PC hardware: What are some good/bad cheap hard drives?
Hard Drives size limitaion by WindowsXP
by zzz1 - 2/24/07 9:17 PM In reply to: OS limitations? by N.T.GrayWestern Digital Hard drive have program called Data Lifeguard that will cause WindowsXP to use drive larger that Windows limitation. Just Install it after WindowsXP is installed and when rebooting the drive will be at full size.
Cheep new hard drives
by ernielm1 - 2/20/07 3:10 PM In reply to: What are some good/bad cheap hard drives? by N.T.GrayFirst things first. Do you have an eide hard drive in your machine? There are presently 2 different types of hard drives on the market right now: the enhanced IDE and the serial ATA. The EIDE hard drives are starting to get harder to find on the shelf as the serial drives are faster and more reliable. If you want to put a serial hard drive in your machine it may require a daughter card to operate it in your system. I think, however, that you have an EIDE drive in your machine now so it's best to stick with that type. Next because you have a Dell machine you have certain proprietary things to consider which can mean a hardware incompatibility issue. The drives that I have found with the least probability of this are Seagate's
Cheep new Hard Drives
by rwreed - 2/23/07 4:13 PM In reply to: Cheep new hard drives by ernielm1Avoid Maxtor at all costs, I have had several failures on drives only 12 months old. Stick to Seagate or Western Digital
Spinrite 6
by ozerocnet - 2/23/07 5:28 PM In reply to: Cheep new Hard Drives by rwreedI haven't run into a bad drive in years. It can happen though. Don't try to pinch pennies on HDs. They usually last years and your data shouldn't be at any more risk than is inherent anyway. To do so is really dumb.
In any case I strongly recommed you get Spinrite 6 from Gibson Research
http://www.grc.com and run it occasionally. I have run Spinrite for many years and it has saved me grief on several occasions.
geo
GOOD/BAD HD'S
by rsternb - 2/23/07 5:39 PM In reply to: Cheep new Hard Drives by rwreedDEFF STAY AWAY FROM THE MAXTOR.
Plus, I am not too hot on western d.
I made a lot of money replaceing HD's - and they were always
one of these. Max life span 13 to 16 months.
Seagate + I have been useing them since 85. and trust me - my
old pc still runs. I use it for some of the old games for the
grand kids. SAME HARD DRIVEs. 2 - 40 MEG
Quantum used to be a good one - I still have 2 running on another
old pc. but - they were bought out by maxtor - havent seen
them on the market in years.
You can get a 80g seagate for less than 100 and a 120 for less
than 150.
check Newegg, zipzoomfly , novapcs, mwave.
I used to have a longer list but some have gotten
too big for their britches and prices up toooo high.
ted
HDD brand
by zenfire - 2/21/07 10:45 AM In reply to: What are some good/bad cheap hard drives? by N.T.GrayI haven't bought west. digital in a long time. Maxtor usually has the best deals (after rebate of course), but I've had too many of those drives die on me.
Due to the 5 yr warranty, I go seagate now.
Seagate and Western Digital
by strickjh2005 - 2/21/07 3:53 PM In reply to: HDD brand by zenfireSeem to be favorites. I know that maxtors and some hiatachis are complete trash.
The only real difference in hard drives these days is how long they will last. And since different companies use different methods for determining failure rates and different variable in that. It is impossible to get a real answer as far as what works the best.
Western Digital
by oliverrp - 2/23/07 2:28 PM In reply to: Seagate and Western Digital by strickjh2005Never had a Seagate or Maxtor, but have installed many WDs over the past 20 yrs or so - not one has failed.
Hard drives
by bobzoila - 2/23/07 2:59 PM In reply to: Western Digital by oliverrpI love Seagate. Have two(300 and 400gb) with the 5 yr warranty in my upgraded tivo's and love them. Western Digital sucks-have two bad ones, and they fought with me about a $50 rebate for 2 years, and I finally gave up. Crooks!!!!!!!!! Maxtor is OK.
Maxtor
by bigtate - 2/23/07 6:51 PM In reply to: Hard drives by bobzoilaI have only had problems with Maxtor. I had one for less than a year before it went bad. The next one wasn't much better, it lasted about a year and a half. I've had a Seagate for the last year, and I have no complaints. Plus a five year warranty helps!!
