OT - New Hard Drive ?s

[zums]

Hey all, could use some advice:

The hard drive on my computer is rapidly filling up to the point where i've been forced to delete some things to keep up w/ the things i install/download, so I've come to the conclusion I need more space. Currently I have the 75 gig hard drive that came installed on my Dell I got about two years ago.

Being as that I'm a poor college student, price is definitely a strong factor when looking for a new hard drive. That being said, I dont want a piece of crap that will fry my computer and I end up losing all my data. So far the best deal I've seen is a Western Digital 80 gig drive at Best Buy, for $30 after rebates.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1051384460160

Does anyone have any experience/opinions on Western Digital? Is it a good/reliable brand? The price is right up my alley, however, I dont want to get burned and would be willing to maybe pay more for peace of mind.

Other questions:

- Is an external drive the way to go? Seems like it would be simpler and easier to install, but more pricey.
- Continuing with the installation, how advanced/hard is it to do? I've never installed a hard drive before. I havent even opened up the shell of this computer, and the only installation I've dont was a cd burner around 5 years ago.
- How does having a second hard drive affect performance? Mostly concerning either playing games or mostly music/movies, but overall what changes w/ a second hard drive, and what should I move/not move over to the new drive?
- Any other issues/concerns I should be worried about with this situation? Sorry for such a long post on such a simple question, but any and all info or advice is greatly appreciated!

-zums

[Elvis]

Yeah, just don't believe those stories they tell you about all the "lucky magnets" you should keep on your computer.

[Raven]

I don't have any answers for you, but how do you use 75G? I'm going to guess that that's probably about 50% music files?

[Philliesfan980]

Originally Posted by zums

Hey all, could use some advice:

The hard drive on my computer is rapidly filling up to the point where i've been forced to delete some things to keep up w/ the things i install/download, so I've come to the conclusion I need more space. Currently I have the 75 gig hard drive that came installed on my Dell I got about two years ago.

Being as that I'm a poor college student, price is definitely a strong factor when looking for a new hard drive. That being said, I dont want a piece of crap that will fry my computer and I end up losing all my data. So far the best deal I've seen is a Western Digital 80 gig drive at Best Buy, for $30 after rebates.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1051384460160

Does anyone have any experience/opinions on Western Digital? Is it a good/reliable brand? The price is right up my alley, however, I dont want to get burned and would be willing to maybe pay more for peace of mind.

Other questions:

- Is an external drive the way to go? Seems like it would be simpler and easier to install, but more pricey.
- Continuing with the installation, how advanced/hard is it to do? I've never installed a hard drive before. I havent even opened up the shell of this computer, and the only installation I've dont was a cd burner around 5 years ago.
- How does having a second hard drive affect performance? Mostly concerning either playing games or mostly music/movies, but overall what changes w/ a second hard drive, and what should I move/not move over to the new drive?
- Any other issues/concerns I should be worried about with this situation? Sorry for such a long post on such a simple question, but any and all info or advice is greatly appreciated!

-zums

I've always bought WD's, never had any problems at all with them.

[thetrilogy]

I used to love WD hard drives. But my favoritism leans to Seagate.

Heck, for $84.00 you could get a 160gb drive (that said, your BIOS will accept it and it's IDE Ultra ata100). Then you just Ghost the old partition to the new drive and viola. Same 1 drive setup, with 160gb of space. You could sell the old drive to another student.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...C-pr1c3grabb3r

I forgot to mention:
That WD drive has a 1 year warranty.
The Seagate's carry 5 year warranty.

[Blade]

Originally Posted by zums

Does anyone have any experience/opinions on Western Digital? Is it a good/reliable brand? The price is right up my alley, however, I dont want to get burned and would be willing to maybe pay more for peace of mind.

