Cheap Hard Drive

[Peerzy]

Im looking for an extreamly cheap large hard drive. Im looking at 160gb's. 7200RPM and hopefully 8mb cache. These are what iv found so far;

Western Digital 160GB ATA100 7200rpm 2mb - OEM
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=4910698985&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=47653
£44.63

Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 160Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=4910698985&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=43153
£45.58

Its like £2 difference between a 2mb cache and 8mb cache. Thing is iv never had any hard drive fail on me (My 2 hdd's that fucked up was my fault really) so i know nothing about different brands and everyone has had there own experience with different brands. Thing is money is the most important thing here. Mainly becuase i know everyone is going to say a different brand is there favourite and its each to his own experience really. Basically what hdd to you reccemend that is CHEAP, 7200rpm, 8mb cache and 160gb +, i mean if you know a 250Gb thats £20 more thats great.

Thanks for teh helpage, also what do you think about the two drives iv mentioned?

[Virtualbody1234]

That Maxtor looks like a good choice.

[tesco]

The maxtor would be faster.
Not that I like that brand though. ;)

[vivitron 15]

Its like £2 difference...

just wanted to point out its like 95p difference :P

[Samurai]

Yea I would have gone with the Western Digital 8MB. Surely it's not that more expensive is it? From my experience you tend to get better results with WD than Maxtor. I'm using 2 HDD's with my current PC, one of each in fact and while the WD is pretty quiet, the Maxtor does make a little noise. Hardly noticeable, but still.

Sites to check out...

aria.co.uk (i shop there regularly. highly recommended)
ebuyer.co.uk (which you know)
simply.co.uk (have some good offers on now and again)
microdirect.co.uk (awesome offers on regularly)

have you looked at any 200gb models?

[Peerzy]

Okay yeah, i mean £1 difference for an 8mb cache is work it so im gonna go for the Maxtor.

EDIT: Just saw Samuria's reply.

I had a quick look at 200gb and was a bit more expensive, im a student who's far worse than broke right now hench the cheap hdd. I lived on a 160gb hdd for a while and found it just right maybe even a bit small then i get an extra 250gb and ended up downloaded 300gb worth of dvdr''s only for me to fook up the hdd and loose them all.

I don't give 2 shytes about noise either, i live right new to a main road, my pc is on 24/7 is less than 1 meter away from me with its side open a couple of loud fans (that have blue leds) iv learned to live with it.

I'll check those other sites now. I think the WD 8mb was about £10 more expensive.

[Peerzy]

Just checked the website and Ebuyer, Microdirect and Aria al do that Maxtor drive, they were all within £1 of each other but shipping was all the divided them apart. Aria was the most expensive with like £7 shipping, then Ebuyer with £5 shipping (+VAt made it more expensive) and the best price was MicroDirect which is going to cost me £58.15.

Thanks for the websites i'll make my order in a few days (need to get teh money and leave time for people to say how shit Maxtor is and how i should buy.....

Also Microdirect is retial and comes with 3 year warrenty, Ebuyer is OEM, and with my luck i'll be needing the warrenty.

[bigdawgfoxx]

I dont buy anything but Seagate....but the maxtor looks best from those 2.

[SingaBoiy]

160's you can get for $80 give or take $5. 200's for $100 give or take $7-8.

Newegg.com and dumpinggoods.com

[Virtualbody1234]

I personally buy Seagate for my own setups I have bought quite a few Maxtor drives for customers on tight budgets. I haven't had any comebacks from the Maxtors. They are fast relatively quiet. Quieter than the last WD I bought but not as quiet as the Seagates.

[Spicker]

whOA!!!

didnt u guys hear about teh dying Maxtor syndrome?
people with 80gb+ maxtors have been having problems like hdds just suddenly dying....my 80gb maxtor got it....

i now have a 200gb WD

also i belive the 160gb WD has a 3yr warranty...all 120+gb hdd from WD have 3yr warranty even if they are OEM.

also if ur gamer and use ur harddrive for simple storage u dont need 8mb cache u wont see much diff....

get the WD if i were u...

[Snee]

If you want to buy maxtor, go for one with a 16 mb cache.

Otherwise you should go for WD or hitachi/IBM, I think.

[SingaBoiy]

If you want to buy maxtor, go for one with a 16 mb cache.

Otherwise you should go for WD or hitachi/IBM, I think.
Thats SATA and an expensive drive ;)

[Peerzy]

16mb cache? Teh linkage? I would like 8mb cache at least as my hdd is always dwonloading, playing games and extracting rar files.

$80 for a 160gb comes out at half the price that they are in the UK. If thats so i might ask someone to order me one from the UK (after iv paypaled them the money) and ship it to me.

[SingaBoiy]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-140-153&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-358&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-140-154&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-359&depa=1


$80 for a 160gb comes out at half the price that they are in the UK. If thats so i might ask someone to order me one from the UK
Wouldnt you want someone to get you one from elsewhere if its half the price? :blink:

[Peerzy]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-140-153&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-358&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-140-154&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-359&depa=1


I havnt seen any of those for sale on UK sites yet though + are a bit more pricey.

[vivitron 15]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MAX-P16300

thats a mighty fine disk for like £125 ($250us)

300GB and 16MB cache...I know its more than you wanted to pay, but just thought id point it out.

Besides, their other drives may be reasonably priced...havent looked just yet :)

[Peerzy]

IDE DiamondMax Plus9 PATA 160Gb 8Mb Cache Hard Disk Drive
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MAX-P8160

What the fuck is PATA :huh:

[SingaBoiy]

Parallel ATA ;) Thats all I know about it :lol:

[Snee]

Thats SATA and an expensive drive ;)
Nuhu, there are ide diamondmaxes with 16mb caches too, no bigger than 300 gigs tho'.

And I've seen some that weren't very expensive at all, considering.

[vivitron 15]

like the one i linked to :P

[lynx]

16mb cache? Teh linkage? I would like 8mb cache at least as my hdd is always dwonloading, playing games and extracting rar files.

$80 for a 160gb comes out at half the price that they are in the UK. If thats so i might ask someone to order me one from the UK (after iv paypaled them the money) and ship it to me.Remember you've got to add VAT to Ebuyer prices, so you are looking at over £50 for the ones you mentioned in your first post.

That said, if you get something shipped from the US you will almost certainly have to pay VAT on that too, so your $80 would go up to about $94 (equivalent). Add Paypal charges and shipping costs and you would probably find that method more expensive.

Have a look at ccl (http://www.cclonline.com/product-categories.asp?category_id=111) for 300GB Maxtor drives, £ 122.66 inc VAT for P-ATA, £ 125.89 inc VAT for SATA.

Edit: @Vivitron_15: sorry, I didn't notice your link.

[Snee]

IDE drives at komplett (http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/kl.asp?bn=10089)

I've bought a lot of stuff from their swedish site, worked well for me. Amazingly enough I think we get much better deals on the same drives, or we did when I checked last anyway.

EDit: yep, I think we still do.

[zeustke165]

From my own personal experience I stay away from maxtor drives, I've had three HD fail on me and all three were Maxtors, one was a 10 gig, 13 gig, and 60 gig, the 60 gig died within a few months, other manufacuters I've had, IBM, Segate and Western Digital, never had any of those manufacturers fail, I have a couple of segate 2.5 gigs that work just fine to this day, and right now I have 4 segates ({2} 40gigs, {1} 120 gig, {1} 400 gig) and one WD ({1} 120 gig) so I tend to lean towards segate, hey go with what you know works...