Now it's time for a Hard Drive

[thegrindre]

Hi guys,
I like sharing with you. You all have wonderful opinions about most everything.

My hard drive is about 3 years old, now. It's a Seagate Barracuda model ST3250310AS. It's been good to me so far but, it's aging.
I've got my eye on this. I believe it'll get me by for another 3-5 years. The new SSD's are a little high right now but, I'm glad they've finely done it.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+Dig ... 3047091732

I don't think I really need the Western Digital VelociRaptor 600GB. I want a 1 or 2 TB drive instead.

What do you think?

[Hawk]

1 TB is a lot of hard drive. You'll probably never fill that up.

I've always used Western Digital. I've never had a problem with them.

[Knave]

We just put three 1TB hard drives into use. The Cavalier Black model. I believe the model number may be different. What ever the number, it will not disappoint. I went from a 160 gig that was almost full to the terabyte that is just getting started. It is nice they have a quality product on the shelves. We worry with stories of meeting some guy in a alley way. "Pssst, buddy, wanna buy a hard drive?"

[thegrindre]

That Seagate is a 250 and I'm startin' to crowd it with all my models and texture files. I thought 1 TB would do me for quite some time to come. I don't suppose I'd ever fill it up. If it's taken me 3 years to crowd a 250, I figured I'd be good to go with a 1 TB if I continue to build models for the next 12 years. (Not too sure I'll make it to 75. )
Price isn't bad at about $100, IMO.

[Hawk]

That drive is $5.00 cheaper at NewEgg, but it's not in stock. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136337
I see it's also not in stock at Best Buy for in store pick-up.

[thegrindre]

The N. Little Rock store, about 10 miles from me, does have it. They have a big HD selection. It's a very well stocked store.
I believe the reason is because Circuit City and another electronic store all within a few miles of each other went out of business and Best Buy is taking up all the slack around here.

If you add the shipping and handling to it, what would it cost from NewEgg?

[Knave]

Okay, I understand the difference in the model number. The one you are looking at is a SATA 3 model. The ones we have are SATA 2. And someone else is going to be the one to tell you if the SATA 3 model will work with a SATA 2 motherboard. It is all new to me. I imagine it will.

[Moggie]

Like a computer tech 'net buddy of mine said: "One of each brand has fried."

[Hawk]

If you add the shipping and handling to it, what would it cost from NewEgg?

If I remember right, it's free shipping. You can click on the link to NewEgg in my previous post and double check me though.

'Course it's not in stock at the moment so I reckon it doesn't matter.

[Blackhawk]

There are several options from newegg that are free shipping. That exact hard drive which is out of stock would have been 15 to ship, although there is a 2tb for 10 dollars more than the 1tb from bestbuy with free shipping (i think). Also newegg has been having a 10% off hard drives sale about once a month as well. Newegg has a 640gb 7200rpm western digital with almost 2000 reviews and most of the reviews are all good 5 out of 5. I think some think that going up to 1tb or higher the failure rate might be slightly higher. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136218

Of course the advantage of a 1tb drive would be that you could copy everything from your old drive onto the new drive as well to back it up.

I'd say western digital isn't a bad choice, although every brand has drives that fail, and a hard drive line that just isn't up to par. So I'd say even though I know you wouldn't want to buy from newegg (as they don't take cash) it's still a useful place to go to and read people's reviews and comparison brand shop since they have a pretty good selection.

I'd probably shy away from anything Seagate though. Although maybe they've fixed their problems, but a few years ago they bought out Maxtor which had problems and since then a lot of the Seagate drives started to suffer from reliability issues.

Well I just saw this in my email, newegg's got "black friday" sales going on right now (not sure how long it'll last for) but you can get a Samsung 1tb for 55 dollars. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

[thegrindre]

I've read a lot of reviews and have experienced nothing but good with WD in the past but, I have read many bad reviews about other drives.
There just doesn't seem to be all that many bad reviews about WD. In most cases, it's usually the users fault and not WD's.
I'm not really looking for a bargain when it comes to a hard drive. I figure bargained priced hard drives are bargained priced for a reason.

To me, it's just easier to purchase locally. I get a money back guarantee and they're just down the street if I have a problem. Oh, and, they take cash, too.
If necessary, I can run back and forth to the store and not have to wait days/weeks for the 'mail'.

Now comes the biggest issue, the SATA thing. I know nothing about this area of technology. Didn't even know there was a 1 & a 2, & a 3.
My system is 3 years old and SATA 2. I now have to find out if it'll except SATA 3 technology.

Thanks for the input, guys...

[Blackhawk]

Edit: I read the product description wrong. Your old hard drive is actually a SATA 3gbit/sec not a SATA 3. SATA 3s are 6gbit/sec (theoretically)

Although I think SATA 3 is backwards compatible with SATA 2.

Edit #2: Quick search and a few links say it should be compatible. Most people said it can probably just be plugged into the SATA cord and that's it, but occasionally some motherboard/SATA controllers require you to set a jumper on the back of the hard drive to slow it down to SATA2 speeds.

[thegrindre]

That sounds good, BlackHawk.
Best Buy has this hard drive on sale on Friday the 26th for $59.95!
Store opens at 5 am. I guess I'll go buy it...

Thanks, guys,

[Knave]

That is one heck of a price for that hard drive. Thanks for the compatibility information. That was good to know.

[thegrindre]

Bought it, installed it, it's up and running like a charm.
Simply nothing but plug & play.

Now, reading dozens upon dozens of reviews, most all complained about the lack of a SATA cable.
All I did was remove the old drive and plug this one in.

Thanks, guys,