Which SATA drive to go with my AI7?

External Since: Jan 05, 2004 Posts: 142

My 3 year old IBM Deskstar has to back for warranty replacement. Before I
send it off, I need to get a new drive. I currently have 46GB and haven't
filled it up, so I figure 80GB will be plenty for the new one, and I want
SATA. Since I got the AI7, I've been doing some research and thought I had
it pegged at the Maxtor which showed excellent speeds, but I've just read a
bit about the IBM/Hitachi and some of it's 'read' benchmarks were almost
double the Maxtor's. The write speeds were a little slower in many of the
tests. I figure my drive will be doing a lot more reading than writing, so
that may be the way to go. I wouldn't mind it if Windows took a little less
time to load. It also has a 3 year warranty (which has already come in
handy for me) as opposed to Maxtor's 1 year.
The drives are both 80GB and $86 for the Maxtor (zipzoomfly) and $74 for the
IBM (newegg). The only drawback to the IBM that I've read about is that it
can make a chirping noise every 10 to 15 minutes, even if it's idle.
I'll be ordering tomorrow (Wednesday) and will probably get the IBM/Hitachi
unless someone can shed a different light on this.
Any thoughts?

Gary

--
Slot

Tweaks & Reviews
www.slottweak.com

External Since: Apr 17, 2004 Posts: 127

I also have the AI7, and have considered SATA as well. But, I haven't bit,
for a variety of reasons.

FWIW, I'm not an SATA "expert", but from what I've seen, MANY of these
so-called SATA drives are merely PATA (parallel) drives in disguise! Many
have a "chip" that's nothing more than a "bridge" between the inherent IDE
nature of the drive, to the new SATA interface required by your mobo. So
for all the SATA hype, many people are naively paying SATA prices for only
"pseudo" SATA drives.

Personally, I feel spending money on SATA drives (unless you go for the real
thing, like WD Raptor) is a terrible waste. First, assuming it's really a
PATA drive under the covers, the SATA interface isn't going to provide any
additional advantages, except perhaps the thinner cable. Second, you'll pay
at least twice as much for the essentially the same PATA drive. Third,
we're only at SATA 1.0, which is hardly mature (I've seen plenty of problems
on the IC7, think the AI7 is really any better?). Finally, we haven't even
exploited nicities like Native Command Queuing (NCQ), something you're going
to see more of in the coming months.

Basically, unless you get a REAL SATA drive like the Raptor ($$$), SATA is
nothing but a fool's paradise (at least right now). The early adopters will
always jump on ANYTHING new and make it easier and cheaper for the rest of
us in the long run. If you're one of those, I thank you Wink

If not, forget
SATA for now (wait about a year, they'll be comparable in price to PATA,
support NCQ, probably ALL will be 10k RPM, quieter, faster, maybe even
support SATA 2.0).

JMTC

Jim

"GTX_SlotCar" <deroy.DeleteThis@maine.rr.com> wrote in message
news:bu2gdq$csqvj$1@ID-153646.news.uni-berlin.de...
> My 3 year old IBM Deskstar has to back for warranty replacement. Before I
> send it off, I need to get a new drive. I currently have 46GB and haven't
> filled it up, so I figure 80GB will be plenty for the new one, and I want
> SATA. Since I got the AI7, I've been doing some research and thought I
had
> it pegged at the Maxtor which showed excellent speeds, but I've just read
a
> bit about the IBM/Hitachi and some of it's 'read' benchmarks were almost
> double the Maxtor's. The write speeds were a little slower in many of the
> tests. I figure my drive will be doing a lot more reading than writing, so
> that may be the way to go. I wouldn't mind it if Windows took a little
less
> time to load. It also has a 3 year warranty (which has already come in
> handy for me) as opposed to Maxtor's 1 year.
> The drives are both 80GB and $86 for the Maxtor (zipzoomfly) and $74 for
the
> IBM (newegg). The only drawback to the IBM that I've read about is that it
> can make a chirping noise every 10 to 15 minutes, even if it's idle.
> I'll be ordering tomorrow (Wednesday) and will probably get the
IBM/Hitachi
> unless someone can shed a different light on this.
> Any thoughts?
>
> Gary
>
>
>
> --
> Slot
>
> Tweaks & Reviews
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.slottweak.com</font" target="_blank">www.slottweak.com</font</a>>
>