New Hard Drive Dell Optiplex GX260

speedfreak

Hi,

I need to get some more space for AV files etc. Is there any particluar HDs recommended for this and for the Dell?

Cheers

Ruu_Old

If you dont want to mess with the inside of the computer (although its easy to install a hard drive) and just going to use it for storage you could always get an external hard drive. I don't think theres any I would recommend. I use Western Digital hard drives quite a lot.

majiktripp

Dont buy a bloody seagate drive! we have had 4 (!) new 80GB drives give use nothing but grief! Agree with Ruu though on the external one as it saves time and hassle for those uninitiated with the internals of PC's/formatting etc.300GB external drives are reasonably priced now and will do you for quite some time!

Stephen

GX260's use bog standard IDE disks -- They were pre-SATA. Any will do.

TempestSabre

majiktripp wrote:

Dont buy a bloody seagate drive! we have had 4 (!) new 80GB drives give use nothing but grief! Agree with Ruu though on the external one as it saves time and hassle for those uninitiated with the internals of PC's/formatting etc.300GB external drives are reasonably priced now and will do you for quite some time!

What grief did you have with the drives. Seagate are one of the more reliable makes.

Ruu_Old

Quantum Fireball* ftw.





*hell no!

majiktripp

Well bent pins on two of them through no excessive force or anything like that,literally the pins on the ide connecters retracted in so they were a few MM's shorter than the other pins so formatting drive was nigh impossible..other seagate 80GB (new drive) was put in a raid array with 1 other fully working drive,which we knew to be good,and the would just not let us make the array properly at all,had to bin the idea! Just very recently a lot of problems with their drives...

speedfreak

thanks for replies.. hadnt considered external drive but will look into one...

TempestSabre

majiktripp wrote:

Well bent pins on two of them through no excessive force or anything like that,literally the pins on the ide connecters retracted in so they were a few MM's shorter than the other pins so formatting drive was nigh impossible..other seagate 80GB (new drive) was put in a raid array with 1 other fully working drive,which we knew to be good,and the would just not let us make the array properly at all,had to bin the idea! Just very recently a lot of problems with their drives...

How did they take all those issues as reasons for returning them?

zod

of this page

majiktripp

TempestSabre wrote:

How did they take all those issues as reasons for returning them?

We tried to RMA on the 2 bent pin drives but they were having none of it! Shall not be using seagate again.

TempestSabre

majiktripp wrote:

We tried to RMA on the 2 bent pin drives but they were having none of it! Shall not be using seagate again.

LOL, or IDE drives...;)

blorg

I bent two pins on a Maxtor just recently when trying to extract it; it has nothing to do with the manufacturer and is caused by your twisting of the IDE connector; I suspect you know that well. Lesson learned and make sure to pull directly back in the future, no? Luckily mine are only slightly bent and it doesn't effect the disk's functionality.

Seagate also have one of the best warranties in the business; looking at RMAing one that I bought refurbished a year or two ago and was _very surpised_ to see that the warranty had until 2010 to run! By contrast two Maxtors I had to RMA were only 1 and 2 year warranties respectively, although Maxtor do have a very nice system where they will send you the new drive _before_ you return the old one (taking a credit card as security.)

I have used a mix of Maxtor, Seagate, IBM/Hitachi, Samsung, probably others, and as long as you are buying a drive that doesn't have specific documented problems (e.g. like the Deathstars, now fixed) it really doesn't matter.

blorg

Komplett are a good bet for IDE drives 200-400gb. Alternatively I have a 200gb and 250gb drive for sale at the moment which I mean to put up on adverts.ie.

majiktripp

blorg wrote:

I suspect you know that well. Lesson learned and make sure to pull directly back in the future, no?.

Its not that the pins were bent left or right due to us removing the ide cable,the pins had retracted 2-3mm into the hdd housing as in there were 2 pins shorter than all the others so I fail to see how we could have caused that on two identical 80gb hard drives having never done it before to any of the other hundreds we've used!

speedfreak

thanks for all the input so far. i like the idea of an external hard drive and was looking at this one http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318905 I'm not sure what are the dis/advantages of external vs internal?
ta!

