Jan 24, 2004 03:06 pm I prefer internal myself, but, USB2 is very fast and quite good, USB1 is...well...USB1 :( A "1" of anything is always lame...
hard drive advice
Posted on Jan 24, 2004 02:56 pm
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
the time has come for me to enlarge my storage space. i was wondering if external drives are worth it? i don't much like doing surgery on my computer. but i obviously dont want to buy something that's going to be slow. i think i've read that many people do use external drives for project files, but i can't be sure. this would be a USB connection i think. aren't those slow? and what exactly is firewire? how can i tell if i have it, and is that any better?
or should i just stick with a second internal drive?
[ Back to Top ]
Jan 24, 2004 03:06 pm I prefer internal myself, but, USB2 is very fast and quite good, USB1 is...well...USB1 :( A "1" of anything is always lame...
Jan 24, 2004 03:28 pm external will also cost you more
make sure you have a free IDE channel available. you can usually have 4 total devices (harddrives and CD-ROMs) before you need a to install a special controller card. i have 6 devices (3 harddrives, two CD-ROMs and a ZIP drive), so i had to get a conotroller card. they're easy to install and won't break the bank either.
Jan 24, 2004 06:08 pm i'm not sure what an IDE channel is. what is that? my computer has only a cd-rom drive and an extra soundcard (my audiophile). those are the only devices, if i'm thinking about this right.
the external drives i saw at bestbuy.com were just as cheap as the internals, it looked like. i need to look more carefully, though.
Jan 24, 2004 06:43 pm I just recently bought a Western Digital USB 2.0 160 GB external hard drive for only $180 at Sam's Club. I had to buy a USB 2 card because my computer didn't have USB 2 built in, but now it's working great. Just as fast as my internal drive. The USB 2 drives are backward compatible with USB 1, which is nice since everyone's at least got USB 1. The advantage with external USB hard drives is you can take your projects anywhere if necessary. Right now I'm just using the drive for backup or transport, but I could use it to record directly onto.
Jan 24, 2004 06:47 pm nice! thats about what i'm looking for. good price, too.
Jan 24, 2004 07:08 pm if you open up your computer look at the flat grey 40pin ribbon cable that connects hardrives and CDs to the motherboard. there's two slots for these ribbons on the mother board and each one can have two devices attached, so that's four devices. dB could explain better.
one thing to watch out for with harddrives, avoid the 5400rpm. the 7200rpm will cost more but you'll get better performance from them.
Jan 24, 2004 08:10 pm 10k rpm SATA-150 is where teh shiznitz is at!
;)
Jan 24, 2004 09:34 pm Yeah, the 7200rpm is the way to go. The Western Digital one I mentioned to Forymile is a 7200rpm
Jan 25, 2004 03:37 am jues, does that SATA-160 require special controllers or will they go on any computer?
Jan 25, 2004 04:46 am thanks--you guys are a big help. another question:
if i get an external drive, will the USB connection ever become obsolete? i would hate for computers to graduate to some entirely different protocol, leaving USB in the dust. i want to put my files on this thing and leave them there. forever if need be. maybe that's a risk you just have to take. what do you think the odds are? am i more secure in getting an internal drive?
Jan 25, 2004 05:36 am SATA drives require SATA connections, it's a relivily new technology, but the speed and data transfer rates achieved are phenominal!
Jan 25, 2004 05:40 am thanks jues.
forty, hard drives don't last forever. the average hard drive keels over after about 5 years. i found this out the hard way :O( but that was awhile back
but anyways, if the manufacturers who set the standards are smart enough to keep aloowing backward compatibility, you'll be fine. back your data up none the less. ;O)
Jan 25, 2004 06:47 am Is it even possible to buy a new drive that is under 7200 any more?
and forty, everything becomes obsolete, it's a fact of technology. Hell, I remember getting up to 64 MB of ram with a 2.5 GB hard drive and figuring I was set for life...
SATA is relatively new, as jues stated, if you have an existing PC, and it's a year or more old, I wouldlay good odds it doesn't have SATA, but might have DMA 133 IDE channels available. IDE is the interface that plug in to your CD or DVD drive and hard drives. They are more than fast enough for the typical project studio. I have never choked my 133 IDE interface yet. SATA is faster and all that, but that does not mean it's necessary.
