1TB hard drive only $260

[stiltman]

I have a Seagate ATA 80gb that's prolly 4 years old
I have a Seagate ATA 160gb that's prolly 3 years old
Neither one has had a problem and both are quite


I'm going to pick up a few of the 500gb from best buy. I already have 3 right now in a raid 5, but what the heck, Intel says I can add drives on the fly....Looks like a test for my new system

Just in case you wanted to still pick up the 500gb drives from BB. They are showing back order on the website and in my case no stores have them in stock.

I took the BB ad from their own website, printed it up and took it to CC. CC had a bunch on their shelves. CC did a price match plus 11%. so it was $89 for each drive in stead of $99.99

[rotten apple]

Random thoughts from thread;


- I wasn't sure if or how well/efficiently,at least my, mob based intel Raid facility would work with externally connected drives ie include them actively in a volume of the array, due to the tech diffs of USB ( and firewire to a lesser extent but still with its seemingly died on its arse isolated compatibility (AKA Mac/Appleness) issues) to more developed internal Data transport - can't even remember if i found an answer put can find out from a test experiment i supose.

- Relating to above, eSata is the only way i would consider using external drives as (even semi) permanant storage solution currently would be if i had eSATA ports already built into my mobo. Was reading on (UK ?) Amazon about astonishing bargain price of WD external 'myBOOK' drives not far from comparitive size int. drives didn't make sense imo ??? at least one of the catches (apart from poss off loading of Dodgy batch) was the required, to make useable, high price of the the PAIR of add in connectors/convertors ( PCI ? ) to the mobo - so the stated price was merely a deception, the actual price was much higher (without Esata ready/capable mobo)for working comparison with int. drives . Otherwise the speed of external drives connection is too slow for me personally with 'big' file transfer where my Conroe might aswell be a Pentium for all the good its doing, so long is its absence of its potential to speed up the system for this process - movement of large files internally seems light years away speed wise with such file size never mind the extra expense and clutter of external drives. That goes against the appeal of the desktop for me - getting the biggest bang for my buck when i don't need mobility in a PC. And that i have more buying power from merely avoiding buying PC external equipment thats intended to use/fit outside the case ( because a laptop has no spare room left inside or even much chance of being opened up and modified by the owner themselves) basic internal Desktop maintenance soon becames like 2nd nature for many (but naturally only some) - after safety observations a few secs opening a storage cupboard door (a door basically is one side of the case i have no additional tools to get at or to position or remove/replace many components) after initial assumed overcomplexity of such a task.

- As edDV first stated 1st having all your storage capacity on one drive saves money (eg electricity cost for 2 drives over one, currently doubling drive size does not double comparative energy usage - perhaps more relative (area for) friction of two seperate drives decreases efficiency?). However on the other side of coin having all your data on the same HDD increases the risk (of work required to fix/replace FROM BACK UP ETC or to therefore prevent) of data loss should the DISC GO IRETRIVABLEy DOWN. ( though the odds of saving Data aren't better for past its sell by date Raid 0 just loosing 1 disc could mean that, like a paparallel to a bigger single drive, you could end up loosing it all at once(not the multidisc R1 (redundancy protection) + R0 combinations used traditionally in servers etc) which people continue to believe significance(perhaps subconcious belief like medical placebo) speed is gained from such a setup (without there ever being fairly derived facts or evidence to support such believes)from their grouping of merely two drives, to be worth such an increased risk to data

Correct me if i'm wrong here, but don't the 1TB drives currently all have 5 platters?
While 500gb have 3 (or is there any company with 250gb/platter for 2 platter design)? Should not it be logically better to use a 500gb instead of a 1TB inside a small computer or livingroom pc, unless u really seriously need the space?
Less platters does mean less moving parts (less likelihood of failure), less heat (friction) and noise.

So I would say it is better with a USB or NAS drive, and having a slightly smaller drive in your computer, increasing the lifespan of the drive itself and giving you less heat and noise to deal with in your case.

From a price perspective the NAS and smaller internal drive will still be equal or less than the 1TB drive. At least that's what i wound when i did a quick search through Swedish prices.

Any comments on this reasoning? Or am I wrong here?

