Internal Hard Drive

shopbot

I need to buy a larger capacity internal hard drive for my PC.

Has anybody got advice on what to look for, decent brands and the best place to buy?

Thanks
SB

CHR15

https://www.ebuyer.com are probably the cheapest.

Avoid anything with the name Deskstar

Anything Western Digital, Seagate or Maxtor should be fine.

ensure you know what you are looking for interface wise (IDE or SATA).

Desktops take 3.5inch drives.

sho_me_da_money

This is the first post copied from the ComNetSlash forums (http://www.comnetslash.com/forum/index.php). You wont be able to see the hidden "Bargains" topic until you register, which is where the following is copy and pasted from:

=========================================
Any suggestions for the cheap retailers on the web?

Only ones i know are:

www.ebuyer.com
www.amazon.com
www.pricewatch.com
www.tigerdirect.com
www.newegg.com
www.scan.co.uk
www.microdirect.co.uk
www.aria.co.uk
www.svp.co.uk

Any other hidden wonders? Maybe we can compile a list of the best.

===============================================

Hope that helps.

pault123

If SATA this is good

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/Serial+ATA/250GB+Maxtor%2FSeagate+SATA2+5yr+warranty?productId=26505

If IDE

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/IDE/250GB+Maxtor-Seagate+IDE+8MB+5yr+warranty+?productId=26134

:beer:

MercilessKiller

I double that Paul. Nice find.

dataclinic

Hi Guys,

From my POV (I work as a data recovery technician) I would advise towards using Seagate drives (or ONLY Maxtor branded seagate drives e.g. DM 10 + 20) Older Maxtor drives stay well away if I were you.

Second preference would be Western Digital.

everythingblogcast

Always check was size your motherboard can support, but I second getting a Seagate or a Maxtor Seagate drive, look around for the ones that come with 5 year warranty.

Cricri

Maxtor belongs to Seagate now anyway.
Hitachi/IBM had a crap lot at some point (IC35 family), but they got better again.
With hard drives, unfortunately, it is often impossible to say "Don't buy this brand, it's junk", because this is very subjective and faults are rather random, and if they are not, it's a model which is faulty, not the whole brand.
Personally, the most hard drives of a brand that failed on me where IBM/Hitachi, but I've still got some of those which work fine as well.
I tended to use Maxtor a lot lately because they are quiet (fluid bearings), and cheap, although they do not have the lowest seeking times. I've got a Western Digital 160GB at uni which works very well, and a Seagate 120GB at home which works very well as well. I've also got 2x40GB Maxtor, no problem, 1 Maxtor 200GB, no problem, one 2.5" Hitachi 20GB, no problem, and another of this latter which made some noise at some point but still works fine (although I only use it as temporary transfer drive due to my lack of confidence in it). I've also got the original Seagate 10GB from the Xbox which never game me any issue either.

The only time I ever had a problem with a hard drive being too big for a motherboard was when I tried to put a several GB drive on a Pentium 100 motherboard. There is really nothing to worry about, unless your motherboard is really old.

pault123

dataclinic wrote: »

Hi Guys,

From my POV (I work as a data recovery technician) I would advise towards using Seagate drives (or ONLY Maxtor branded seagate drives e.g. DM 10 + 20) Older Maxtor drives stay well away if I were you.

Second preference would be Western Digital.

take it your impressed with my maxtor-seagate reccomendation above then :beer:

dataclinic

It's a fair comment! Good to see other people know better!

Tho personally I would still need some persuading to buy a drive with Maxtor on the cover despite it being a Seagate chassis!

I added the comment because i knew someone would pull me up on the maxtor branded seagate situation if I didn't mention it!

BillScarab

I've had problems with Hitachi/IBM and MAxtor in the past so now I prefer Seagate.

Samsungs are supposed to be very quiet and I've not heard any particularly bad reports about them.