somebody convince me

[KingstonU]

Current hardrive (Maxtor 200GB, 7200rpm, 16MB, ~3 years old) has been very loud and noisy for the past year or so, but never really seemed to cause problems. Over the last few days I notice it being a bit slower to repond, getting noisier and slower when it tries to access large files or large numbers of little files. I was cleaning it and doing a backup and a few (luckily) unimportant files seem to no longer work and I guess they've been currupted. And finally it seems I can no longer defrag, as when I click to open the defrag application, windows thinks the defrag application is a photo (like a jpeg) that won't open. At least I was able to back up everything important.

Is it officially on it's last legs and likely won't hold out till september/october?

I was hopping to wait till this fall when new improved and cheaper SSDs are supposed to hit the market in droves and put my money towards that. I can get by with only 250GB of space, but if I have to get another normal hd, then I might as well get 500GB for about $70.

btw any recommendations on the cheapest 500GB? (since I doubt I'll notice the performance difference between the cheapest and most expensive)

Caviar Blue? Barracuda 7200.12? Deskstar P7K500?

Thanks

 

[California Roll]

If your drive is making loud noises, clicks, longer seeks/writes, etc., it's time to change (quick).

Cheapest is whatever is on sale when you need it. I've seen WD, Samsung, Hitachi 1tb drives at $80 each during the past 3 weeks. For a system OS drive, I'd recommend Caviar Black or Samsung F1. If you really want to save $5-10 for a Blue or similar, go for it. Performance difference is really negligible. My only recommendation is to get a 1tb drive, as it's the best bang for the buck at the moment.

 

[taltamir]

~3 years old? UNDER 3 years old? that makes a big difference since 3 years is a typical HDD warranty.

 

[KingstonU]

Originally posted by: taltamir
~3 years old? UNDER 3 years old? that makes a big difference since 3 years is a typical HDD warranty.

That's a good point, but I don't know if I feel like dealing with the hassle of warranties, I'd also have to find the receipts and everything which may not be easy considering how many times I've moved in the last 3 years. Might be worth it though, I'll at least look into it.

 

[California Roll]

Originally posted by: KingstonU

Originally posted by: taltamir
~3 years old? UNDER 3 years old? that makes a big difference since 3 years is a typical HDD warranty.

That's a good point, but I don't know if I feel like dealing with the hassle of warranties, I'd also have to find the receipts and everything which may not be easy considering how many times I've moved in the last 3 years. Might be worth it though, I'll at least look into it.

If it's a Maxtor (Seagate) drive, you don't need the receipt. You can google it, but Seagate lets you type in the serial # of the drive to find out warranty status. After that, it's up to you decide if it's worth it or not.

 

[KingstonU]

I just checked and I bought it May 10th 2006. I also found the site that lets you input your serial number, I'll try and do that when I get home, thanks.

 

[taltamir]

If it's a Maxtor (Seagate) drive, you don't need the receipt. You can google it, but Seagate lets you type in the serial # of the drive to find out warranty status. After that, it's up to you decide if it's worth it or not.

WD and Seagate allow you to check the warranty based on the manufacturing date (aka, a 3 year warranty on a drive made in 1-1-07 will have a warranty until 1-1-2010 without receipt)... but if you BOUGHT it last month from an approved retailer and it was made 5 years ago you get 3 years warranty from time of purchase WITH receipt...

Some drives have a 5 year warranty. so 2006 might still be covered.

 

[RebateMonger]

Yes, it's not likely it'll hold up until September. As long as you are backing up anything important and don't care if your drive suddenly fails, then you can wait.

Get a 1 TB or 500 GB drive. Create a 100 GB or so partition for the OS and programs. Install the OS and programs and move your data to the second partition. Note that the size of this OS partition depends on how large an SSD drive you expect to buy. It should be (slightly) smaller than the SSD drive.

When you buy an SSD, you can clone the OS/programs partition to the SSD and you'll have a 1 TB data drive as a secondary drive.

 

[KingstonU]

The fear that some of the files are becoming currupt got me, afterall, no point on backing up files a file that you don't realize is already corrupt. So I went and got a 500GB, and splurged and got the Caviar Black for $88 CA (after taxes and everything). The Baraccuda 7200.12 was cheaper but worries carrying over from 7200.11 reputation kept me away. Sigh, now another fresh install and configuring it the way I like all over again :frown:

Like you said, this will eventually become my secondary drive when I do get an ssd as my primary OS and programs drive.

Thanks for the help