Suggestions for new drives

Gerry

Right, I need a new dvd drive, writer and also another hard drive. I'd just like to hear any opinions you may have about particular models. My old dvd was a 6x, and while I have read reviews on the web, there is a limited selection of drives in Ireland. With regard to the dvd, a quiet drive would be preferable, with good ripping speeds. I reckon I might get a pioneer "slot-in" drive, anyone have one of these? I'm not too worried about the writer, quality of cdrw drives has improved greatly in general, I'll just get a 24x or 32x burn-proof.

As for the hdd, I need a drive (40 - 80gb) that is quiet, but it has to be 7200 rpm. It will be one of the latest generation, ie the maxtor 740dx, ibm 120 gxp (my 75gxp still works fine), possibly the new western digital either. Any opinions on these would be very welcome, thanks.

<edit> actually this looks like a front runner: http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&AvdID=1&p=13807&s=ms

</edit>

halfab

I have two WD800BB drives and now and then they make a disconcerting clunk from time to time, both of them do it ,they are in different machines. I dont think the drives are faulty (they are running 24/7 ) (for over 4 months now ) and always show good performance and never never stutter. THey are regularly scanned (diskkeeper ) and always are perfect.

As regards DVD s, I always use Pioneer and I have several 106s
16x DVD slot drives. Excellent performance and reliability , they read disks that some samsung and LG 16x dvds have trouble with.

CDRWs well I like the Liteon drives and have used their 24x ,16x and 12x. Never failed yet. (written over 200cds in 3 months)
But the Crem de la crem of CDRWs are Plextors.

hope that helps .

halfab

Block (8

I was going to ask for advice on hard drives too and I was hoping that you Gerry will answer my question .

Western Digital's JB or BB and IBM's new 120 GXP,but seeing IBM's recommended 333 hours power on hours per month in a site, I think I may give it a skip just in case.

I can't make up my mind either cause the JB ones seem better but the smallest drive is a 100gig and you might as well get the 120 gig as there isn't much of a price difference.

Gerry

Well you see my problem was that I have read all the reviews, and I know the features of the various but I don't know anyone with the latest models of dvd drives or hard drives where I could actually have a look at them. I guess I just wanted to start a discussion for once


Block(8, its an interesting choice, I'm trying to decide between them myself. Theres no doubt that the ibm is mechanically the better drive, with lower seek times, and better handling of large workloads. However the JB has 8 megs of cache, and in most benchmarks this gives it the advantage. The BB has the normal 2 megs, and so would be not be as fast. Take a look at www.storagereview.com for good reviews of the 3 drives.

Something to remember about the western digital drives though, is that they seem to be quiet noisy, even more than the ibm 120gxp, which although quieter than my whining 75gxp, is quite a loud drive.

The seagate barracuda IV is the quietest 7200rpm drive around, unfortunately it is also one of the slowest.

If you are going for the western digital, the 120gig JB drive looks like much better value than the 100, or else get the 80gig.

About IBM's 333 power on hours: again on storagereview you will get the full story. Bottom line is that it is a precaution IBM are taking, and it won't affect their sales to oems for desktops, only sales to enthusiasts, which make up a tiny proportion of the market. I personally think its just small print, that they have a crappy excuse if you return a drive. I think the failure rate on the 120gxp will be lower, I can't see them repeating their mistakes. Basically, I wouldn't let the 333 hours put me off, and I wouldn't adhere to it. I have run my 75gxp for about 19 months now, 24 hours a day without a bother.

Boston

avoide the pioneer 16x DVD drive, if one and seen afew others and they all seem to make an every so slight but extremely unsettling clicking noise.

As for hard drive the 80gig ibm deskstar is pretty solid and runs cool

Celt

MAXTOR Quiet Drive 80GB 7200RPM Model # 6L080L4 - OEM, DRIVE ONLY DiamondMax PS D740X Plus Series Ultra ATA133/100, 2MB Cache Buffer, 3 Year Manufacturer Warranty QUIET DRIVE - "L" denotes Fluid Dynamic Bearing Motors Model#: MX6L080L4

I want one
$138 in america, £117 stg from overclockers, é215 from komplett.

http://www.serialaddiction.net/reviews/d740x/index3.shtml for how quiet it is and showing it's seek time.

lynchie

This is slightly OT but has anybody ordered from komplett.ie before? Its the first time i've heard of them and doing a compare to dabs.com prices i am quite suprised to find that certain products are cheaper than dabs.

Harmo

Im using a 60Gb IBM Deskstar 60GXP
7200rpm, UDMA100 it's an excellent drive very quite I bought it of http://www.cclcomputers.co.uk at a good price

Inspector Gadget

I just fitted a Seagate Barracuda IV (ordered from dabs.com) into a machine beside me here - it's very fast and to all intents and purposes, it's silent, which is great for a machine you hope to do some work on. Only problem is that I understand they don't like RAID (some firmware glitch, I believe). I also hear that there's a utility that disables the acoustic management for the drive that boosts its performance considerably (there's a recentish article on storagereview.com)

Used to have a slot-load CD on a stereo system - I lost count of how many times I had to hoover the damn thing out to get the dust out! You're better off with a drawer-load DVD-ROM IMHO.

Personal hitlist for optical devices:

CDRW's: Plextor.
DVD-ROMs: Pioneer.

Gadget

Coyote

you might have a look at the for sale board 120gb drives new for €220 i think he just sold a load of 80gb one's and people seem happy with what they got.

Gerry

Thats a nice price coyote, but they are 5400 rpm drives, and I was looking for an increase in speed as well as capacity. Tis tempting though...

rymus

yeh that fella rymus has a few nice drives alright... and he happens to be a devilishly handsome chap to boot!

Slydice

Man you do know your talking about yourself to yourself yeah?

astrofool

get a 120gxp rather than a 60gxp, and IBM's do seem to be the best choice right now.

the 120gxp's run alot cooler controller chip wise, which should hopefully reduce the RMA's on them (have a 60 gig 3 platter drive 60gxp and the controller chip is sore to touch after being used alot, the two platter ones seem alot cooler, or just any 120gxp)

Benchmark wise 60gxp gave me 35 meg/s, raid 0 gave me 55meg/s, and a single 120gxp gave me 45 meg/s

slot loading dvd's are nice, tray's are so old looking afterwards. PlexWriter's would probably be the best cd-r's out atm, they've just released a 40x writer

Block (8

Like Gerry said the 333 hours thing is just a small print and a crappy excuse if one returns their faulty hard drives after the 60gxp drives incident.

But shouldn't ppl boycott IBM'S new 120gxp with this small print or else it might be included in every brand making it more difficult to return faulty drives?

Admittedly having said that I'm still very tempted to get the new 120gxp as they seem to be the best current drives available I'm afraid