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General discussion

Finding new SATA HDD

Apr 3, 2006 12:41PM PDT

Hello. I'm looking for a new hard drive, and after browsing newegg, I've decided I want to get in on the SATA bandwagon. My hardware:
Asus K8N
AMD Sempron 2600+ 1.6GHz
Kingston 512MB

The motherboard's SATA port has a transfer rate of 150 MB/s (SATA I, right?). So that rules out the faster SATA II. I could get one of those to look to the future, but it's not necessary. My power supply even has a couple of SATA connectors. My problem: I have no clue which drive I should get. The drive should ideally be about $90, 250GB, have 8 or 16 MB cache, decently silent, and a fairly quick seek time.

Two models I was looking at:
Western Digital
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144701

Seagate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148065

The thing is, both of them seem to have a high rate of drive failure. I read through most of Seagate's reviews, and skimmed through WD's, and both of them kept complaining about the drives either being DOA or failing very shortly after purchase.

Do any of you know of any drives that are solid and meet my specs?

Thanks for any help, have a great day!
-Christopher

Discussion is locked

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Sure the SATA IIs aren't backward compatible ?
Apr 4, 2006 2:25PM PDT

In real life .. doesn't appear to be any significant advantage except use in future systems.

Re failure...not a good sign but good to be aware of.

VAPCMD

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SATA II is backwards compatible, but...
Apr 4, 2006 10:28PM PDT

... I figured I may save a few dollars if I went with the lesser version. But, if it's a good deal, and is dependable, I'll get SATA II. But whichever I get, I need to figure out which one, so I can go ahead and get it.
Thanks much, good day...
-Christopher

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Then I wouldn't rule out IDE either . .
Apr 4, 2006 10:57PM PDT

cause the speed difference ..except for RAPTOR is insignificant. The important thing is getting something that's reliable, dependable, compatible, etc.....speed isn't relevant if the drive ain't running reliably...no matter what the interface is.
There are good comparison figures at STORAGEREVIEW.COM and good product feedback at places like NEWEGG.COM. Just have to read user comments carefully

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not necessarily the drive's fault
Apr 5, 2006 12:17AM PDT

I think you are reading too much into the NewEgg ratings for those products. There are over 250 and 350 reviews for those drives, and the vast majority of them are very positive.

Also, people who have problems with a HD may be more more motivated to leave a review than others. What you must take into account is that some people don't know how to install a SATA drive. They use the wrong BIOS settings, wrong driver, don't update BIOS, don't properly cool their case, use loose SATA cables, have spyware, etc.

I try to purchase SATA instead of PATA drives (ATA/100, ATA/133) because many new motherboards have only one IDE slot that is taken up by two optical drives. PATA drives are great as secondary drives and for external enclosures.