I had a car a few years back that I could get up to around 160 mph...doesn't mean it was ever used...well, accept that once...
Jan 25, 2004 08:09 am i know you can get new 5400rpm laptop drives ::shrugs::
Jan 25, 2004 09:13 am Well, as long as computers keep using card slots you can install a USB2 card in a new computer even after USB becomes obsolete.
Jan 25, 2004 10:16 am Until the PCI bus gets phased out anyway...
Jan 25, 2004 02:25 pm PCI Express, faster and smaller www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1087
Jan 25, 2004 03:51 pm this is scary. what if everything becomes obsolete?
THIS hard drive in this computer is over 5 years old. it still works. if my new hard drive craps out, you guys would say 'i hope you have backed up your data.' but what do you mean by this? on cd-r? dont those last only 5 years or so?
it'd be a pain to put all my data to cd-r now, but maybe i should. i have no backups.
how do you guys back up?
Jan 25, 2004 04:11 pm I backup to another hard drive on a seperate PC...and to CD periodically...
curious forty, how long have you been into PC's? Everything does become obsolete...when I got my A+ certification AGP never existed, video cards ran on that new-fangled PCI bus and had a whopping 2 MB of ram, and sound cards ran on an ISA bus, RAM had 30 or 72 pins.
Everything becomes obsolete, case in point, Noize has a "kick butt" Midiman sound card that he paid a couple hundred bucks for a long time ago, can't use it now becasue it's an ISA slot, same with his SampleCell unit that cost about $800, or my old SB AWE64 Gold, which I now gave to flame cuz he has an ISA slot. Ever see parrallel ports get used any more? Or even com ports? no, it's all USB...if you wanna play in the technology playground...get used to it.
Bottom line is this, as long as YOU keep using your PC, YOU still have all that stuff and can use it.
Hey, anyone wanna by an SB AWE32 with expansion card that has 16MB of RAM for the wavetable? both card and expansionc ard are ISA and were THE BOMB in their day.
Jan 25, 2004 07:02 pm Hey forty, like dB said it all becomes obsolete. Usually two weeks after ya bought it. I have my brand new box sitting waiting for a new OS drive, and heck while it sat there it became obsolete before I even cranked it up. And hell ya I remember when ISA was the shnitzel and then PCI got faster and ISA was then considered Legacy, and now PCI might go by by, so what the heck do ya do. Buy something new and give the old one to the wife. Thats what I did anyway.
Jan 25, 2004 09:09 pm yeah, i know all stuff becomes obsolete. i've been using PCs since like 1995 and i've seen them grow in power, etc. i mean, i've always used them since i was a kid, but i never really got into them, and didnt really get into them more until i started using them to record...which would have been last year.
but obsolescence is wrong! for example, we need to start making machines that can be programmed to accept new file extensions. like this new mp3/atrac3 player i just bought. a piece of hardware that will eventually become useless. what happens when mp3 becomes obsolete? people need to make a machine where you can upgrade the software to accept new file types, for instance. i dont want to be backing up data for the rest of my life. i dont want to have to transform all of my mp3s into some other format down the line.
Jan 25, 2004 11:59 pm Obsolescence is a neccessity and inevitable, you can't go forward, forever looking backward. :)
As for your data you will be able to access it for likely as long as you care too. Heck I had to buy an obsolete 8 track to get my old stuff on to the PC 25 years later, and with computers they'll have the capability to much more readily access what you've saved. Where there's a will there's always a way :)
Dan
Jan 26, 2004 04:50 am Have fun going to work today in your horse-pulled buggy ;)
Jan 26, 2004 08:03 am with this crappy weather i'd be better off *with* a horse drawn buggy :OS
Jan 26, 2004 04:38 pm A good example of software that keeps up and still looks back is Sonar 3.0. It has a better form of compression, still with the .cwb and .cwp extensions but anything you save in version 3.0 cannot be opened ina previous version. Yet it will still open any previous Cakewalk file you have going back to the .wrk and .bnd files. So some peeps are thinking a bit about what they are doing.
