Computers and Related Hardware/Software

krim wrote:i've seen a dual channel EIDE for $99 or so.

I thought they were cheaper than that... :sweat:

not for a RAID card... a PCI controller is like $40-80.

krim wrote:not for a RAID card... a PCI controller is like $40-80.

I thought PCI controllers were dirt cheap, practically throwaways, while RAID controllers were like $50+ depending upon features/fexibility.

I just ran the serial number for the drive. My warranty expired last November. Now I have to decide whether $14.95 is worth the price for two more years. Right now, I'm thinking yes, but watch the drive work perfectly after I buy the extended warranty.

dochira wrote:I just ran the serial number for the drive. My warranty expired last November. Now I have to decide whether $14.95 is worth the price for two more years. Right now, I'm thinking yes, but watch the drive work perfectly after I buy the extended warranty.

Save your money and buy a newer, larger Seagate drive... Forbes named Seagate the company of the year for 2005...

bmwracer wrote:
Save your money and buy a newer, larger Seagate drive... Forbes named Seagate the company of the year for 2005...

That's true. But my thinking is: if I know the drive will be failing in the immediate future, for $14.95 I can get a replacement 250GB to go along with whatever else drive I get.

dochira wrote:That's true. But my thinking is: if I know the drive will be failing in the immediate future, for $14.95 I can get a replacement 250GB to go along with whatever else drive I get.

So you're betting $14.95 that the drive will conk out soon.

"You rolls your dice, you takes your chances..." :)

bmwracer wrote:
So you're betting $14.95 that the drive will conk out soon.

"You rolls your dice, you takes your chances..." :)

I know. I really wish I could pull the life support on this drive after I offload the data. It's going to die....I know it. :beaten:

Okay Doch, today's Fry's ad:

250GB Hitachi... $50 after a $60 MIR ( :bleh: )

it's a UDMA/100 though...

krim wrote:it's a UDMA/100 though...

If I recall, Doch's existing drive is the same as well... Getting a 133 or 150 won't do him much good unless he buys a new controller.

Ah, well, then no problemo.. that's a nice deal...

bmwracer wrote:
If I recall, Doch's existing drive is the same as well... Getting a 133 or 150 won't do him much good unless he buys a new controller.

I'm using an external Firewire/USB2 case. And for BT, it really doesn't matter (I don't think).

I'll be formatting this bad boy and transferring data later tonite. Then trying to kill this drive and buy the extended warranty to get a replacement.

dochira wrote:I'm using an external Firewire/USB2 case. And for BT, it really doesn't matter (I don't think).

I'll be formatting this bad boy and transferring data later tonite.

It'll take a while to format... Better start now. ;)

Then trying to kill this drive and buy the extended warranty to get a replacement.

A couple of intensive defrag sessions might do the trick. ;)

bmwracer wrote:
A couple of intensive defrag sessions might do the trick. ;)

I suspect that the drive was being overworked because I wasn't defragging it. It is the only drive that I was ignoring.

<----- built-in automatic defrag. :victory:

dochira wrote:It is the only drive that I was ignoring.

Oh, so it was suffering from abandonment anxiety... The kicking and screaming of the read/write heads was its call for attention.

Got my new PC up and running.

Dual core is nice, especially for encoding / transcoding and picture editing.

As someone mentioned about Seagate up above, I've had good experience with their drives. But I've also had good experience with other brands as well.

Presently I've got a 160 GB Seagate 7200.9 series in this new PC, though if I needed speed, that new Western Digital 150 GB Raptor sounds pretty tempting if not for the $300 price tag.



TGIF!
-PCM

Cool PCM. You finally got all the pieces to your computer. I don't know if I could have last that long waiting. :applaud:

Well, I'd ordered the last piece, the motherboard, before I went on vacation for 2 weeks. The motherboard was on back order, it was delivered while I was away.

I must say, the extra power makes a difference. To give you an idea, at work (and sometimes at home) I use a ~2 Ghz P4 laptop... to manipulate photos at Ofoto / Kodakgallery's online website works well, but when I try to do the rearranging of photos (drag and drop to change order), it's slow.

With the new PC, it's FAST.

So much easier and faster to deal with music, flash cards, photos, videos, Internet, etc., on this new PC.

Once the next generation of LCDs come out that have that copyright protection compliance, will trade in my 21" monitor for a 20" LCD. Save a lot of table space.



Cheers, :drink:
PCM