Buying Advice for Hard Drives Please

medrep

medrep

medrep

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Manchester
Hi all,

I am after replacing my two IDE Hard Drives (a 80gb IBM deskstar and a 40gb WD and both annoyingly loud) with either a large SATA II HDD such as a Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI) or 2 drives: Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31637) (HD-001-HI) and a Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB WD360GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD).

I have heard so many people raving about Raptors so was thinking of using the Raptor for games and the Hitachi for O/S, Office Applications, MP3's etc.

Is this a daft idea? Are these two drives quiet or does anyone have any other suggestions?

thanks
 
If you are getting a raptor, you can probably use it for both OS and games - then use a Seagate for storage. Hitachi are great all rounders but if you only need a storage drive, the reliability of seagates are unrivalled. Alternatively, have a 36GB raptor for OS and games (they will fit) and use the hitachi for mp3, vids etc and even applications which aren't HDU intensive.
 
Thanks Smids,

HD-054-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 120GB ST3120813AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-054-SE)
£46.95 £46.95

or

HD-056-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 200GB ST3200827AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-056-SE)
£55.95 £55.95

and

HD-007-WD Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB WD360GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD)
£63.95 £63.95

does this look good? How quiet are they and would I really notice the difference running my OS and games throgh the raptor?
 
Yes, you definitely would - I did that exact same thing last summer - and I did notice it. You can't know until you try and anyone who says otherwise hasn't owned a raptor.

Go for the 200GB if you need it, as it is only £9 more for 80GB. If not, then just get the 120GB or even 160GB ;).

Raptor's are quiet when idling (no noisier than any other drive really), but will make a noise on seek, loudish - they are definitely worth it though and not overly loud. Bearable for the speed :).
 
Thanks again Smids.

Final questions before I get the credit card out.. Is there any specific set up needed with two SATA II drives (i know that there is no master and slave settings required like on my current system). Is it best to get the raptor up and running 1st with the O/S then format the seagate afterwards?

As for my current programmes (MS office, games, MP3's, pictures etc) can I set up the system initially with 3 drives (Raptor, Seagate and my 80 gig IDE) and drag and drop files and data to the seagate?


really appreciate your help smids!
 
Whenever mixing SATA and IDE drives, install with ONLY the SATA drive being installed to. This prevents windows for being a complete ass and putting boot files on different drives. So install the Raptor only, removing all other HDU's and once windows is installed, then plug in all the other drives. Once all other drives are plugged in, go into BIOS and set the Hard disk boot priority to boot from the Raptor first - you'll need to consult your motherboard manual for this, unless you happen to give me your exact motherboard name. You can drag and drop files, but I advise against it as you lose any registry entries for those programs - reinstallation is really the only way I'm afraid - timely I know, but honestly it is best.

With regards to setup, no master or slave or anything - if there are any jumpers on the SATA drives when you get them, remove them :).

So simply:

Install with Raptor ONLY
Add new drives
Make sure BIOS is all OK
Drag and drop to your hearts content.

Any problems encountered - just post back here :).
 
Hi Smids (again!)

you should be charging me for your help lol. I have an Asrock 939 dual sata Motherboard (just edited my signature with my complete rig on it). Would it be difficult with this board?
 
Nope. You'll need all the SATA drivers from here: http://www.asrock.com/support/download.asp?Model=939Dual-SATA2.

Make sure you plug the Seagate into the SATA2 port, the raptor is SATA1 so any port will do. Use the drivers for the port during the XP setup process - you know about F6 etc? The driver packages from their website have a readme on making the XP install floppy to install the sata drivers.
 
you know about F6 etc?

No.. I am afraid I don't.

The driver packages from their website have a readme on making the XP install floppy to install the sata drivers.[/QUOTE]

My current system has not floppy drive. Do I need to buy one or can I use a dvd drive instead?

hope these are not dumb questions!

thanks again Smids
 
Now you've made life difficult.

2 options:

1) Get a floppy drive (easiest)
2) Slipstream the drivers using a program called nLite (takes a bit of work, especially as I could never get it to work...).

About the F6 thing - Windows requires drivers for pretty much all SATA controllers as it has none preloaded - something which will be fixed in Vista. Just after the Setup is checking your computer's configuration screen, immediately as the blue setup screen appears, there is an option to hit F6 if you need to install 3rd party drivers. Without these drivers, windows will not see any drives plugged in via SATA (if it was an nForce 4 chipset, you would be ok as the nF4 has a clever trick which makes the drives look like IDE drives instead of SATA, but oh well). So you just keep hitting F6 until the prompt goes away and it says 'Loading Windows Executive' in the grey bar at the base of the screen. Then about mid way through copying files it will bring up a screen saying add the new drivers by pressing S (mass storage controller). Press S and it will say put the floppy in and hit enter, at which point you load the necessary driver. If more than one, you can press S again to load the other driver. The drivers loaded will be listed near the top of the S prompt screen. When done, hit enter and continue to setup as normal (leave floppy in drive for now).

There you go - slipstreaming means none of the above is required but it's a lot of work to do - floppy drives are still useful....
 
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