Jan 26, 2004 04:56 pm yeah, they are just slackers on the whole 5.1 thing...you got one thing right they are "keeping up", not forging ahead. :-P
That said, aside from the whole 5.1 thing, Sonar 3 kicks butt. I just need to toss my 5.1 jab in there every chance I get :)
Off Topic
Oh, and Noize, did you get any of that stock I told you about today? it went up 32%, I made over $11,000 today alone...(take it easy everyone, it's IRA money, I won't even see it until I am 59 1/2 years old). I TOLD you today it was gonna jump, it should all week...someday you will learn to listen to me...someday you WILL ALL learn to listen to me :-P
[evil laugh]Mwahahahahahahaha[/evil laugh]
next tips for your research, MOBL, IBZT and GMED
Jan 26, 2004 05:32 pm Agreed on the 5.1 thing. But I have a crystal ball and I see things in the future. :-)
Jan 26, 2004 05:40 pm well, yeah, big woop, everyone else has it now :-P
Jan 26, 2004 10:22 pm Well, just as a headup for anyone looking to purchase a new hard drive, Office Max has 80gig Western Digital INTERNAL drives for $20(!) after in store and mail in rebates this week. I saw the ad in the Sunday newspaper. Don't know if it's available over the internet.
Jan 27, 2004 08:24 am jeez what a deal! i can't remember if we have an office max or an office depot. they both might be doing a similar deal (as well as staples) since they all sell almost the *exact* same inventory.
Jan 27, 2004 09:05 am what brand do you prefer dB?
i don't know anything about storage
Jan 27, 2004 09:08 am I prefer Maxtor DiamondMax myself, just had better experiences with them, but Seaget is generally accepted as the best.
Western Dig is fine, in my days as a tech I have changed out more burnt Seagates and Western Dig's than Maxtor...that much I know, and I have changed hundred, if not thousands, in my life...
Jan 27, 2004 09:28 am good to know.
i assumed maxtor was junk since staples sold so much of them. i used to work in their warehouse here and handled easy thousands of them.
Jan 27, 2004 09:32 am Well, some prolly consider them junk, but they have performed well for me, quiet, speedy and cool...I have about 5-6 Maxtor drives...and one Seagate.
Jan 27, 2004 01:47 pm i think i have two seagates barricudas and a WD here. The only harddrive to ever fail on me was a Seagate Caviar but it was OLD
Jan 27, 2004 04:04 pm db you know investing? i am envious! that's quite a haul today! i am about to get into investing but my GOD---so daunting.
Jan 27, 2004 06:19 pm I don't know it very well, but I do pretty well with it...yes, it can be very daunting, but some of it is common sense, or that is how I do it...for example, what are the hot topics today? Find companies that cater to those topics.
One big tip, think about businesses that can get into the whole "homeland security" sector...also electronic security and internet devices and addons for internet devices...good year these sectors I believe. Health and medical is always good bets too if they are doing something big...
ADZR (my big player right now) - internet surveillence tracking terrorist communications and such...phenominal technology with NO competition.
IBZT - cool lazer keyboard for palms...
MOBL - wireless technology, recently partnered with someone to concentrate on security
GMED - viral infection research and innoculation, currently working on SARS and the common cold among other things.
HFIT - another health related stock I have done well on
LOUD - a company that is heavily into internet-distibuted media...I did really well on that a while back, doubling my money in ONE DAY and is still expected to be strong, but I am not in it anymore. They are a competitor of Sonic Foundry (SOFO).
Gotta find a need in society, or a hot topic, and then find the companies that are filling those needs...
I am no stock guru however, so don't listen to anything I have said...
Jan 27, 2004 07:18 pm where do you research your stocks, db?
it looks to me like you go for profit, rather than building a varied portfolio? or are these just your 'hot stocks?' personally, i am much more excited by the allure of big returns than i am with playing it safe.
Jan 27, 2004 08:06 pm Quote:
it looks to me like you go for profit
Well, uuu, ya, thats kinda the point...that said, yes these are just a few I pulled outa my...uuu, wherever you pull those. I am invested in about 12 different stocks and/or mutual funds at any given time, but it is mostly technology stocks or medical/health related stocks. I am rarely interested in the "diverse portfolio", cuz very few stocks I play keep my interest in holding for a long time...I come and go out of stocks, while there are a few I am long on, HFIT is one of them, and RIMG is another that I have been in for 3-4 years.
