Hard Disk Choice..

[retroborg]

Hi
I have an ASUS P4T-E M/B
UltraDMA/33/66/100

What I don’t know is whether this M/B supports a 120GB Hard Drive & what’s the largest it can support?
I think its 120GB, but I'm not sure!
Could anybody verify this please?

Once this matter is resolved, I would like to buy a new Hard Drive. So what's my best choice for a 120GB HD?
Should it be at 7200RPM or 10000RPM? Or it would make any difference in speed?

Western Digital?
Quantum?
Sea Gate?

I was told that Sea Gate is the fastest and most reliable choice.
Any opinions will be appreciated.

I will have to buy one soon, as my 20GB W.Digital HD is seriously overwhelmed!
The new one will be placed as a secondary HD (For Backup mainly) along side the 20GB one, which is where WinXP is installed.

Thanks in advance.

[SilentDeath]

first i would aviod WD as all there drives are niosy.
seagates are slowish and the new ones arnt nearly as quiet as seagate drives are known to be.
the higher the rpm the nioser and hotter they run, and only IDE 10k drive is the sata raptor which imo isnt worth the cost.
currently i have 3 maxtors, ones a D740X 40gb and is very niosy (whine) but also fast, so try to aviod the old drives.
the other two are DMP9's and are just as fast or faster but much quieter, one is a 120gb an other is a 160gb 8mb sata. ive not noticed any perf inc from the 160gb drive over the 120gb drive so dont bother with 8mb cache though i prefer sata due to small cables.

im a bit confused about maxtors warrentys, but there site does say that ALL DMP9 drives OVER 120gb WITH 8mb cache have 3 year warrenty. other places have said all maxtors are only one year

(all drives without fluid dynamic bearings will be v niosy - WD dont use them and niether does my old 40gb drive)

[Russ]

the seagate bara is yuor best bet, as most people will tell you

[directhex]

The maximum spin speed on UDMA is 7200RPM, so that's that question solved

i have a samsung, can't comment on reliability yet but it's faster & quieter than my western digital, and in our house the most hard disk failures we've had have been seagates

i can't be certain what the max hard disk size is on that mobo, but generally hard disk limits lie on four boundaries - 2Gb, 8Gb, 32Gb or 128Gb. if your mobo has a cap, it'll be 128gb

[directhex]

edit: bios 1005E.001 Date 12/11/2001 added support for 48bit LBA (i.e. removed the 128Gb cap)

[retroborg]

What is a "cap"?

My bios: 1007E.
Does that mean my M/B will not support 120GB?
Only up to 80GB?

[Stoo]

cap=limit

[directhex]

no, it means version 1005E.001 or above can support disks up to 32000Gb large, versions under 1005E.001 can only support 128Gb

[retroborg]

Cool.
Where did you find this info?

Then I can even buy a 200GB W.Digital 7200RPM HD, which is probably a better choice than the 120GB.

The more the better...

[RedPutty]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
first i would aviod WD as all there drives are niosy.

Nah, I've just got one of the newish fluid WD 120GB (WD1200PB) drives and its silent, so good news.

I have an older model WD1200JB and its been good but you can hear it churn a bit unlike the new one.

[directhex]

http://www.asus.com.tw/support/downl...odelName=P4T-E

[atifds9]

Samsung are very quite , but having said that my new 160gb just went tits up although it does have a 3 year warrnty and it's been sent of for rma, using my old maxtor at the mo and now i appreciate just how quiet the samsung was SP1614n 160gb 7200rpm, 8mb cache.

Atif

[SilentDeath]

Originally posted by RedPutty
Nah, I've just got one of the newish fluid WD 120GB (WD1200PB) drives and its silent, so good news.

I have an older model WD1200JB and its been good but you can hear it churn a bit unlike the new one.

listen harder then. wd drives are not noisy when there buisy, but they make a WHINE which is hard to notice and useually ppl think its there fans making it

[Agent]

Although somewhat louder when reading and writing - I go Maxtor every-time due to their pure speed and reliability. Their RMA service is also the best Ive ever come across.

You also have acoustic management so you can choose between speed and noise - depending on which you want to go for !

[RedPutty]

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
listen harder then. wd drives are not noisy when there buisy, but they make a WHINE which is hard to notice and useually ppl think its there fans making it

what?
I have one, right now in my computer, it has Quiet Drive Technology and fluid bearings and I couldn't hear it over my volcano on lowest speed setting. My old 120gb WD you can hear, especially when busy. (what kind of drives are "not noisy when they are busy" )

Unless you have one you'll have to take my word for it.

[retroborg]

Originally posted by RedPutty
Nah, I've just got one of the newish fluid WD 120GB (WD1200PB) drives and its silent, so good news.

I have an older model WD1200JB and its been good but you can hear it churn a bit unlike the new one.

Does the new fluid WD1200PB also have 8 MB cache as the older JB model & is it a lot more expensive than the JB?
How much does it cost?