onto the new hard drive? And how much better are 80 wire cables over the 40 wire cables?

[margib]

You are better off not using that drive. It can only slow your computer to a crawl. A 3.5GB? Come on. That thing has to be slow as hell. Why use it when you can pick up 160GB drives that are ATA133 for like $70?

[Karate Media]

Hate to say it, but I agree; you can pick up a 40GB HDD for pretty damn cheap, probably $40 or so -- there's no reason to put that old clunker in you nice new computer. I've seen an old, past-its-prime hrad drive put into a brand new machine and let me tell you, it's not pretty.

If you just gotta make use of that old HDD, then turn your old computer into a file server. 3.5 GB won't get you much, but you could keep some MP3s and a TON of Word docs on that sucker .

[gmatov]

Shocker,
You've found one way the box makers cut costs. 1 HDD, single connector cable.
If you look at the old and new cables, you'll see that the "group" of wires making up the flat ribbon cable is coarser than the new wire (cable), 40 rather than 80. Your data transfer rate will default to ATA33, and your new drive, and cable, are either ATA100, or 133. Yes, you will drop to 33. But, if you go to a parts house and get an 80 wire, 2 device ribbon cable, you will get back to the spec'd data rate, even with the old 3.5. IT will still be ATA33, but the new 1 will be whatever it is spec'd at.
Since you bought a Dell, I am sure that, as Compaq does, they gave you a restore-re-install disk that is Dell specific, meaning the BIOS has been written to allow the disks to be used on only a Dell computer, so, if you set the 3.5 as Primary Master, reboot, put in the restore disk, it will install the new OS onto the old drive. You may have to specify that during the setup process, but it will.
Now, thereare handicaps built in to this setup. Since there is no room on the "to be" C:\ drive, you will have to rip to and convert to the same drive, so latency enters the pic as well as doing double duty, reading-writing the whole schmear to the now D:\ drive. So you really should get another drive when you can, and the bigger, the better. My 120s are full, my 100 is full, my 80 is damn near full. Man, I wish I was a deleter.

[rallynavvie]

My alternate PC is a Dell something-or-other and it's only a year old. I put a second 80GB drive in it and the Dell case it was in not only had a normal EIDE ribbon in it with Master and Slave pins it also had mounting rails for the new HDD. I dunno about their Celeron machines though. I suggest you get another HDD online or from a local vendor. A 7200rpm 80GB with an 8MB cache should be plenty good for DV and they're going for about $80 these days at most places. They also usually comes with an IDE cable you can use in place of your old one and it should have master and slave connectors on it. That is as long as you buy a retail box HDD. Set the jumpers to "cable select" and put your boot drive on master and your other drive on slave. It'd be nicer to have seperate IDE channels to the two drives but the Dell board isn't very good for this; things start getting tangled up.

[g_shocker182]

The 3.5Gb hard drive was actually a test to see whether or not this setup would work, and from what i've gathered online, this is what i should buy:


Belkin Ultra Dual IDE Hard Drive Cable ($22USD)

http://www.bestbuy.com/Detail.asp?m=488&cat=567&scat=&e=11208876

and

Western Digital 40GB Hard Drive (80bucks)


http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&catoid=-10263&qp=0&bookmark=bookmark_0&oid=31821


damn i hate those mail-in-rebates

[rkr1958]

I've seen 120-GB WD HD with 8mb cache for less than $100 (after rebate) at Best Buy and Curcuit City. If you plan to get deeply into video editing get as much harddrive as you can reasonably afford. Believe me, you won't reget it. I have a 3-year system (733-MHz PIII) with 3 harddrives and a total of 225-GB. Right now, I have less than 30 GB to 40 GB of that free.

By the way, when you purchase a new hard drive, an IDE cable that will support two drives comes with it. So, if you get a new hard drive you won't need to purchase a new cable.

[Karate Media]

Yeah, if you buy a retail box hard drive, it's gonna come w/ everything you need -- the IDE cable, screws, etc... You only need to worry about getting the cable if you getting one of those "drive-only" setups, like the kind you'll find on pricewatch.com

Waiting on rebates sucks, but it's better than paying full price (I waited and waited and waited for my Western Digital 120 GB Caviar Drive to go on sale w/ a rebate, and when I get that $80 check, I'll be glad I did)

[WeedVender]

If you are going to buy more hard drives.. why not invest in Serial ATA. Western Digital is going to come out with a 200 GB SATA HDD soon... and SATA has a transfer rate of 150 megabytes per second. It will be 700 in around 5 years.
But the HDD of today cant transfer at that speed but atleast you dont have a transfer bottle neck.

