[Traldan]

Well, my hard drive took a shit. As of yesterday, BIOS doesn't see it...no click of death, but no ability to access it.

Anyway, I'll be sending it for replacement from Hitachi. So I'll have 2 160 gig Deskstars on my hands (unless they're nice enough to up me a bit). I'm thinking of getting a new big hard drive for storage (somewhere in the 400+ gig range), as well as an external hard drive for backups...now that I've learned my lesson the hard way, of course.

Any recommendations for a nice big internal drive and/or for an external drive?

[evilsofa]

You may be pleasantly shocked to know that a Seagate 7200.10 320GB with 16MB cache will only set you back $75-$80, and probably be faster than what you had.

Sata 3.0Gb/sec version $75
Ultra ATA 100 version $80

400GB jumps to $109 so not nearly as good a deal. 500GB for $120, 750GB for $230.

Hitachi has similar drives at the same pricepoint (320GB Sata 3.0Gb/sec $75, 320GB Ultra ATA 100 $75) and so do the other major hard drive makers, but the Seagate 7200.10 drives seem to be the big favorites now.

I'm not a big fan of external hard drives. My favored backup methods are:

1. Two 320GB hard drives, not in RAID format. Just back up main drive onto second drive periodically. Fast, cheap, easy.
2. Get a DVD burner for $40 and periodically back up important data onto DVDs. The amount of data worthy of offsite backup is generally really small and can fit on a single DVD, which you could keep in a safe deposit box or at a trustworthy relative's in a small fireproof safe.

[rabb1t]

I'd say go Western Digital or Seagate for the replacement. They always seem to get the highest marks.

As to external storage... I don't do that myself. I just run a CD backup once a month or so. But then, I don't have a lot to backup, just some web stuff (for my domain) and things like my bookmarks.

[Delirin]

Originally Posted by Traldan

Well, my hard drive took a shit. As of yesterday, BIOS doesn't see it...no click of death, but no ability to access it.

Anyway, I'll be sending it for replacement from Hitachi. So I'll have 2 160 gig Deskstars on my hands (unless they're nice enough to up me a bit). I'm thinking of getting a new big hard drive for storage (somewhere in the 400+ gig range), as well as an external hard drive for backups...now that I've learned my lesson the hard way, of course.

Any recommendations for a nice big internal drive and/or for an external drive?

last week I got a 400gb 16mb cache Western digital drive from Newegg. I've been happy with it, it's quiet and my seek times have gone down from the first gen SATA drive I was using. Windows Vista also rates it at 5.7 out of 5.9. It was about 100 bucks after shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136076

[Aristotle]

Originally Posted by Delirin

last week I got a 400gb 16mb cache Western digital drive from Newegg. I've been happy with it, it's quiet and my seek times have gone down from the first gen SATA drive I was using. Windows Vista also rates it at 5.7 out of 5.9. It was about 100 bucks after shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136076

Is there a way to test for seek times on your hard drive?

[Fozzik]

HDtach is one good way. Go download a copy and check it out.

[dakyres]

SiSoft Sandra tests seek times and gives a benchmark comparison. Pretty sure they still have a trial version too.