Help me pick a hard drive please...

I'm going for a system bout $350. Im building it myself and its gonna be my first:D . I dont know wat the names and the types of harddrives and stuff mean:confused: :(

I need any info you could dish out bout harddrives. All i kno bout a harddrive store the info in the comp, when you put in a new harddrive you need to install the os all over again, and the rpm means how fast it spins and the faster the faster the info is found but not quite sure bout that.

I'm looking for a cheap hard drive that works well and is bout 10gb - 20gb. for my comp

O yea im also a newbie so...

Help me please. Include a link, name, info bout it, anything else true, and price plz.:p

THanx i really appriceate it if you can and if you need to know anything else to help me out plz ASK.

If you're looking to build a complete system for around $350, you're probably not going to have much room to be choosy about your hard drive.

Anyway, here are the specs you'll want to know:

Interface Type (ATA-66, -100, -133): In theory, the higher the number the better. In practicality, though, ATA-100 and ATA-133 are virtually indistinguishable.

Seek Time (measured in milliseconds): Seek Time measures how long a drive takes to find data and start the retrieval process. Lower numbers are better.

Rotational Speed (measured in RPM): The higher the better. Your choices will be 5400 or 7200 RPM.

Cache Size (measured in MB): RAM cache on a hard drive can save time if the drive needs to retrieve the same data multiple times. Depending on the type of data the drive uses, there can be a slight performance boost from larger cache sizes.

Glancing at newegg.com, the bottom of the price range for any new hard drive starts around $50, and the best bang for the buck in the bargain range looks to be the Western Digital WD400BB. It's a 7200 RPM 40 GB drive that they're selling for $55. There are a few other bargains within a few dollars, too.

If you want to compare performance specs between hard drives, take a look at storagereview.com. They've got a good collection of stats on a whole lot of drives.

Go w/ a Seagate, they are pretty reliable. The 7200.7 is their newest ata drive, it performs about as good or even better than WD or maxtor drives. The thing is that they only make 8mb cache models in 120GB and 160GB capacities (for ide). Also I hear that the IDE 8mb cahce drives have a 3 year waranty rather than a 1 that you get w/ the sata drives and the 2mb cahce drives. Or so says storagereview.com

I don't know what you're gonna be able to get with a $350 limit. Do you mean $350 for the HDD alone, or for the entire system?

Lets start off with the answers to your questions:


1. Kwonger I don't know what you're gonna be able to get with a $350
limit. Do you mean $350 for the HDD alone, or for the entire system?


i mean $350 for my whole system! so i want the hard drive pretty cheap but long life span and reliable. I'm looking for something around $20-$50.

i wanna know these things:
1.Go w/ a Seagate, they are pretty reliable. The 7200.7 is their newest ata drive, it performs about as good or even better than WD or maxtor drives. The thing is that they only make 8mb cache models in 120GB and 160GB capacities (for ide). Also I hear that the IDE 8mb cahce drives have a 3 year waranty rather than a 1 that you get w/ the sata drives and the 2mb cahce drives. Or so says storagereview.com

wats ata drive, WD? i kno maxtor is a harddrive company. i still need more info on wat is cache. 8mb cache wat that mean, ide???
i'm not looking for that much 10-20gb is enough for me. I'm looking for some old really cheap models but long lasting and reliable since my budgets only 350 for the whole comp.

Thanx for your replies and please keep them comping. i really appreciate them and absorb all the info you throw at me thanx again.

Quote:

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Originally posted by naper2000
I'm looking for something around $20-$50.

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In order to find a drive less than $50, you might need to start looking for used drives. You can get new ones in the $50-$65 range, though. The Western Digital drive I linked above is at the lower end of the price scale, but is larger than a lot of similarly priced drives and runs at 7200 RPM.

Quote:

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Originally posted by naper2000
wats ata drive, WD? i kno maxtor is a harddrive company. i still need more info on wat is cache. 8mb cache wat that mean, ide???

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ATA drives are also commonly called IDE drives. That's just the name of the interface type.

WD is shorthand for Western Digital, one of the larger and most reputable hard drive manufacturers.

I described cache in my first post above. It's RAM on the hard drive's circuit board that's used to speed up repeat accesses of the same information.

Quote:

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Originally posted by naper2000
i'm not looking for that much 10-20gb is enough for me. I'm looking for some old really cheap models but long lasting and reliable since my budgets only 350 for the whole comp.

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Nobody makes 10-20 GB hard drives any more. They've been discontinued and the current bottom of the line models are in the 30-40 GB range. You may still find a 20 GB drive here and there, but they'll generally cost you just as much as a 30 or 40 GB drive.

You can still get 20GB now.. Just not anything smaller that is new :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by Colossus
You can still get 20GB now..

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Yeah, but currently a new 20GB hard drive will barely cost you any less $$$ than a 40GB hard drive.

That is true :)

I never said it made sense to buy it.. I just said you can :)

I would never buy anything less then 80GB... The price difference between the 20 -> 80GB is minimal.

alrite then ill tell u what hd ill get when i do.
thanx a lot for the info.

its probably gonna be a seagate, maxtor, or WD.

and its gonna be a 40 gb then.



Thanx a lot.:D

i picked my hd its gonna be the WD400B 7200 rpm 40 gb. I picked the hd skydog recc earlier. Thanx you guys.