Advice on a new hard drive

jcs1987 · 1 Mar 2007 at 08:42

Hi guys

Could you give me some suggestions on a new hard drive for my dad. To replace a slow 20Gb Seagate IDE drive. I usually buy maxtor drives but every single drive i've used has failed in one way or another. We also can't use Western Digital for some reason they aren't compatible with the motherboard. We are looking around the 80Gb mark. Any suggestions on a good drive?

Will_3rd · 1 Mar 2007 at 08:49

First off Maxtor are really really bad at the moment

If you say can't use WD Drives that is fine.

You looking for SATA or PATA(IDE)?

Seagate are by far the most reliable at the moment and come with a 5 year warranty

IDE
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-086-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=

SATA
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-085-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=

rpstewart · 1 Mar 2007 at 08:53

For an 80Gb IDE the fastest out there is likely to be the Hitachi 7K160, it's a single platter drive and only one side of the platter at that so the average transfer rate will be good. There's a 160Gb version as well for not much more although you're then into Seagate 7200.10 sizes so there's a bit more choice.

My concern though would be whether the PC supports 48bit LBA to allow drives over 132Gb.

jcs1987 · 1 Mar 2007 at 14:44

The drive will be IDE. As the motherboard doesn't handle SATA very well imo. I was looking at the seagate drive but wasnt too sure. I'm aslo not sure if it can handle a high capacity drive as i've only ever used 40 or 80 GB drives on it. I know it currently has a 250GB external hard drive but that is an entirely different device altogether.