Cuddlesworth

majiktripp wrote:

Its not that the pins were bent left or right due to us removing the ide cable,the pins had retracted 2-3mm into the hdd housing as in there were 2 pins shorter than all the others so I fail to see how we could have caused that on two identical 80gb hard drives having never done it before to any of the other hundreds we've used!

So you have used hundreds of drives, then had some problems with 4 and now you complain? Do you think hundreds of drives off another maker will all be perfect as well?

TempestSabre

I don't think thats a useful avenue of discussion.

Externals, are expensive, untidy (loads of cables) and can run hot, not designed for 24/7 operation and are slower than internal. But then they are more portable/flexible in use, and easier to install.

speedfreak

TempestSabre wrote:

Externals, are expensive, untidy (loads of cables) and can run hot, not designed for 24/7 operation and are slower than internal. But then they are more portable/flexible in use, and easier to install.

thanks! sums it up nicely

Ruu_Old

speedfreak wrote:

thanks for all the input so far. i like the idea of an external hard drive and was looking at this one http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=318905 I'm not sure what are the dis/advantages of external vs internal?
ta!

Those Westies are pretty good, I have one. A pretty good price, externals are getting to be fairly reasonable but internal is still the way to go (unless you don't want to go inside your computer yourself).

TempestSabre

If I was you I'd have a backup drive the same size as your working to keep a 1:1 copy of all your data. What would happen if your PC was stolen, or there was a fire, or a power surge destroys your PC etc. Thats what you need to be thinking of.

blorg

Agree with TempestSabre's points about expensive (although not that much more these days), untidy, and slower (although not so much that it would matter if you just want to dump AV files onto them as archive.)

However I would disagree about the running hot and not designed for 24/7 operation. I have a pair of Maxtor One Touch drives which run very cool (far cooler than my internals) due to the design - the metal case acts as a massive heatsink. They are ideal for 24/7 operation partly as they go into standby and I have been running them 24/7 for several years now

This will of course depend on what type you get - that WD has a plastic shell so it may not be quite so good at keeping cool. It's thicker than the Maxtor though so looks like there is quite a bit of airflow and the WD drives do seem to be the cheapest at the moment (got one myself just recently but haven't run it for any length of time.)

Another option would be a Freecom drive from Dabs.com. I got one of these for a friend and have been running it for a week or so. It has a metal case like the Maxtor and so is quite good at keeping cool. They are also pretty cheap.

http://www.dabs.com/ProductList.aspx?SearchTerms=freecom%20hard%20drive&SearchMode=All&SearchKey=All&PageMode=3&NavigationKey=0&SearchType=1

Top four on that search.

TBH though, if you have room in the case I would go for an internal, mainly as it will be cheaper and tidyer.

Cuddlesworth

TempestSabre wrote:

I don't think thats a useful avenue of discussion.

Your probably right, I just hate to see somebody start complaining about how their hard-drive failed. If you work with pc's you know 70% of the time the hard-drive is the one to go, and the difference between the reliabilty of different manufacture's is just 1 or 2 in a thousand.

That aside, buy a external case and hard-drive. The package deals are not the best in terms of thermal management and speed.

zilog_jones

Yeah I have a Maxtor OneTouch III 300GB (USB + Firewire), and it never seems to get very warm - never as hot as inside some of my PCs anyway. It's quite big though, and I dunno if it's still available now Seagate bought them out (Komplett only seem to sell WD externals now O_o).

Majiktripp: Are you sure you didn't bend those pins youself by using a cable with a filled-in pinhole on a disk that actually had that pin? I've noticed this a lot on OEM PCs (dunno if it's specific to them) - one of the middle pins isn't there on the hard disk and it's filled in on the plug, and I've seen people break pins off hard disks not noticing the filled-in hole, rendering them useless.

blorg

All IDE hard drives are missing that middle pin, so I doubt he managed it that way!