[gmatov]

shocker,
If you are interested in a LARGE drive, a 160 gig, 8 meg cache, 7200 RPM, run to your local Staples. They have a 160 Maxtor Diamond Max9 at 180, there is a coupon available herehttp://prefctr.ddc.dartmail.net/Staples/default.asp?a=376%CA&e=28556%2F34%5B&g=upuqp%FE&t= v%B0&c=2107840246542481
for an instant 30 USD, and an 80 USD mail in rebate, and it comes with ATA133 cable (save 22 bucks. Where the hell did you get that price, I buy them for 3 to 5) AND, it also, at least mine did, comes with a Promise ATA133 controller card, sold at CompUSA for 50 bucks. Granted, you have to wait for the 80 bucks, but, what the hell.
98 needs an updated bootdisk to fdisk-format larger than 64 gig, but XP probably has that already.
Bottom line is 70 plus tax, for 160 gig and ATA card.
You can't beat that with a stick. I'm formatting mine right now in the other room. Takes forever.
BTW, they have 30s for 30 USD after 30 buck rebate, mebbe for an OS drive.
Beats the comments above moneywise.
Run, don't walk, mine had a bunch, but I don't know about your local Staples.
Gotta go get another my own self.

[gmatov]

Weed,
SATA is on the board, no? That means Shocker is going to have to replace the board in his new Dell, or buy a SATA card, probably 50 or more, and very expensive cables. Mebbe 1 comes with a more expensive drive or the card. I don't think ATA133 is TOO slow for video. Personally, I'll wait for wider adoption, hence lower prices before I go to SATA.

[rallynavvie]

Serial ATA is closer to SCSI but not quite there. The only advantage is that a SATA is dirt cheap compared to U320 SCSI. But then I have no complaints about my Cheetah X15s for capturing and editing video. The only thing I'd use SATA for is faster transfer between my storage drives. My next dual-CPU PC is going to be all minimum U160 SCSI.

But then I think the point of this thread was cheap HDD space, not Ultra$C$I

[Ducatti20]

The 3.5Gb hard drive was actually a test to see whether or not this setup would work, and from what i've gathered online, this is what i should buy:


Belkin Ultra Dual IDE Hard Drive Cable ($22USD)

http://www.bestbuy.com/Detail.asp?m=488&cat=567&scat=&e=11208876

and

Western Digital 40GB Hard Drive (80bucks)


http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&catoid=-10263&qp=0&bookmark=bookmark_0&oid=31821


damn i hate those mail-in-rebates

www.pricewatch.comwww.newegg.com
you can beat those prices almost anywhere online.. I recently gave up $80 for a 120 GB WD Special edition drive off of a web site I found on pricewatch.

[gmatov]

rallienavvie,
How much cheaper can you go than half as buck a gig for storage, and that being a 7200 rpm, 8 meg cache, 160 (actually like 156 gig, I just fdisked-formatted mine, 156 gig, you know, 1024X1024X1024, not 1000X1000X1000.) gig WITH an 80 wire ATA133 cable, AND an ATA133 controller card, on which he can hang 3 more drives, or separate his present drives to separate channels.
And, I have read a few reports that say Ultrewide, Ultrafat, 160, whatever actually do not show enough of an increase in data transfer rate to warrant the extra cost, the extra aggravation, of getting SCSI to work, ie, it is not much faster than ATA133. Drives cost more, cables cost more, controllers, whether add on or built in, cost more. I haven't had SCSi since my first 1X-2X burner, JVC SCSI, that burned for 30 minutes before it told me "Oh-oh, bad burn". The only SCSI drive I have is an old 2 gig, about 4 inches thick, and about 14 pounds. Probably very good, but I will stick with much cheaper ATA drives.

[gmatov]

Ducatti,
How the hell you gonna beat 160, with cable, with ATA card, for 75 after rebate?
Granted, you gotta wait for the 80 bucks.
Does nobody care?
I saw the link to the coupon here from somebody else, in another thread, immediately went to get one, and have just fdisked formatted it, ready to go, 8 gig for OS, 149 for storage, gonna be a bitch to scan-defrag.
Hey, I bought mine. No one wants to go for the same route, no skin off my nose.

[Ducatti20]

Ducatti,
How the hell you gonna beat 160, with cable, with ATA card, for 75 after rebate?
Granted, you gotta wait for the 80 bucks.
Does nobody care?
I saw the link to the coupon here from somebody else, in another thread, immediately went to get one, and have just fdisked formatted it, ready to go, 8 gig for OS, 149 for storage, gonna be a bitch to scan-defrag.
Hey, I bought mine. No one wants to go for the same route, no skin off my nose.

Can't beat the price, but he had said he didn't want to go with rebates. I personally have no problem waiting, and have never been burned (although i've waited and e-mail harrassed!!).

[gmatov]

Ducatti,
I should be addressing shocker, but, if you think about it (maybe as an aside it will sink in better ) a 30 buck instant discount, 150 for the drive, straight up, including an ATA133 controller/expansion card, means a 160 for, basically, 100. Do YOU think that would be a better way to say it
And, on top of that, if you DO send in the rebate,consider it a 20 buck hard drive in addition to an ATA133 card.
Hey, I don't like having them hold my money for 4 to 6 months, either. The alternative is to pay inflated prices. I would dearly love to know what is the monetary advantage to them in holding our money. This drive is one thing, the one that really, really pisses me off is the one that is "free" after rebate. Now, how in the hell do you do that? 4% on 40 bucks, for 4 months is pennies, but, damned if you don't have the product, and eventually, your money.