Other questions:

- Is an external drive the way to go? Seems like it would be simpler and easier to install, but more pricey.
- Continuing with the installation, how advanced/hard is it to do? I've never installed a hard drive before. I havent even opened up the shell of this computer, and the only installation I've dont was a cd burner around 5 years ago.
- How does having a second hard drive affect performance? Mostly concerning either playing games or mostly music/movies, but overall what changes w/ a second hard drive, and what should I move/not move over to the new drive?
- Any other issues/concerns I should be worried about with this situation? Sorry for such a long post on such a simple question, but any and all info or advice is greatly appreciated!

-zums

Just my personal opinion...

WD drives have always been pretty good for me.

External drives are alright, but can be slower performance wise than an internal hard drive.

If you were able to install a CD burner without any issues, installing a hard drive should be pretty straightforward.

A second hard drive shouldn't affect performance too much. I would say keep one drive as your "system" drive, and one drive as your "data" drive. So, OS, applications, games, etc, should be installed on one drive, and any data like movies, music, microsoft office files, etc, should go on the data drive.

Just my personal opinion...I really have no idea of what I am talking about!

[thetrilogy]

Originally Posted by Raven

I don't have any answers for you, but how do you use 75G? I'm going to guess that that's probably about 50% music files?

I have Near full drive sizes of:

80GB
120GB
and 160GB

DVD files, Adobe Premiere files, games, etc.

[Draft Dodger]

WD is fine. I did have one go bad once, but the replacement process was so smooth with them, they gained a lot of points in my book

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by thetrilogy

I have Near full drive sizes of:

80GB
120GB
and 160GB

Porn files, pr0n files, pornography, etc.

Sounds about right...

[thetrilogy]

Originally Posted by JeeberD

Sounds about right...

Hey now...only the best stuff for thetrilogy.

[Wolfpack]

I bought a WD 100 back when I built our current computer a few years ago. It started going bad last year (start it up...clack! clack! clack!), so I replaced with a SG 160. However, something went wrong during a patch update of XP and it got corrupted somehow. I went back to the WD drive (which mysteriously wasn't suffering its problems anymore) and managed to have it work up until late June this year before it started clicking again and this time it didn't seem like it was going to "fix" itself. So, I went out, got some ghosting software, and copied my WD to my SG (overwriting what I had there before) and am now on the SG. Haven't had a problem since switching back. However, I'm a little reluctant to patch up XP because of what happened before.

Now, I should stress that this is the first time I've had a HD of any kind go bad on me. I've had other WDs and they didn't do this.

[zums]

Originally Posted by Raven

I don't have any answers for you, but how do you use 75G? I'm going to guess that that's probably about 50% music files?

Yeah, more like 75% I would guess... lets just say I listen to a wide variety of music, and a lot of it . Surprisingly, not a lot of games, the rest is mostly porn, funny or music videos, and tv shows I record with my tv tuner. The thing is, all my music dl's have all been w/ a dial-up connection, and this year I have high speed in my apartment so I'm afraid this drive will fill up faster than expected. Oh well, I figure if i can load up 150 gigs it's prolly time for me to inventory and get rid of some stuff anyways, so size isnt *that* big of an issue, more price and reliability at this point.

I recognized the WD brand name and thought it was pretty solid, but the fact that it was such a good deal after the rebates ($30) made me wonder a little bit. I will likely go ahead and get it, I guess the other questions I have are do they usually send step-by-step instructions as well? and also the setup as far as slave/master etc.. all of it sounds familiar but I really am sorta clueless (although I do like the idea of an app drive and a data drive). Again, thanks!

-zums

[zums]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I bought a WD 100 back when I built our current computer a few years ago. It started going bad last year (start it up...clack! clack! clack!), so I replaced with a SG 160. However, something went wrong during a patch update of XP and it got corrupted somehow. I went back to the WD drive (which mysteriously wasn't suffering its problems anymore) and managed to have it work up until late June this year before it started clicking again and this time it didn't seem like it was going to "fix" itself. So, I went out, got some ghosting software, and copied my WD to my SG (overwriting what I had there before) and am now on the SG. Haven't had a problem since switching back. However, I'm a little reluctant to patch up XP because of what happened before.

