Need More Storage

JEN · Post by **JEN** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:37 am

Hi

I'm looking into buying more storage space for my existing fairly silent computer. I only have enough ide ports and power ports for 1 more hard drive.

I'm thinking of getting either a 250Gb or 300Gb harddrive as all harddrives over 300Gb seem to be over my price range.

So, can someone please recommend a quiet harddrive no smaller than 250Gb and no bigger than 300Gb.

Appreciate any advice.

Thanks

OmegaZero · Post by **OmegaZero** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:56 am

I would recommend the MaxLine III series (or the DM10) from Maxtor. I've had nothing but a pleasant experience with the three I have.

As far as reference material goes, I'd have a look at Storagereview.com's leaderboard as well - everything you ever wanted to know about drive speed and such. Cross referencing them and SPCR is what led me to the MaxLine in the first place.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 4:29 pm

What is your price range? There might be quiet hard drives larger than 300GB that are in your price range.

JEN · Post by **JEN** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 1:31 am

My maximum budget is £110 GBP.

$194 USD
€162 EUR

conversion rate from www.xe.com correct on 24/October/2005

mellon · Post by **mellon** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:05 am

I just bought a Samsung 2504C (250GB, SATA-II) HDD, but I haven't yet had time to put it in my system. I'll report how it turns out later this week.

JEN · Post by **JEN** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 10:46 am

I'm looking foward to the review.

I actually don't mind the harddrive in an external encloser.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:28 pm

JEN wrote:My maximum budget is £110 GBP.

$194 USD
€162 EUR

conversion rate from www.xe.com correct on 24/October/2005

It seems I was right, there are hard drives above 300GB that are in your price range:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ode=101252 - SATA
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDe ... ode=101251 - PATA

JEN · Post by **JEN** » Tue Oct 25, 2005 2:03 pm

Thanks for the links but they don't seem to work. Can you tell me the make and model of the hard drives?

Thanks

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 4:53 am

JEN wrote:Thanks for the links but they don't seem to work. Can you tell me the make and model of the hard drives?

Thanks

Hmm, they work fine for me.

The first drive is a "Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JD 320GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer"

The second drive is a "Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer"

bomba · Post by **bomba** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:59 am

JEN,
I have (2) Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JD 320GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer and just ordered a 3rd. They are nice 'n quiet by my ears and are bargain priced, at least in the US. For reference, I formerly had (2) Maxtor DM9+ drives conventionally mounted in my Sonata. I replaced one of the Maxtor’s with a 250G PATA Hitachi also mounted conventionally. My PC is now much louder, primarily from transmitted (Hitachi) drive vibration. I'm afraid I may need to resort to drive suspension. This was never an issue with Maxtor.

The WD 320G drives are mounted in my Compucase LX6A19 HTPC which has the same interior config and drive mounting as the SLK3000B. They don't create significant noise from vibration in this case like the Hitachi does in my Sonata.

mellon · Post by **mellon** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 5:21 am

I finally found (or rather accidentally got) time for installing the Samsung 2504C into my system and so far I've been happy with this new HDD.

Idle noise is inaudible (ghetto suspended near front intake inside my Antec 1030 case) and seeks are very muted. Performance feels quite good too, notably better than with my old DiamondMax9.

BTW, if you need to migrate to a new HDD a good program for the job seems to be Acronis MigrateEasy. I tried a couple of other programs (Partitionmagic, DriveImage XML) but both gave errors when cloning the drive. MigrateEasy on the other hand was easy to use and worked great on the first try.