Western Digital 200GB Internal Hard Drive, 7200RPM, 8MB Cache $118 Free Ship (07/03 only)

[ianbergman]

8000GB? holy monkeys. I jumped all over this this morning... slowly but surely i'm working my way to that 6x200GB RAID-5 array...

anyway, order shipped same day. never had that before from Dell, so I'm thrilled.

 

[QSnexus]

Dell is very fast and prompt for me on peripherals..

 

[ghaynes]

Just picked one up, couldn't pass on this deal. The quick question I have to ask now is now is with this new drive I will have 3 IDE devices and 3 ATAPI devices. I already have a Promise ATA133 card and currently have this setup. I do alot of DVD ripping and Video editing, so I'm looking at maxmium performance. Using a 2.4 P4 w/ 512mb DDR PC2700

ATA133 CARD - PRIMARY CHANNEL - 80GB WD 7200RPM 8MB Buffer - BOOT DRIVE
ATA133 CARD - SECONDARY CHANNEL - 80GB WD 7200RPM 2MB Buffer - BACKUP DRIVE
MOTHERBOARD - PRIMARY CHANNEL - PIONEER DVD-R/RW 105
MOTHERBOARD - SECONDARY CHANNEL - MASTER - LITEON 32X CD-R/RW
MOTHERBOARD - SECONDARY CHANNEL - SLAVE - LITEON 16X DVD-ROM

With my current setup now, where would you put the new WD 200GB drive?

 

[gump47371]

Just wondering, everyone is saying that the coupon expired yesterday, so those who posted they got in on this deal today, did you do the deal without the coupon, or what?

NOTE: Not asking for coupon, only asking if they used it or not.

 

[ianbergman]

ghaynes, I'd throw it on your current ATA card, make it the master on the second channel. Put your backup drive (i'm assuming it backs up from the boot drive) as slave on the second channel.

 

[Fallengod]

Originally posted by: ghaynes
Just picked one up, couldn't pass on this deal. The quick question I have to ask now is now is with this new drive I will have 3 IDE devices and 3 ATAPI devices. I already have a Promise ATA133 card and currently have this setup. I do alot of DVD ripping and Video editing, so I'm looking at maxmium performance. Using a 2.4 P4 w/ 512mb DDR PC2700

ATA133 CARD - PRIMARY CHANNEL - 80GB WD 7200RPM 8MB Buffer - BOOT DRIVE
ATA133 CARD - SECONDARY CHANNEL - 80GB WD 7200RPM 2MB Buffer - BACKUP DRIVE
MOTHERBOARD - PRIMARY CHANNEL - PIONEER DVD-R/RW 105
MOTHERBOARD - SECONDARY CHANNEL - MASTER - LITEON 32X CD-R/RW
MOTHERBOARD - SECONDARY CHANNEL - SLAVE - LITEON 16X DVD-ROM

With my current setup now, where would you put the new WD 200GB drive?

No where, What you need to do is take out that cd-r/rw drive, since the pioneeer does cd-rs also.

 

[Valour]

Thanks for the deal, luv2save.

I have a question for those in the know about these large capacity drives. If I plan on partitioning this drive into say 100GB partitions, would I even need a controller card, software, or 48-bit support? Basically, if I partition it small enough, can I treat it like any other drive and not have to intall any proprietary software from WD, etc?

Thanks

 

[winter]

Originally posted by: Valour
I have a question for those in the know about these large capacity drives. If I plan on partitioning this drive into say 100GB partitions, would I even need a controller card, software, or 48-bit support? Basically, if I partition it small enough, can I treat it like any other drive and not have to intall any proprietary software from WD, etc?

Yes, regardless of how you partition in, to access the entire drive (anything > 137GB) you must have the necessary bits to support 48bit addressing, that means either motherboard/bios support or an add-on card.

 

[gump47371]

For those (like me) that missed this great deal, Outpost.com has this drive for $15-20 more AR, depending on where you live (shipping).

Just a heads up, still a great price for a great drive with a 3 year warranty.

 

[Denix]

Does anyone know of an external usb 2.0 enclosure that would support this drive? I've read some of the other topics and it's not clear whether a 200gb drive would be usable at its fullest capacity?

 

[MontyBurns]

Depends entirely on the enclosure. Some would support it, some wouldn't. You'd have to look at the bios specs.

 

[Yo2]

Originally posted by: MontyBurns
Depends entirely on the enclosure. Some would support it, some wouldn't. You'd have to look at the bios specs.

There is no difference in enclosures - they just pass a USB signal. It would be up to the machine's bios whether it can interpret the drive's size...

 

[MontyBurns]

That's just not true. I have the IST enclosure that many of us bought here from compgeeks. It can't handle any drives over the 137 gig barrier.

