New Hard Drive.

[Razorfish]

Im currently using a Western digital raptor which is fast running out of space! so i need a new SATA hard drive that will provide me with good performance but not cost an arm and a leg, looking at about £50, im gonna run the OS and some games on the raptor and use the new drive for general storage, and maybe a a few games im not to bothered about loading times on.

Whats out there?

[dsio]

Maxtor 10s are getting great reviews everywhere. For the price of a 74GB raptor, you get a 300GB maxtor 10 with a 16MB cache. The lower end ones only have 8MB cache, but are fast as hell, and quiet too, and great value.

I bought a Maxtor 10 300GB 2 months ago, still waiting to buy a second one for a 600GB raid disk, but dont want to use it, because once I load it up, I can never raid it lol.

[GrahamGarside]

You should be able to get a 160GB Maxtor 10 for that

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=147139

[Razorfish]

Plus 10 it is then!

whats NCQ by the way?

... command queuing?

[GrahamGarside]

Native

[dsio]

Its a SCSI trick that is now on SATA drives. It basically just means the heads move less. If it has 10 things to find, instead of finding them in order they were received in, it finds them in the order of how close they are to the head. So the head doesnt move from point A to Q then back to B, intead it goes A to B then to Q. Its more efficient, at the slight expense of some latencey from what I remember.

[Razorfish]

Nice!

so these drive quick? hope there quiter than my raptor! its really doing me head in!

[dsio]

Ive never had a raptop 74 but I did have one of the early model 36ers which from what people say are even louder. The maxtor 10 is silent next to my Athlon 64 HSF running at 7V on low mode. Thats how quiet it is.

Sweet drive, very quick.

[Lazgoat]

I'm using a 160GB WD Caviar SATA drive, its deadly silent!

For the Raptor racket, use rubber grommets to isolate it in the drive cage, should quieten in up no end.

[dsio]

Tell you what works even better than that is wet suit material. I cut a pair of strips out of an old wetsuit and stuffed them beside the HDD in the cage, and it made a massive difference. The thing it I dont even have to screw it in as the wet suit holds it about as firm as screws do.

That was for the raptor 36, but it still doesnt stop the click click click of the heads moving and the scratching sound.

[Razorfish]

Laz, rubber grommets are all thats making it bareable!

[dsio]

They are bloody fast disks, but even that raptor will not be as fast as the Maxtor 10 NCQ in some areas. Once you RAID them, they blow the raptor to hell. I seriously dont know why I ever bought the 36. Its too small to do anything with, and sounds like a damned banshee when you start doom 3 or HL2.

[Razorfish]

Mine crunches, like its munching a bunch or crunch-a-munch

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by dsio

Its a SCSI trick that is now on SATA drives. It basically just means the heads move less. If it has 10 things to find, instead of finding them in order they were received in, it finds them in the order of how close they are to the head. So the head doesnt move from point A to Q then back to B, intead it goes A to B then to Q. Its more efficient, at the slight expense of some latencey from what I remember.

Actually NCQ isn't a SCSI trick - you're thinking of TCQ there. They're similar in many ways, but TCQ almost always results in a loss of performance on a desktop. Just as an aside, many IDE drives have supported TCQ for years now.

For NCQ to work however, you *MUST* have all three of the following components.

• SATA hard disk that supports NCQ
• SATA controller that supports NCQ
• SATA drivers that support NCQ

If you're missing any one of these, your system is not capable of running in NCQ mode.

[Razorfish]

Originally Posted by Áedán

Actually NCQ isn't a SCSI trick - you're thinking of TCQ there. They're similar in many ways, but TCQ almost always results in a loss of performance on a desktop. Just as an aside, many IDE drives have supported TCQ for years now.

For NCQ to work however, you *MUST* have all three of the following components.

• SATA hard disk that supports NCQ
• SATA controller that supports NCQ
• SATA drivers that support NCQ

If you're missing any one of these, your system is not capable of running in NCQ mode.

Thanks for the info,

Ive just ordered the Maxtor plus 10 160GB with NCQ

will the sata controllers on my A8N-SLi support NCQ?

[dsio]

Sorry, your right there. Too many CQs nowadays

[Razorfish]

So you guys think the maxtor 10 160GB is a better choice than the Western Digital SE 160GB???

[dsio]

The Maxtor 10 is in a class of its own right now. Definately the best 7200rpm drive on the market.

[Razorfish]

Right thats good enough for me, should be here tuesday! Thanks guys!

[GrahamGarside]

I'd agree, owning the 200GB model I have to say it would be my choice everytime. The Seagate 7200.8 and Latest Hitachi/IBM drives offer better performance by a few percent, and Samsung Spinpoints are quieter, but factor in price, performance and acoustics and the maxtor comes out on top.