Need new large 2.5" IDE

Golden Ape

Golden Ape

Golden Ape

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
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466
Hmm looks like my laptop's harddrive might be about to buy the farm - some ominous clicking and 'windows replacing bad sectors in files' messages, not good. So I'm wondering what the largest 2.5" IDE drive currently is? Looking on OC's site I can see a "Western Digital Scorpio 250GB 5400RPM ATA-100 8MB Cache" - seems large enough for my purpose, are they any good? Thanks!
 
I have the new WD 320GB Scorpio (SATA), and I get 52Mb/s average in HD Tune :)

Guess I should have said they are very quiet (I think all 2.5" drives are?), I cant hear it at all and its sitting externally on top of my PC. When I was looking at the SATA version of the 250GB a while ago review sites seemed to give it a good enough review, the only thing that put me off at the time was a new seagate drive was said to be comming out which uses less power (still not out yet though). I would have thought the IDE drive is the same as the SATA one with just a different interface.
 
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Mmm interesting, I think I will probably go for one of those, thanks for the input. I've had a quick look round other manufacture's sites and can't see any other IDE drives that are larger.
 
From personal experience I'd avoid WD drives. I've had two (80Gb and 160Gb) and they both failed within 6 months. Sold the replacement refurbs on and replaced with Seagates. They've only being making laptop drives for 18 months or so and they seem to be pushing too far too soon.

I don't think anyone else makes 250Gb 2.5" IDE drives. Hitachi, Samsung etc only make SATA drives in this capacity. Last time I checked Seagate topped out at 160Gb.
 
Brendy: Interesting, the drive I've just killed is an older generation Hitachi 7200rpm (100gb). Although I like the speed I really don't like how hot it gets - according to the HD monitor thing I use this one can top out at over 70deg C, which is pretty frightening. I'm kind of hoping that the higher data density of the 250gb drive will offset some of the loss of speed going back down to 5400rpm.
 
wow 70c!!!! I have been running a hitachi 7200 100gb in my inspiron 9400 for the last two years. The whole damn laptop gets toasty thanks to a hot 7800. So far it hasnt failed but I am curious what temp the drive runs at.
 
Personally I would never replace a lappy hard drive with anything less than a decent 7.2k drive. It really does show how important spindle speed is for a nice quick and snappy computer and personally I have not experienced any problems with heat or significant reduced computer time!
I think that’s because I use the IBM 7.2k drives that only use a fraction more power than many 5.4k lappy drives.
 
Mmm maybe I've got a dud. Thought I think the first generation of the hitachi 7200rpm drive was meant to be pretty hot. All things being equal I would have gone with a 7200rpm over a 5400 but as I'm stuck with IDE and wanted a bigger drive the WD 5400rpm is the only good option. I'll be quite interested to see what difference in speed I notice (might time windows starting now and with the new drive)...
 
Benchmarking my hitachi 100gb 7200 to my new samsung 250gb there wasnt much in it.
The Hitachi had a couple of ms faster access but the sequential R/W was a little faster with the samsung.

I havent noticed any difference in speed day to day yet.
 
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