I am mainly a technology invester, at least those are usually my quick turnover stocks, cuz that is what I know best and have the most current trends and news regarding. While it is a volatile market, when it's up, it's up big, when it's down, it's down big...it was recently down big, which is when I invested. SGI is another tech stock, they just recently released a killer bunch of linux-supporting hardware that is astounding...tho I haven't invested yet, I may. The medical and health stocks are often more suited for long term, the need will never go away, and right now I thnk GMED is a good investment, personally.
Oh, and I research many ways, I trade at Scottrade.com which has a lot of research tools, www.ragingbull.com boards can be interesting, yahoo has a plethora of charts and news...also, friends that invest too...we all talk...
Ya gotta get to know trends and how stocks act...for example, if a stock is going ballistic one week, wait until friday, cuz that is when day traders will selloff for the weekend and take their profits, the stock will fall and you buy then and hope to catch the momentum the next week...never/rarely buy when it's climbing...wait til it peaks and people start taking profits out...ya know, little human nature readings like that...
Oh, and playing it safe is for wussies :-) There is a smart way to invest, my "longs" I have semi-safe and when something like ADZR is going nuts, I put a stop loss on it (meaning if it DOES start falling there is a point at which I have it programmed to sell) OR, I sell enough to get the money back that I originally put into it, and let all the rest ride as "free stocks" so to speak...then put that original investment back to work somewhere else...
I like the penny stocks, big money can be made if you pick right...ADZR is a good example, so will a couple others...
Jan 27, 2004 08:16 pm i meant that you seem to go for big profit, short term. many pros seem to say that 'safe' is the only way to play. long term. slow growth. diversified portfolio. i never cared for that attitude because, i guess, i'm not yet an old man, and my desire is for lots of cash, now. i wonder sometimes how much i could make off the market, but i really have to educate myself first. can you recommend a good book?
Jan 27, 2004 08:33 pm never read any books about, just watched others and played myself. The "big profit" attitude can kill ya. While I don't buy the slow steady thing, I do keep some money that way, but I have other money that I designate for "risks". Thats the pennys stock that might go big type of thing. I don't necessarily go for "big profits" just profits. And how much depends on the stock, when I buy it I generally have a figure in mind a wanna make...when I make it I sell. If it keeps going up, thats fine, I still made what I wanted to...
Jan 27, 2004 08:45 pm Back to the Hardrive issues. I am a Seagate person myself, and only because I have had good luck with them. Barracuda is the only way to fly with them, I will not use their cheaper drives. Only lost one disc and lucky for me it was only a 20 gig about half full. I recooped most of the data, after a 4 month wait, sweating bullets. I also have a Western Dig 40 that is really only used as a back-up/transferdisc, never left running in the box as it is on a swap bay. I had two Maxtors go bad within a week and that is the only reason I switched to Seagate way back, and I have just been a chicken **** since and not wanted to try a Maxtor again, even though I know dB has extreme good luck with them. I suppose the day will come when I will buy another when it is on sale, and the price for them is usually better then the Seagates, so that day will probly come soon.
Jan 27, 2004 10:17 pm Hmmm, well I got a 120GB Seagate 'cuda for $60.00 a couple months ago at CompUSA. If you keep an eye on the ads in the Sunday paper for Office Max, Office Depot, Best Buy, and CompUSA, you will come across some really good deals on hard drives.
As far as investing goes, it is pretty much proven that a diversified portfolio is much safer than investing in one particular sector. This means diversified in stocks, bonds, real estate, and other investment choices. However, I have chosen only to invest in myself, so you can see how much I care about that. The less risk the less potential reward (the less potential loss too).
Jan 28, 2004 04:45 am Quote:
As far as investing goes, it is pretty much proven that a diversified portfolio is much safer than investing in one particular sector.
Well sure, if one industry tanks you still have other keeping you afloat, that makes sense, I agree with that, but the safe player never makes the big score. When you are young(ish) is when to take the chances if you can.
That said, some people don't have the stomach for that kind of risk, my wife was VERY skeptical when she turned her IRA from her last job over to me to control...cuz she knows I am kind of...uuuu, a risk taker. That said, in 6 months I have turned her little $2,000 IRA into a $20,000 tax-free batch of cash...it's all about what you are willing to risk and controlling the action on the back side with stop-losses and such.
