POLL: who wants fast, small drives?

[dpopiz]

I've been begging wd for ages to make a much smaller version of their JB drives. 40gb a lot more than I need right now, and it seems like if they made some lower-capacity versions, they could have the fastest 40g drive there is for maybe $80.

 

[CubicZirconia]

Not me.

 

[Gunbuster]

Platters and heads still cost money, why format a platter to 40 when it can hold 80

The company is gona pass on the R&D costs to you anyway, might as well have a big fast drive

 

[snow patrol]

It might be useful, but I personally don't need 'small drives'. It's always worth having as much space as possible. But for those on a budget, I suppose a nice 30/40gig 8meg cache HD could be ideal.

 

[AnAndAustin]

With such tiny price diffs in capacities you must be crazy to buy a 40GB. Extra space never hurts you! If you want a smaller drive (which costs about as much to make as a bigger dirve, hence the prices) buy a 2nd hand drive!

 

[ObiDon]

Me! Me! I run multiple drives anyway and I just want something really fast for my OS drive. It doesn't need to be huge or anything. Between my XP install and my games/apps I'm probably using less than 10GB and they go on seperate partitions. I'm not one of those people that installs *every* piece of software I own simultaneously.
For dump drives though...BIG!

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Man their 800JB is only $115! How can you beat that??

 

[microAmp]

Originally posted by: CubicZirconia
Not me.

 

[Belegost]

If I wanted a small, fast drive, I'd go SCSI.

 

[THUGSROOK]

yes please.
i would like 1 small fast drive for my C: (10-20gb for apps) - and big fat sucker for my D: (40-80gb for files)

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
yes please.
i would like 1 small fast drive for my C: (10-20gb for apps) - and big fat sucker for my D: (40-80gb for files)

18.2GB Ultra 160 10k SCSI, $132. I think that would get you what you want.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: vetteguy

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
yes please.
i would like 1 small fast drive for my C: (10-20gb for apps) - and big fat sucker for my D: (40-80gb for files)

18.2GB Ultra 160 10k SCSI, $132. I think that would get you what you want.

Too expensive. Id like something I can throw in a firewall machine and be happy. My 2gb drive was just right, unfortunately its dead. 20GB drives are nice, but they provide too much space in case something bad happens. Other than for a firewall, I dont have any reason to want smaller drives

 

[ledzepp98]

i personally prefer to separate my os/apps from my bulk storage. while it's not the most price efficient solution, my answer was to get a cheetah x15-36lp for my main drive, a 100gig and a 120gig western digital drive for mass storage, and i have a 30gig maxtor drive for backup copies of important files. my budget allows for it and at the moment there is no small ide drive that can compete with the speed of the x15 for os/apps, while scsi is too expensive for the amount of bulk storage i need

 

[ucdbiendog]

I got the WD1200JB (120 gb) and its NICE. I wouldnt mind a smaller drive with perhaps one platter, such as a 40 gig drive so i could do a window mod. But i wouldnt want to spend a lot of cash on it.

 

[iluvdeal]

I hear ya. I'm begging Intel and AMD to release slower CPUs right now. Who the heck needs all that speed? Let's hear it for slower CPUs!

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: dpopiz
I've been begging wd for ages to make a much smaller version of their JB drives. 40gb a lot more than I need right now, and it seems like if they made some lower-capacity versions, they could have the fastest 40g drive there is for maybe $80.

Newegg.com sells the WD 80 gig (8 meg cache) for $114 including shipping. I would spend the evtra money and get the bigger hard drive.

 

[THUGSROOK]

Originally posted by: ledzepp98
i personally prefer to separate my os/apps from my bulk storage.

yep, i agree there 100%

less file fraggin
less need to defrag
quicker defrags
D: drives are a safer place for files (in case something happens to C
you can add/delete files (frag) all you want on the D: and not lose any OS performance
C: drives get bogged down by the OS. (even if its a C: partition the whole drive still gets bogged down)
sometimes it just feels good to type in "FORMAT C:" and know you aint gonna lose anything important

 

[Czar]

here is an idea, 4 platter hd, each with 10gb.
and.. built in raid 0 !!

good idea?

 

[dpopiz]

iluvdeal: if you notice, I want something faster, not slower
your analogy doesn't work

 

[dpopiz]

maybe some people have gotten the wrong idea about this post. my real point is that now, with 200gb drives, maybe hd manufacturers should start focusing a lot more on speed instead of size. I think anybody would agree that speed is more important than 240gb or whatever's next

 

[ObiDon]

Originally posted by: Czar
here is an idea, 4 platter hd, each with 10gb.
and.. built in raid 0 !!

good idea?

Isn't that more or less the current setup in regular hard drives? Even if it wasn't, would Raid-0 built into one drive be effective with just one motor spinning all the platters? It would probably have to have four independently tracking arms for the heads...or maybe that's what you meant? That would probably be a PITA!

 

[mrzed]

What I want to see is small (form factor) as well as small (capacity) with high performance.

We're now gtting to the point where we should be able to have fast shoebox sized computers. What's holding us back is standards like 3.5 inch drives. 2.5 inch notebook drives don't help much because they are designed for low power consumption.

If they can make a 66Gb/Platter 7200 RPM 3.5 inch drive, why not a 15-20Gb/Platter 7200 RPM 2 inch drive with similar performance?(serial ATA should help - require less space for connections)

 

[vetteguy]

Originally posted by: dpopiz
iluvdeal: if you notice, I want something faster, not slower
your analogy doesn't work

I think you should try putting <sarcasm></sarcasm> around his post and try reading it again.

Like I mentioned earlier, if you're looking for fast but not necessarily large, then I think a U160 SCSI drive is the way to go. It's probably going to be the fastest you'll get. You can always thow in an IDE drive or 2 for mass storage, but if you want pure speed for your OS without a lot of wasted space just get a 9.1 or 18.2 SCSI. Beyond that I don't know what to suggest for you, because hard drive manufacturers are moving to bigger and bigger drives, since most people don't want to have 2 or 3 separate drives in their system.

 

[dpopiz]

hmm using a small scsi drive is an interesting idea...but are there any that can come close to the noise level of ide drives?

 

[zzzz]

Originally posted by: dpopiz
hmm using a small scsi drive is an interesting idea...but are there any that can come close to the noise level of ide drives?

The fujitsu's are fairly quiet.