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Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:10 am Post subject: Picking out SATA HD

So what do you all think about this Seagate model. 200 GB SATA drive for 135.00 with free 2 day shipping. I will either put a 15 gig partition on this and have for both storage and OS on my media pc.

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 7:24 am Post subject:

Anandtech just did there buyers goude and they recomended this one http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-148-034&depa=1 It is a little smaller but is cheaper and has NCQ native command queing.

Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:03 am Post subject:

I have a Seagate 80 GB with the same characteristics (8mb cache, 7200 RPM, etc) and it's awesome. Nice and quiet. Been having a hell of a time getting a Linux kernel 2.6 to boot with it though but haven't given in yet.

The performance gain I noticed is prolly more due to the large cache size than the SATA interface. I had purchased an external HD enclosure that comes with a SATA to IDE adapter. Well I didn't like the enclosure because it was too noisy, but the adapter was great for reusing a SATA drive on a computer that doesn't have SATA. ( http://www.addonics.com/products/io/ for those interested) and it beats using up a PCI slot for a SATA card.

So that 80 Gig HD spent some time in my main Dell PC that didn't have SATA and in spite the SATA->IDE bridge performance was still good.

Leg Humper Joined: 16 Jan 2002 Posts: 5484

NCQ does have very good performance. You need an nForce4 or Intel 82801FR controller to support it though.

Posted: Fri Jan 28, 2005 6:32 am Post subject:

quijbe wrote:
NCQ does have very good performance. You need an nForce4 or Intel 82801FR controller to support it though.

My MB has a VIA chipset But I may get a 160 GB HD now, I could hold off a bit and then get a 200 GB + later.

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 1:45 am Post subject:

quijbe wrote:
NCQ does have very good performance. You need an nForce4 or Intel 82801FR controller to support it though.

Glad you mentioned that. Did not know that. Now I have to see if the board I am planning on getting has that controller.

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2005 8:12 am Post subject:

I went with the 160 gb hard drive. Will partiton and give about 60 for os and programs and about 100 for random storage. In a couple of months I will get a larger one just for videos. Maybe the price will come down a bit.