I plan on investing in myself as well, my cash account exists pretty much to keep money building up that I can pull out as I need something...if I am not spending it on gear, thehouse, or whatever, I might as well have that money working for me somewhere else...then when I need it Ijust get it.
Oh, forty, another thing to look for when watching stocks, if you are investigating a company, look to see the insider trading, if CxO's of the company are buying a lot...something is generally up and it makes it a little less skeptical to invest in...
Jan 29, 2004 01:10 am db i DO want to listen to you about stocks.
i have a question. why was this $11G stock in your IRA? i mean, have you ever made that much hard cash? money that you got ahold of right away? that's quite a haul.
Jan 29, 2004 04:36 am Well, ya, but then days like yesterday come up where I loose 10g of that 11g :-) ADZR took a big correction yesterday (which I kinda expected) and a couple others started moving up.
As far as the IRA goes, well, I am 36 years old and I have two kids that will presumably want to go to college in a few years, so the IRA is mostly a retirement planning and a little bit of a college fund. why not 11g hard cash? Well, cuz I really don't need it, and mostly cuz I don't want to pay taxes on yet another 11g this year if I don't have to. If I really needed the money I would take it, but I don't so I am trying to plan for the future with it. Right now I have a nice home in a nice neighborhood, my bills are getting paid and my home business keeps me in "fun money", so the big money windfalls I would rather keep in the IRA to help me retire comfortably...and earlier...Most of my stock playing is for my retirement, not to earn my living. However, I have a cash account at Scottrade that I play with and can take the money if I need it...if not I just reinvest it.
Feb 17, 2004 01:06 pm man, they have 200 GB maxtors for the same price as 160 gb seagates. $169 bucks at office depot. i think i'd rather get the larger one. who wouldn't?
but they also have 80 gig western digitals for 39 bucks. i go in there and salivate. the very next thing i see is a mental image of db shuddering. db, who i'm not even clear on what he looks like.
my, that was bad grammar.
if anyone wants to say something sensible here, there's a very good choice you will define which of these drive types i'll go with. last chance!
Feb 17, 2004 01:12 pm get two of the WD, it would save you money, plus, since one WILL fail cuz WD sucks, use the other as a routine backup and always have a good backup of your data. And you still come out spending about half the money :)
Feb 17, 2004 05:07 pm haha thats a good idea. iw as thinking that too.
Feb 17, 2004 07:01 pm but im gonna get the maxtor unless someone stops me.
Feb 17, 2004 07:07 pm Hahahaha!
Well, my outboard western digital still hasn't failed me yet if that helps. (I've only had it for 3 months)
Feb 17, 2004 08:13 pm 2 x Maxtor (160Gb + 80Gb)
1 x IBM DeathStar (80Gb)
aaaaaah, storage.
Feb 17, 2004 09:36 pm w00t jues. my friend here won't let me not get a seagate. so i guess that's that. although, db, your plan makes a looney kind of sense, my friend is telling me the seagate will likely never fail. and im just naive enough to believe that.
Feb 18, 2004 04:33 am I worked as a PC technician for a long time a while back and replaced more crashed Seagates than I could shake a stick at. That said, they are widely recognized as "the best" hard drive...I just don't buy it from personal experience.
Feb 18, 2004 02:00 pm im sorry to keep this thread going on.
maybe i'll keep it going on FOREVER...
but i just wanna say, db, that your looney plan of buying 2 of the lowest-grade drives is making so much sense that i'm having difficulty saying no to it. i'm someone who has never backed up his music data and have never really thought about the possibility of a drive crash. "that only happens to other people!"
youve given me food for thought--i thank y'all. i think i'll get a seagate now and a cheaper drive that's also smaller than the seagate (who knows, maybe a WD) down the line, and then back up data selectively from the seagate onto the future backup drive, whatever it may be.
Feb 18, 2004 02:44 pm Well, it was a joke, but there is a demented logic to it, it's ALWAYS good to have a backup drive, and it's cool to automate data copying from one drive to the other in the middle of the night each night...then always having a good backup.
Feb 18, 2004 03:21 pm The average life span of a hard drive (even a WD) is longer than the average burner...especially a cheap burner.
Feb 18, 2004 06:09 pm yes but i need a dvd burner anyway, actually. so thats another idea. thanks jues.