//Alendri

Can see the logic to your reasoning though don't agree with all points BUT thats not to say U R wrong - i think theres too many reactions going on in opposite direction to be sure of making likely predictions without extremes of one type of use - rather like predicting all the factors for creating the weather we have to wait for them to react and begin to give an idea of whats happening overall before any decent prediction in a forcast, identifying that a specific climate event will happen at a specific time so far into the future becomes increasingly unlikely to be accurate.Also not all knowledge known is neccesesally true, msitakes are bound to be made and spread with so many countless Physical/environmental etc properties existing and their potential for interaction with one another - has every property known been categorised together with all possible interactions...its a statistical nightmare, like the weather which is why our prediction of orbits and alignments of planets is accurate for unimaginable timescales into the future - the number of variables are more managable with current knowledge and technology....

Yep would say long term exposure to certain temp and vibration has the potential to effect drive life aswell as any other components that share its self produced effects in the set up. Excessive defragging is rumoured to wear out specifc drives parts increasing the potential of premature faults or even hdd death.However their are extra stresses put on the drive ( from the torquing force from rotational de/accelerational with spin -up/down from power up/off and other components also feel the stress from swift thermal increases/decreases when powered up/ down with the corresponding expansions and contractions.

Also would the use of an external HDD for the sake of a smaller internal drive make you pay significantly more overall than internal drives - you might have the drive longer but you payed for that with extra cash. Would the external drive be cooled aswell over its lifetime without the moving air and rate thermal emmision of a PC box - surely a seperate,comparible HDD cooler increases the cost too much?.....Would the slower connect speed of the external drive mean the heads spent significantly more time on the drive than they would with a faster transfer between internal drives - WD Caviar SE16 and GP models have developed technologies to keep the heads off the surface when not in use to reduce wear and also heat production from idle drag... It all has to boil down to fate and luck - the best you can do is that which scienctific discoveries endlessly demonstrate "everything in moderation" avoid too many excessive extremes.

See you could argue , contradict (and reasess with newly discovered risks) countless reasoned theorectical points put forward but there's one thing you haven't mentioned that is frequently the real deciding factor......

it's all about luck.
but Maxtor and other shit, are by far the slowest.

i have a HP p4 with a samsung drive....slow like shit, but still working after 5 yrs of non-stop operation at my office....

so, does it make the best drive ???? no way, this is just luck .

the ideea is this: you better keep the computer running, for longer lifespan....if you shut it down every hour or so....you have a higher percentage of failure, this is fact.

Your first statement is INSPIRATIONAL however your last one is DIABOLICAL imo....well suposin it was a fact it would be pointless as burning paper cash to keep warm in the real world which is fine for Biz (they can afford to be so wastefull it seems) but not your average home PC.... do you know the power consumption of a computer PER SECOND?
Energy(J) = (Energy flow per unit of time= second) = W(ats)= J/s
Home PCs generally in the 100-200W range.To get total energy consumption x time. How about the cost of electricty per KWh? A day? 365 days? The average lifespan of a computer is how many years?How many new replacement computers could you buy with the electricity saved from power off when not used - not even mentioning the dreaded propaganderised "Carbon Footprint" we have here....

Clues!;

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/122097561/m/7870965324/p/1

http://www.sennir.co.uk/Journal/146

http://www.sennir.co.uk/Journal/Computer_Power_Usage_New

Enjoy your "facts!"

[edDV]

Random thoughts from thread;



- As edDV first stated 1st having all your storage capacity on one drive saves money (eg electricity cost for 2 drives over one, currently doubling drive size does not double comparative energy usage - perhaps more relative (area for) friction of two seperate drives decreases efficiency?). However on the other side of coin having all your data on the same HDD increases the risk (of work required to fix/replace FROM BACK UP ETC or to therefore prevent) of data loss should the DISC GO IRETRIVABLEy DOWN. ( though the odds of saving Data aren't better for past its sell by date Raid 0 just loosing 1 disc could mean that, like a paparallel to a bigger single drive, you could end up loosing it all at once(not the multidisc R1 (redundancy protection) + R0 combinations used traditionally in servers etc) which people continue to believe significance(perhaps subconcious belief like medical placebo) speed is gained from such a setup (without there ever being fairly derived facts or evidence to support such believes)from their grouping of merely two drives, to be worth such an increased risk to data

By that I meant separation of current working drives vs. archive drives. No reason to burn power and add wear to archive drives until you want access. Plug them in when you need them. Archive drives should never be RAID 0. Better to keep two copies of unique data.