New HD drive

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » October 12th, 2006, 16:02

Ok, I want to get a new HD drive as I finally think I need more storage. I don't want to spend more than £40, including delivery, and £30 would be better. So what are my options? I want a SATA drive, with the best compromise between space and price. I'm guessing I'm looking at the 80-160GB range here. I currently have two 80GB drives, one IDE and one SATA, but I need more I tell you, MORE!

Stoat · Post by **Stoat** » October 12th, 2006, 16:18

I have a pair of very nice Maxtor DiamondMaxes that I got from ebuyer.
/vague

edit: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/102294 ? 160Gb, SATAII, £35.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » October 12th, 2006, 16:52

Whats SATA2? Is it compatible with normal SATA jobbies? Its perfick for what I'm looking for though, ta.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » October 12th, 2006, 16:56

Lateralus wrote:Whats SATA2? Is it compatible with normal SATA jobbies? Its perfick for what I'm looking for though, ta.

sata 2 doesn't exist (it's actually sata 150 and sata 300)

and yes, sata is backwards compatible so a faster drive will work on a slower mobo

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » October 12th, 2006, 18:40

I tried a SATA 300 drive with my SATA 150 capable motherboard and had problems, but it may have been a broken drive as I got a larger, sata 150 drive as a replacement..

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » October 12th, 2006, 18:52

i've not had a problem mix and matching.

however i have had problems with shitty old cables not handling sata 300, but being fine on 150

Post by **deject** » October 12th, 2006, 18:55

All SATA drives should theoretically be able to work with any SATA controller, as backwards compatibility has always been a big issue with those folk. I'm running my 3.0Gbps drive on the 1.5Gbps channel because I had no way to get the drivers for the controller when I installed everything, and it works fine.

And SATA II is just a descriptor for a set of features (such as NCQ), it is not a standard on its own.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » October 12th, 2006, 19:04

deject wrote:And SATA II is just a descriptor for a set of features (such as NCQ), it is not a standard on its own.

Isn't. Never has been. Never will be.

Also, a lot of the things that boast SATAII are only sata 300, rather than containing NCQ joy.

All a bit of a marketing nasty designed to increase my postcunt

Horse's mouth

wyrd · Post by **wyrd** » October 12th, 2006, 19:33

hands up who expected that to be an "i love horses" link

Post by **deject** » October 12th, 2006, 20:20

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:
Isn't. Never has been. Never will be.

Also, a lot of the things that boast SATAII are only sata 300, rather than containing NCQ joy.

All a bit of a marketing nasty designed to increase my postcunt

Horse's mouth

right, I have been misled then.

shot2bits · Post by **shot2bits** » October 12th, 2006, 20:22

deject wrote:
right, I have been misled then.

thats america for you

cashy · Post by **cashy** » October 13th, 2006, 0:28

wyrd wrote:hands up who expected that to be an "i love horses" link

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » March 1st, 2007, 9:12

Cast thread resurrection!

I'm fed up with my lack of storage space, so I'm going to pop by my local PC shop on the way home and pick up a 160GB sata drive if I can. I currently have a 80GB IDE drive and a 80GB sata drive, and XP is installed on the sata one with the other used for my documents and the paging file. Now if I stick another sata one in there, will the IDE one be holding things up at all? I was proposing to use the 80GB sata for XP/programs/games etc as it is now, and the new one for my documents, music and video, with the paging file there too and the IDE one for overspill. Any particular reason why this may be a bad idea? Of course, it'll probably turn out that I don't have enough power connectors or something and can only have 2 anyway.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 1st, 2007, 9:55

Strangely, I hadn't read this when i PM'd you

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » March 1st, 2007, 10:03

That is a bit odd! Would leaving the IDE drive in be a problem/bottleneck then, or (as I'm guessing is the case) would it not matter in my system?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » March 1st, 2007, 10:07

shouldn't matter, you may as well just keep everything as is.