Which hard drive to get?

[Beeblequix]

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/showthre...hreadid=132810

This found in pc steals/deals. Maxtor 80G w 8M cache for $69 after rebates ($30 & $25)

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...140-118&DEPA=1

This on Newegg. Western Digital 40 G 7200 rpm 2M cache, exactly like the one I have, no hoop jumping. $69. Free shipping.

Question is, which one to get? My experience with a Lite-On burner rebate had the rebate finally getting to me after ~11 months. With the ability to RAID 0 two WD drives of same make, and lack of faith in sooper-dooper-rebate methods, I'm more inclined to go for that one.

ßeeßle Qµ!x

[sm8000]

The WD. Compusa will take forever to get you your rebate. There's a very recent thread around here somewhere on that.

EDIT: Never mind That's not Compusa. Maybe a look on resellerratings.com could shed some light on them.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

The 80gb, capacity is king

--Jakk

[rmanet]

size isn't always everything (except on elimidate or whatever that show is.....)

- got a couple machines with 40 and 60 gigs and the kids ain't close to using it all, and that includes serious games and mp3 files

only reason I mention it is there is still hard drive stock on store shelves and online that has the 3 year warranty on it as opposed to the chintzy 1 year warranty everyone went to late last year with the newer bigger drives....

[Beeblequix]

I went ahead and ordered the 40GB WD drive.

Now I'm yet again going to restructure my drives. I don't really know exactly what path to go down. Instead of RAIDing my drives, what I think I'll do is:

1) back up all data
2) reformat (zero write) drives
3) create on the Primary hd 4(5) partitions.
4) #1 will house windows 98 se
5) #2 will house WinNT4.0(?)
6) #3 will house Win2000pro
7) #4 will house WinXPhome
8) #5 will house Mandrake 9.0 or 9.1 (or Redhat's latest)
9) the secondary drive will have a few partitions. This drive will be used for the Windows Swap File, plus applications and data files.

I'm already thinking about how confusing this will be for my wife (and me ) I think it will be cool though once it's up & running.

ß

[cbh]

Well! In my country, Western Digital and Seagate hard drives are condemned items. Because their lifespans are damned short.

I bought a 7GB WD hard drive two years ago. After one year of usage, it crashed or something and I waited for one month to get it replaced. After that, I stored away the drive (it was still in the sealed package) and used my new hard drive (IBM 12GB).

Six months ago, I put the WD item into a P2 system and it just crashed three weeks ago. The stupid people that replaced the drive did not changed a new one for me. They simply just 'fixed' the problem and returned me the same drive.

Now I officially condemned WD and Seagate. I officially support IBM and Maxtor. Currently, you can find that nobody wants to own a WD or Seagate item.

[Billforce]

Originally posted by cbh

Now I officially condemned WD and Seagate. I officially support IBM and Maxtor. Currently, you can find that nobody wants to own a WD or Seagate item.

[/B]

If no one wants them, send them all to Colombia S.A, I´ll pay the freight

[Someone Stupid]

I've had good experience with Western Digital, Seagate, and Maxtor (now that they actually have quality control) - can't say a bad thing about them. Have always seen the occasional drive from all brands fail, really don't see a signifgant difference in any brand as of the past two years. Don't like IBM's only because of the Deathstar issue and how bloody frustrating it is from a small business standpoint having to give someone a new drive, RMA the old one, explain to the person you CAN'T recover their data and have IBM send the same POS drive design back. They've corrected the problems now and sold off the division, but I'm waiting a while before I jump back into going with supporting IBM, as it was rather horrible failures. IIRC BpB can give an account of it from a former IBM employee there as to how bloody horrible it actually was.

[Direct1]

1) back up all data
2) reformat (zero write) drives
3) create on the Primary hd 4(5) partitions.
4) #1 will house windows 98 se
5) #2 will house WinNT4.0(?)
6) #3 will house Win2000pro
7) #4 will house WinXPhome
8) #5 will house Mandrake 9.0 or 9.1 (or Redhat's latest)

Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean it is the best thing to do (unless you want to of course ).

I would just do (in this order) --
Windows 98 Se <-- only if you really need it
Windows 2000 Pro
Windows XP
Linux

Like I said though, I would just do 2000, XP, and Linux. The others are really not needed... Good luck!

[stix_kua]

i would've gotten the maxtor 80 gig with an 8 mb cache...i mean why not, more space and more cache(head room)

as for your partitioning, just leave it as Windows 2000 Pro and trash the other junk. build a linux machine all its own.

[gjimene2]

My maxtor crashed after two years of use. I have 2 WD's in my machine, both 60gb, one is a year old, and the other only six months. I'm sure they will last for quite a while.

I still got some WD that are about 5+yrs old and still ticks!

[xenomorph69]

Western Digital with the 8MB of Cache is really Popular ( iwant 2 of them )

[Beeblequix]

Direct1,

I absolutely *want* Win98se installed. I've been using that partition currently for playing Morrowind. XP takes too much memory in comparison, so I began having far better luck in MW on 98 than XP regarding ~all aspects of performance~(still only have 256MegDDR).

I want 2kPro installed because, well, I'll feel more l337...My current Linux install is pissing me off. I'm debating whether to even pursue it. It may help me for my job, though, so I'm sure I'll end up keeping it.

I've had better luck with all of my WD drives vs. IBMs. The only Seagate I've had is this 2.1GB slow slow slow drive. Still works though. Not a single bad sector over 5 years.

Anyway, the drive will be here next week sometime. In the meantime I'm going to craft my "Nifty Disc", complete with all service packs and drivers for all these OSes & periphs.

ß

[soulburner]

I would definatley get an 8 meg cache drive I love my Western digital after a year it is still almost the fastes drive out and price is coming down. The speed difference is noticeable.