Now, I should stress that this is the first time I've had a HD of any kind go bad on me. I've had other WDs and they didn't do this.

Yeah, that's the thing. I've never had a hard drive go bad on me (knock on wood) and to be honest it scares the crap outa me. If I lost all the music and other downloads I have I would seriously be lost, because not all of it is backed up on a cd. I guess I'm just nervous about doing anything with the insides because I dont know the specifics about recovering data and things like that, but then on the other hand dont want to pay for installation because I really am pretty electronically inclined, just a lil nervous :o . Anyways, I'm just rambling now.. lol.

-zums

[Blade]

Originally Posted by zums

I will likely go ahead and get it, I guess the other questions I have are do they usually send step-by-step instructions as well? and also the setup as far as slave/master etc.. all of it sounds familiar but I really am sorta clueless (although I do like the idea of an app drive and a data drive). Again, thanks!

-zums

Yes, there should be instructions...just make the system drive the master, and the data drive the slave...

[jeff061]

WD is solid, I have a pair of Raptors and they are the nicest drives I have ever owned.

That said, unless you are getting the Raptors(which I don't recommend from a price standpoint) I'd go with Seagate. But you're probably good either way.

[thetrilogy]

I'm a PC/LAN Tech and I see bad drives alot. What makes them fail:

1- Shock to the computer case. It has to be a pretty big hit. Alot of office
people kick them when they scoot into their desks.

2- Heat and Dust. If the drive can't remain cool and clean, it will start to fail prematurely.

3- Heavy write/delete of the drive of files larger than 1GB. I.E. VOB files from DVD creating/copying. One way to avoid this is to use a 2nd drive or 2nd partition of the master drive. I see alot of corruption take place in the c:\windows directories. Alot of TEMP files get written to this
or the c:\Documents and Settings folder.

[jeff061]

Check http://www.newegg.com . Good prices, not evil .

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by thetrilogy

1- Shock to the computer case. It has to be a pretty big hit. Alot of office people kick them when they scoot into their desks.

That's just what they tell you. I am amazed that this story gets believed.

[thetrilogy]

Originally Posted by Samdari

That's just what they tell you. I am amazed that this story gets believed.

Why. What are they really doing to their computer?

[Ryan S]

Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital are all good reliable brands. I would buy the cheapest, or the one with the longest warranty. I would ignore any other brand.

[Ryan S]

Originally Posted by thetrilogy

3- Heavy write/delete of the drive of files larger than 1GB. I.E. VOB files from DVD creating/copying. One way to avoid this is to use a 2nd drive or 2nd partition of the master drive. I see alot of corruption take place in the c:\windows directories. Alot of TEMP files get written to this
or the c:\Documents and Settings folder.

Would that not come under software problems rather than hardware problems? It sounds like a rebuild of Windows would sort out this problem, rather than a new HD.

[thetrilogy]

Originally Posted by Ryan S

Would that not come under software problems rather than hardware problems? It sounds like a rebuild of Windows would sort out this problem, rather than a new HD.

You would think that is the case. And most new hard drives are self-repairing. They won't write to a bad area on the disk again. But, I still see problems when the bad areas begin in the Windows directory or Documents and Settings (in WinXP). Then hardware failure seems to follow. I just saw a WD drive do this. It was made in April '02. Just missed the 3 year warranty status.

[mrsimperless]

Originally Posted by jeff061

Check http://www.newegg.com . Good prices, not evil .

I second NewEgg. I gave up on pricewatch after finding these guys a few years ago. They are always quite competitive with the lowest prices and you don't have to worry about overpriced shipping or horrible service.

[thetrilogy]

I third NewEgg or also try zipzoomfly.com

[jeff061]

I used to use Zipzoomfly(if Newegg was out of stock on something), but they fucked my father with something. He got a video card DOA and they made him jump through hoops to get the thing replaced. He bought a whole new system, for gaming purposes, put the whole thing together, but it was useless for another couple weeks as he yelled at half a dozen people at zipzoomfly to get his cideo card replaced.

Newegg is the complete opposite about that.