Hard Drive Types.

Mellownatts · 26 May 2006 at 12:01

Hi i'm looking to buy a new hard drive as mine blew last week, never bought one before and just after some info on the types as i dont want to buy the wrong one.

• IDE Hard Drives
• SCSI Hard Drives
• Serial ATA Hard Drives

Any help which one i should buy and info on the difference between them would be great.

Zefan · 26 May 2006 at 12:03

They're all interface types

IDE = Old
Sata= New, but not REALLY any faster than IDE (The drives tend to be better though)
SCSI = MUCH faster interface, and the drives normally spin at around 10-15k rpm which makes them uber quick. They're very expensive (£2-300 for a <100GB drive) and the controllers cost a bit too.

Sata = best.

Mellownatts · 26 May 2006 at 12:06

So a 250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax SATA II for £52 would be a good deal ?

And thanks for the info.

FrankJH · 26 May 2006 at 12:11

depends what your old one was, and whether your mobo has required connector also ( even though you can get SATA PCI add in cards)

Explicit · 26 May 2006 at 12:24

Mellownatts said:
So a 250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax SATA II for £52 would be a good deal ?

And thanks for the info.

I'd prefer Hitachi or Seagate myself. Maxtor seem to be having issues lately.

Zefan · 26 May 2006 at 12:26

The Hitachi Desktar's are the best drives you can get at the minute in my opinion.

kmistry · 26 May 2006 at 12:28

I thought the samsung spinpoints where the best, they run cool and quiet apparently, either way SATA is the best to go, providing you have the correct connector on your mobo (as previously mentioned.....

Zefan · 26 May 2006 at 12:29

kmistry said:
I thought the samsung spinpoints where the best, they run cool and quiet apparently, either way SATA is the best to go, providing you have the correct connector on your mobo (as previously mentioned.....

Cool and quiet yes but the Deskstar's performance is fantastic due to it's density.

Mellownatts · 26 May 2006 at 12:42

I think my old one was a Seagate, not sure about the SATA connections though, i'll have a look when i get home.

Any pointers on what i should be looking for, i imagine it will say on my old HD, should i buy the same as what it says on there to be on the safe side ?

Joe42 · 26 May 2006 at 12:56

No, tell us what board you have or look for some sata connectors on it.