Feb 18, 2004 09:56 pm I as well am a Seagate fan forty, so I will back ya up. Though I do have a couple WD for removable storage. All my main working drives are Seagate. Even though dB did try to steer me away. I have crashed 2 Maxtor and 1 Seagate so the choice was obvious, but I will buy what is cheaper for storage drives.
I am guessing they have all improved over the years, so that said have at it.
Feb 26, 2004 04:06 pm hey all, thanks for the input. y'all were instrumental in helping me to decide upon the seagate 160 gb barracuda. so far so good. i love it.
i'm using that drive for music projects and for movie transfers. i've got a ton of old VHS movies my friends and i made back in the day. the tapes are falling apart, so i bought a capture device and am about to start eternalizing them. of course, i am concerned about this drive failing one day. as yet, pro dvd recorders run in the thousands of dollars (so i hear) and that means that most of these films can't be completely transferred to disc unless i break them in pieces. therefore i'm looking at my drive as an eternal storage medium. ill keep the films there until some cheap technology evolves that will let me burn them in thier entirety. so here's my question:
i'm going to have to buy yet another drive sometime this year to back up the seagate. these films are precious. i aim on having them forever and will do whatever it takes. i glanced inside the computer and looked for an additional IDE port but it looks like my board has only one. i think jamie said i should see two, but i didn't. coming out from that is the ribbon, with the seagate and my main drive (a WD caviar, i've found! ack!) attactched to there. the ribbon has no additional plug for another drive. there IS another power source plug in there, though. as if the computer is ready for another device.
how can i add another drive with this arrangement? someone said something about a switcher, if i remember right. also, maybe i just overlooked the additional IDE port. it might be in a different location?
Feb 27, 2004 12:32 am forty, what's your CD-ROM plugged into? follow the 40-pin ribbon back from the CD drive to the main board. unless you have a SCSI controller. :OP
they are usually right next to one another. i've never seen a mother board with only one IDE. but then again i havn't seen many motherboards.
as for expansion, you can up to four devices in there (not counting the floppy, it gets it's own 30-something pin ribbon). If you need to expand beyond that you'll need a special controller card. They don't cost much.
Feb 27, 2004 02:46 am thanks mang. i think youre probably right. i was just looking right next to the main IDE port, where the drive cable came out from the motherboard. but i do remember there was an unused power cable near the cd-r drive, and i'm betting there was another ribbon there too. will check soon, but i bet youre right. thanks!
Feb 27, 2004 06:43 pm I'll bet he was too ;)
btw: dvd writers can do 4.2Gb, just so you know.
Feb 27, 2004 10:34 pm the tech support guy at the company i bought my video transfer device from said that, at present, dvd drives could only hold about 90 minutes of 'high-quality' video (in the consumer price range, anyway.) i said 'what about hollywood movies, mang? where they squeeze several hours on there?' and he said 'thats a different standard. you can buy those drives but they're in the thousands of dollars right now.'
if i knew what to do, i'd get a dvd drive. i want to keep the grade at best-quality. my movies max out at a bit over 2 hours. and some of the concert footage i have may go a bit higher than 3.
Mar 03, 2004 02:57 pm I'd like to try those new 10000 rpm hard drives, see if it does make a difference! Right now I have two WD 80 Gb drives, A maxtor 80 Gig and a quantum fireball 30 gig.Never had a problem with any of them but the maxtor 80 gig is really loud when reading and writing, I think it nay go soon!
Hahaha I just extended this thread some more!
Mar 03, 2004 04:11 pm 4 hard drives?!
Are you running them in a RAID configuration?
Mar 03, 2004 04:27 pm I should have explained, 2 western digitals in one computer and the maxtor and QF in the other comp. I've never tried a raid config before but my new comp has it built in as a feature if I want to try it later on when I'm brave!!
Mar 05, 2004 07:29 pm jues, I run 4 at a time in my big tower. And yes it is loud when they are all spining at once. But three are in hot swap bays so the fans in those also add noise. But if one requires massive storage that is the solution sometimes. the new box will probly get a pair of SATA drives and the old box will be turned into a server for the network and moved out of this room or into the closet.
|
Related Forum Topics: |
If you would like to participate in the forum discussions, feel free to register for your free membership.