Hey guys im looking to update my poor old 8gb 5400rpm ATA 66 drive to something around the 60 to 80gb 7200rpm ATA 100 range....which company should i go for etc western digital, seagate, maxtor....was looking at the WD carvier 8mb cache...are they any good compared to standard 2mb cache drives??

Yeah 8mb wd's sure kick ass. But they werent there when I bought my two maxtor 40Gb ata100 5400rpm. No complains so far. Although I had some problems with my previous wd's I'd go for that one, 8 mb are quite impressive. There was a test posted on ntcompatible, try search.

The 8MB cache does help performance considerably, from what I've read. I however, am partital to Maxtors, currently.

I bought 2 Maxtors 3 IBMS and 1 WD in the last year and half.

Maxtors are pices of shit. They are too freaking loud.

THe WD is the best and fastest one out there


PERIOD

Ah the new Maxtor D740X series has liquid bearings.. can't hear the drive over the cpu fan, anyway.

And?



Doesnt outperform the WD 120 w/8MB cache

Yup im running a WD SE 8mb cache. Totally excellent drive, very fast and very quiet. I wouldnt touch maxtor either

I must admit I would rather have a WD SE, but my Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 60 is quite quiet - more so than my DeathStar, even though [AFAIK] it's not 1 of the 1s with the fluid bearings.

M4Carbine....

You running a Radeon 9700 Pro?

I was gonna order one, with my new P4PE board.


Just wanted to know your opinion

Yup im running 1

I only really have 1 problem with it, and thats that it cant do FSAA in 16bit, which kinda pissed me off a little bit. Apart from that though ive got no complaints.

I run all games in 1280x1024 with 4x FSAA and 8X AF (with the excepetion of UT2003, which i dont play anyway) and they all run amazingly well.

Only probs ive really seen are with agp 8x but the newer revision cures that so if you buy one now you should be ok

Overall great card, i moved up from a ti4400 and its soooo much better

Cool beans.

i got an 8mb 120G drive, it is deum nice, i would go with anything Western D , i had only used Maxtor (60g) and IBM (20g) before, and myself had problems with both dying on me. (others have not though). The drive is alo very quiet and smooth sounding.

the 8mb cache helps more for databse type info - that is where u would see a real gain. i use mine for an ftp drive, all 120g's.

i would recommend it, it is a sweet drive.

Noooooo, he mentioned IBM. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

I've had 4 IBM HD's fail on me over a 2yr span and most failed within a 6 month period. 3 60g IBMs and 1 120gb IBM. All were properly cooled and barely warm to the touch.

A good friend of mine had an IBM Deskstar 40GB 7200 RPM (DeathStar, according to Alien... ) fail after only 3 months of normal use. I guess there was a whole run of bad drives circa 6-12 months ago.

75GXP and later are the drives to avoid. Both of my 60GXP were shot within 6months of purchase. I do have an older 34GXP 10GB in my Novell 5.1 box (temp server), but I won't put an IBM in any box that's crucial to me. I've had the least issues with WD. Maxtor is a close second. I've only had one Seagate, and it was an old 150MB one. AFAIK, it's still working.
Basically, stay the hell away from IBM drives and you'll be fine.

I've only had 3 HD's, one was a 2gb quantom fireball dont think it even rated on the speed scale lol, that lasted a couple years, then i got myself a new 4gb seagate that was great never had a prob with it altho it was slow..ATA33 5400 rpm, a friend of mine gave me his new but old 8gb ATA66 5400rpm seagate drive and im still using it after 8 months of continuous useage. So as things r going i say seagate r doing a pretty good job, IBM sound like a heap of shit if they burn out after 3 months...why bother....and maxtors seem a little pricey for what u get so as the competitors stand i think the WD carvier 8mb cache drivers sound like the most reliable and cheapest drives u can get. So my next HD will definitly be a WD!

It is a very nice drive

I got it to replace 1 of my IBM 60GXPs that died horribly. Another 1 is still running in my dads pc though (hopefully)

Hey guys, i just got myself a WD 80gb 8mb cache and it kicks booty!!! should keep me out of trouble for awhile hehe.

Quote from a bloke on Seagate freephone info line "We make drives for IBM also"

Nuff said.

Well having said how great they are, my WD has just started making a really annoying high pitched whine noise. I have the worst luck with HDDs, this thing is about 1 month old ;(

And WDs RMA process is worse than IBMs (unless your in the USA/Canada of course), im gonna have to send it all the way to Germany. ;(

Kinda makes me appreciate Maxtors RMA, they can give you a drive before you even send your old one away.

So you reckon Maxtor is the way forward ?

I had to replace an ageing POS in one of my spare computers so I just rocked on down a shop and bought an IBM 180GXP and it seems (?!?) to be working...fairly f**ing quiet too.

(However saying that I had a RAID setup with IBM 30gigs and one died during a heavy DTP session - less than impressed AND it took ages for the replacement to arrive - and guess what POS drive i had to replace in that spare computer - yup the replacement IBM !)

Suppose the answer is boring really: BACK UP

PS I ask as I think it's time to replace the single IBM (I keep my data on a WD) i run on my main computer so what's fast n quiet ? I was actually recommended the 180GXP and am kinda aiming that way....save me if I'm doing something stupid !

P

Just a comment on Maxtor's RMA process. Maxtor is quite good at it, I had my 20GB Maxtor DiamondMax conk out on me, and I was given it back in about 7 weeks which is decent I guess. The drive is working perfectly now still, so I am happy.