Hard Drive Advice

[tIMor`]

Looking to buy a new Hard Drive (gonna have to wait for upgrade as I need to pay for a holiday).

My 2x 40 gigs are pretty full atm (of stuff I actually want to keep and don't want to burn) and so I wish to purchase a new HDD to dump all my stuff on :}

I'm thinking of going for a WD 120 gig but not sure which one to go for (there's a few different ones, different cache etc. I think) and only differ in price slightly.

Was thinking though, I want to be able to keep my two 40 gig hdd's as well as use the new drive in the same PC, is that possible? I kinda gathered it'd probably depend on my mobo or sth but didn't know. Also, would WinME make me split it up? Don't really want to do that (but could do it if need be (split it for mp3s, avis etc.)) and if XP supports 120 gig HDD's I'd go for it :}

Any help would be appreciated, t.i.a :}

[desdinovA]

Originally posted by tIMor`
Was thinking though, I want to be able to keep my two 40 gig hdd's as well as use the new drive in the same PC, is that possible?

Yeah, it`s pretty simple to setup 2 hard drives in 1 tower. At most you will need a bus cable, or not.

[Molloy]

Erm

Three HDDs? I assume that they're not SCSI, so I'd advise against it.

Why?

Well it'd mean one of your HDDs sharing an IDE ribbon with your CD or DVD drive. The current design of the IDE ribbon means that the drives connected to it transfer information at the speed of the lowest functioning device. A CD rom drive, even a spinky new one doesn't run at UDMA 133 speeds, and therefore any drive that's hooked up on the same bus would not be very fast.

It might be functional if, say, you wanted a 40GB drive with only MP3s on but otherwise, its a bit dodgy.

XP supports drives up to the terrabytes, so i don't think 120gb will trouble it.

[riga]

gotta love RAID :E

[tIMor`]

nyce

I can take out my DVD drive (have that and a CD-RW in atm), would that help?

DVD does bugger all anyway, never use it (dosn't even work very well tbh, which is interesting) so I can do without it.

[tIMor`]

The two 40gig hdd's are both same make and same size (only 2-3 meg difference), could try and software RAID them?

[Dilbert]

Also remember ....... 4 ide devices max on current mobo's so if u have a CD burner and say a seperate DVD drive in there as well as your 2 current HDD's something will have to go for u to be able to fit in a new drive.

I am in eaxctly the same boat at home atm, both my main machines have CDR's and a DVD in em plus 2 HDD's so to get more storage I am setting up a basic PC just with 4 HDD's.

[2Drunk2Funk]

From my experience I would avoid the lower leverl IBM drives.
Model 75fxp and 60gxp.
I have had one of each and BOTH failed at some point.
Literally just got a replacement for the 40gig 60gxp which is a serviced one full of scratches and marks :|
Noticed on it that it was only manufactured Jun-2002, and its already been back for repair and now I have it :cry:

/me wonders how long it will last

Just set it up dual booting WinXP again

/edit
And both Mobos I have bought have 4 IDE slots so 8 devices ;)
Always plan for the future :P

[Molloy]

I ain't sure about how RAID works, never used it. I suppose if your mobo supports it you could get a new big drive and RAID the old ones to give you faster access speeds, having your optical media on another (secondary IDE) cable.

Certainly sounds possible. Anyone with RAID experience know if it'd work?

[HiTMaN]

How i have mine set up is, got meh 2x30's set up on the Raid controller in striping. then i got the DVD on primary IDE1 and the CD-Writer on Primary IDE 2. If you have raid that means u can have upto 4 HD's working in in RAID 0 (2xXXgig + 2xXXgig) or mirroring but i dont bother with that.

Raid gives ya slightly faster speed than normal IDE but your motherboard needs to have a raid controller on. Only other option is to purchase a seperate PCI card with extra IDE channels on. hope that makes a bit of sense. :D

[tIMor`]

Originally posted by Dilbert
Also remember ....... 4 ide devices max on current mobo's so if u have a CD burner and say a seperate DVD drive in there as well as your 2 current HDD's something will have to go for u to be able to fit in a new drive.

I am in eaxctly the same boat at home atm, both my main machines have CDR's and a DVD in em plus 2 HDD's so to get more storage I am setting up a basic PC just with 4 HDD's.

Thanks :}

If I take out my DVD drive am I right in thinking I could then put the HDD in using the DVD's IDE Cable thingy and be happy?

I only use my CD-RW atm, havn't touched/used the DVD drive since three-four formats ago. Since I got PC and formatted I think, lost drivers and havn't really needed it since.

[HiTMaN]

You can pull out ya DVD tim but the rule of thumb is that everything on that channel will run at the lowest speed. Eg

IDE 1

Primary Channel = 40gig ATA100 HD
Sencondary Channel = 40gig ATA100 HD

both these will run at full speed ATA 100

IDE 2

new Fast as Fock 120gig 8mb cache big *******
PIO4/UDMA33 CD-Writer

the Hard drive will be running the same as the CD-Writer speed..


I think thats right anyways. not read up on this for ages as i have had everything on seperate channels :confused:

[Mad Mick]

Hehehehe, Im a computer dunce but I know a few snippets. Firstly I use my raid ports as just extra ide porsts. Meaning i dont use the raid facility. cos my hdd are diff sizes and makes. It works gr8. However there has been trouble in the past with WD hdd and certain mobos. what mobo u got m8?
TBH the prob may well be sorted by now but best to check. For instance I had to cut the first 2 wires of my ide cable to get my WD hdd to work. feckin nightmare lol. :)

[nobodyuno]

ibm gxp are well known for failing, there is a class action suit againstthem at the moment, ibm are contending the drives are for home use not for server use and running them 24/7 is a no no, 8hrs a day max they say, if you want it to last longer you should buy a drive thats internded for a server.

[Badger]

Im fairly certain it doesnt slow down a harddrive having it on the same IDE channel as a CD drive.
I think it only applys to having two harddrives on one channel. They will both run at the speed of the slowest.
I used to have a harddrive on the same channel as my cdrw but didnt notice any difference in performance.