[Ducatti20]

Ducatti,
I should be addressing shocker, but, if you think about it (maybe as an aside it will sink in better ) a 30 buck instant discount, 150 for the drive, straight up, including an ATA133 controller/expansion card, means a 160 for, basically, 100. Do YOU think that would be a better way to say it
And, on top of that, if you DO send in the rebate,consider it a 20 buck hard drive in addition to an ATA133 card.
Hey, I don't like having them hold my money for 4 to 6 months, either. The alternative is to pay inflated prices. I would dearly love to know what is the monetary advantage to them in holding our money. This drive is one thing, the one that really, really pisses me off is the one that is "free" after rebate. Now, how in the hell do you do that? 4% on 40 bucks, for 4 months is pennies, but, damned if you don't have the product, and eventually, your money.

As I stated in my post, you can't beat the price on the deal you found... Never questioned that. But knowing people (my father for instance) who are leary of rebates and tight on the cash to begin with, I was posting some decent alternatives.
On a personal opinion note, rebates suck!! Why can't the store just give me the damn thing for the rebate price, and they send in the bloody reciept themselves!!!

[rallynavvie]

I have 480GB of ATA133 IDE drives so it's not like I don't utilize ATA. The difference in cost between SATA and regular ATA isn't much right now but I don't want (actually don't have room for) another controller. The advantages of the SCSI drives I have are many: obscenely fast seek times, good data transfer (great data transfer on the U320 drive), far less system resources used since SCSI drives have onboard controllers, and near unlimited amounts of devices off ONE SCSI channel. The drawbacks: far more expensive than IDE and requires a host adapter that is also more expensive than even IDE RAID controllers. I've used IDE RAID and I like the SCSI option better.

BTW if you're planning on adding several HDDs IDE RAID cards are pretty inexpensive so get one of those as an extra IDE controller. It'll give you the option of running RAID if you want as well as offer 4 more IDE devices. That's what I'm using mine for

[WeedVender]

Weed,
and very expensive cables.

Uh SATA cables arent that expensive considering the price of ATA133
SATA cables of 18 in. go at about 4 to 5$

[g_shocker182]

Thanks for all the information guys

[g_shocker182]

, and it comes with ATA133 cable (save 22 bucks. Where the hell did you get that price, I buy them for 3 to 5)

Can you tell me where I can get these?

[gmatov]

Weed,
That price, I didn't know. I thought they were much more, but that's at BB and the like.
Shocker,
I pay that at the local accessory store, not even remotely like BB and them. I used to buy the 40 wire for 10 bucks a 12 pack. Go to a Computer show, if there is one nearby. Check www.marketpro.com for time and place. Some things you get cheaper, some things not. Drawback is, if something is no good, either telephone adjustment, or wait a month for next show. I have rarely had problems with returning stuff, mail or next show.
Did I mention the 160 gig drive comes with a normally 50 buck ATA133 4device controller card, final price about79 bucks?
I bought 1, think I'll get another. I know I'm gonna need it, by'm'by.

[WeedVender]

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=18%2DInch%2C+90%2DDegree%2DA

[g_shocker182]

I think i just might take that deal....


heres the link for anyone else looking at this thread

Maxtor 160Gb 7200RPM internal

http://www002.staples.com/Catalog/Browse/Sku.asp?PageType=1&Sku=504516

[WeedVender]

Not that bad

At least its ATA 133, 7200 RPM and has an 8 Mb of buffer.

[Karate Media]

Just a Gumby question...

Have we verified that you have a free slot for the UltraATA card for the 160GB, and especially one that you won't want to use in the future (it seems that Dells, etc., seem to have a limited number of free PCI slots, and maybe you'll want to install, say, a firewire card in the future (if you don't already have firewire)...

Just something to consider if you want to get a drive larger than 120 GB...

[gmatov]

Weed,
I checked Newegg, per your link. Cables are not THAT high. But I also checked the other link, to MicroPro, and a 36 gig SATA is 154 bucks there.. The Staples deal is more than 4 times the capacity, 1/2 the price., I went and bought a second one tonight, including an ATA133 ribbon connector, and another ATA133 Promise controller card, a 50 buck item.. Still a bargain to my eye. And, ain't no way 150 MB/s will give more to video than a 133 drive.. You just can't use the transfer rate meaningfully.
Karate,
If you want a larger than 120 MEGABYTE drive added on, you are still going to need an expansion card. You can't say don't buy this because you are goig to use up a slot. My primary machine has 6 PCI slots, and with the card, they're all full. I don't know what I will sacrifice if I NEED something else, but will decide on that then. Maybe have to go USB 2.0 external on a drive or two. Or just send stuff back and forth on the network. I'd stick the 2 160s in the same machine as all the storage, but that would actually reduce my capacity, as I have a 120, a 100, an 80, a 60 and a 45 there now. Only got room for 1 more device, less I put another ATA card in it. Have to check out if there is an open slot.. Pretty sure not.