You need the controller in the unit to actually access the drive. The computer can't tell the unit how to recognize a drive it is not set up to recognize.

 

[Denix]

Originally posted by: MontyBurns
That's just not true. I have the IST enclosure that many of us bought here from compgeeks. It can't handle any drives over the 137 gig barrier.

You need the controller in the unit to actually access the drive. The computer can't tell the unit how to recognize a drive it is not set up to recognize.

This is what I was afraid of. What is the answer??? I'm afraid that I just purchased a 200gb drive for nothing.

 

[ThatAdamGuy]

For those (like me) that missed this great deal, Outpost.com has this drive for $15-20 more AR, depending on where you live (shipping).

Just a heads up, still a great price for a great drive with a 3 year warranty.

Yes, except that folks in CA are charged sales tax. Ouch! :-(

 

[Yo2]

Originally posted by: Yo2

Originally posted by: MontyBurns
Depends entirely on the enclosure. Some would support it, some wouldn't. You'd have to look at the bios specs.

There is no difference in enclosures - they just pass a USB signal. It would be up to the machine's bios whether it can interpret the drive's size...

Your original post was a bit confusing... - so upon researching the topic a bit more, I agree that the enclosure has to be able to interpret the drive size b4 it's passed on to the PC. Provided that the OS supports large drives via 48bit LBA patch (e.g. W2k SP3, WXP) it then would actually be free of any mobo bios limitations.

 

[Capster]

In this case I believe it does have to do with the enclosure as they use some sort of bridge chipset to make this scenario work and that chipset has to support the addressing scheme needed.

 

[Denix]

Originally posted by: Capster
In this case I believe it does have to do with the enclosure as they use some sort of bridge chipset to make this scenario work and that chipset has to support the addressing scheme needed.

So therefore, if you purchase an enclosure that states that it supports drive sizes up to 200gb, then any computer running WXP should be able to recognize the drive to its full capacity. Correct?

 

[MagicMan17]

Hi, Im kind of a noob...so please bear wit me.

I was thinking about purchasing this drive because my 80 gb has run out of room. I have a AMD Athlon XP2000+ processor. I'm not real clued in about what you guys are talking about with the drive not bein compatible with certain systems etc...

If someone could clear this up for me, that would be great. Also, I was wondering whether I could use both these drives at the same time without any kind of special configuration.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[MontyBurns]

Assume you are running XP? Regardless, you will be able to use this drive. Depending on your mobo, you may have to use a software utility that comes with the drive. Regardless, it will be very easy to set up.

 

[MagicMan17]

Thanks for the reply Monty...but will I be able to use it past 137 GB as some people say is not possible without certain controller cards, etc...and yes I am running XP Pro wit SP1.

Thanks.

 

[MagicMan17]

and also...can I use this 200gb along with my existing 80gb?

 

[Miramonti]

Originally posted by: Denix

Originally posted by: Capster In this case I believe it does have to do with the enclosure as they use some sort of bridge chipset to make this scenario work and that chipset has to support the addressing scheme needed.

So therefore, if you purchase an enclosure that states that it supports drive sizes up to 200gb, then any computer running WXP should be able to recognize the drive to its full capacity. Correct?

If you find an enclosure with these specs that looks doable, please post it here.

 

[winter]

Originally posted by: Denix

Originally posted by: Capster
In this case I believe it does have to do with the enclosure as they use some sort of bridge chipset to make this scenario work and that chipset has to support the addressing scheme needed.

So therefore, if you purchase an enclosure that states that it supports drive sizes up to 200gb, then any computer running WXP should be able to recognize the drive to its full capacity. Correct?

Be carefuly, some cases can support Maxtor drives >137GB but not have true 48-bit support, read this: Link to understand why. Your best bet is to find out what chipset the case/enclosure is using and read the specs on it, only the newest chipsets support >137GB for all drives, there are alot of older chipset enclosures out there.

Other than that, yes, if you're OS supports >137GB drives (which XP does) and the enclosure supports large drives then you don't need anything else.

 

[Valour]

Originally posted by: winter

Originally posted by: Valour
I have a question for those in the know about these large capacity drives. If I plan on partitioning this drive into say 100GB partitions, would I even need a controller card, software, or 48-bit support? Basically, if I partition it small enough, can I treat it like any other drive and not have to intall any proprietary software from WD, etc?

Yes, regardless of how you partition in, to access the entire drive (anything > 137GB) you must have the necessary bits to support 48bit addressing, that means either motherboard/bios support or an add-on card.

Thanks for the info. I do have a mobo that supports 48-bit (Asus P4T533). Does this mean I can just add this drive as a slave and format it for the full 200GB without doing anything additional? (using XP Pro w/SP1).

Thanks again.