Not all systems can support all drives..
by Naxman - 2/23/07 9:29 PM In reply to: What are some good/bad cheap hard drives? by N.T.GrayWhile most drives today at your retail stores will work (at least for a while) the biggest key is keeping them properly ventilated. If you put a 7200rpm drive in an old box your fan might not be strong enough and your environment could overheat causing the drive to die an early death. So make sure you've got proper ventilation for whatever drive you buy.
I also had a maxtor external 250mg drive from Fry's. It burned out in little over a year, just after the warranty had expired. So two things, long warranties help and if the data is critical, have some way of backing it up to multiple media sources (i.e. another disk or cd or tape. I know people think tape is "out of style" with the low cost of hard disk these days but disks do die and a well maintained tape drive/tape backup could save your butt in a disaster. Also make sure you hold on to the driver disk for it so that should your system crash but the tape drive is still good, you can move it to a new system and re-install it.)
Heat isnt a problem
by strickjh2005 - 2/26/07 1:06 AM In reply to: Not all systems can support all drives.. by NaxmanGoogle published its results and noted no significant difference between drives that were 10 degrees warmer than others. They also found that usage has little to no effect on drives either. It is mostly brand and model.
Maxtor & Seagate
by jshapiro53 - 2/23/07 11:53 PM In reply to: What are some good/bad cheap hard drives? by N.T.GrayI personally prefer Maxtor or Seagate, I have not had any problems with these drives. I am presently using 2 Maxtor's in my main machine a 160 and 120 GB.
I will not go near Western Digital; as they have issues with testing their controllers, ie some will only be master, and not slave or can't be cable select. Their drives used to be good, but not so much anymore.
That's my two cents,
Pat
What are some good/bad cheap hard drives?
by cnetmessageman - 3/21/07 9:06 PM In reply to: Maxtor & Seagate by jshapiro53You've probably already made your purchase but, in case you haven't, here are some additional thoughts (some of may have been already mentioned):
Drive Type:
What drive type, Serial ATA (SATA) or Parallel ATA (PATA, EIDE, IDE), does your motherboard support? More than likely it is the 80-pin Parallel model (also referred to as EIDE).
Drive Size: Windows XP SP2 (and in fact Wk2 SP4) have no problem supporting drives larger than 145 GB. The limiting factor is usually the BIOS of the Motherboard. Dell is usually quite good at updating the drivers so check with the online support to determine if the current version (or an update) of your BIOS supports high capacity drives.
While you can still obtain drives of lower capacity such as 80 GB models, it is increasingly difficult to find such drives (as new). In fact even 160 GB drivers are becoming hard to find. Perhaps a more foreboding trend is that the availability of PATA drives is also diminishing.
Brands:
I would definitely recommend Seagate Barracuda (7200.9 or 7200.10) Hard Drive because of their stellar reputation for reliability, excellent engineering features, and 5-year warranty. Most others including Maxtor and Western Digital offer a 1 year warranty. Years ago these folks offered at least a 3 year warranty. This shift (like that of Big Screen TV makers such as Sony) indicate a lack of confidence in the reliability of their own product.
Cost:
The price difference is so small between an 80GB drive and a 160GB (or even a 200GB) drive that it would be foolish not to get the larger drives unless there are compatibility issues.
Compatibility:
In addition to the system related ones (BIOS, Motherboard connectivity) previously mentioned, Seagate technical support strongly recommends against trying to copy a PATA image to a SATA drive because the difference ion interface is likely to cause data corruption.
Source:
There a number of good sources such as Fry's Electronics, Outpost.com, ZipZoomFly.com, and Newegg.com
Heat:
Adding a second HD to the system not only increases the internal case temperature but also places an additional strain on the PSU. Heat is the enemy of many electrical components, particularly Hard Drives, CD, and DVD Drives. Then on top of this there is the extra strain on the PSU that can cause system instability and even shorten the life of system. Some of the Dell parts are proprietary and unfortunately this is usually the case with the Power Supply Unit so upgrading this component may not be an option. Dust also adds to the heat problem. Consequently, at least once per year an internal cleaning/dusting using compressed air should be performed.
Hope this helps
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