Pretty sure my HDD is on its way out...

[Kshitiz_Indian]

Yeah at the current state SSD's are no match to HDD's in terms of pricing. I'd say go for any 7200RPM drives, I've heard the WD Cavier is a good line to choose from. Anything faster RPM than that and it can get a bit noisy.

You could use Windows 7 x64 RC till that while though, its far from perfect but its as good as Vista atleast, if not more, as the stability point comes. It would work till March 2010 as well, for free.

Because I still strongly suggest getting 4 GB of RAM. Its well worth it, what with RAM being so dirt cheap.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Yeah at the current state SSD's are no match to HDD's in terms of pricing. I'd say go for any 7200RPM drives, I've heard the WD Cavier is a good line to choose from. Anything faster RPM than that and it can get a bit noisy.

You could use Windows 7 x64 RC till that while though, its far from perfect but its as good as Vista atleast, if not more, as the stability point comes. It would work till March 2010 as well, for free.

Because I still strongly suggest getting 4 GB of RAM. Its well worth it, what with RAM being so dirt cheap.

How does the Win 7 beta perform with games?

 

[Kshitiz_Indian]

Never tried gaming with the Win 7 BETA, but the RC has been rock solid. All games, I repeat ALL of em have worked for me ever since.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Never tried gaming with the Win 7 BETA, but the RC has been rock solid. All games, I repeat ALL of em have worked for me ever since.

This is probably a dumb question, but what's the RC?

 

[Kev]

Release Candidate

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Can you guys make any suggestions about a 500gb HDD? Budget's around ?50.
500Gb should be enough for ages, shouldn't it, I mean we're not going to start getting 30 or 40gb + games anytime soon, are we?

And sorry if I've asked this before, but are there any makes of HDD you'd all avoid like the plague? Or swine flu, at least?

Edit: How about this?

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials...+F1+SATA2+7200RPM+32MB+cache+?productId=30998

That looks almost too good to be true: 1TB for ?57. Do I really need that much space? Maybe the drive would pack up before I get anywhere near filling it. I don't have movies or anything on my PC, only games and music. Maybe I could get a 500gb one for less then?

How about this one:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...da+7200.12+SATA+2+Hard+Drive+?productId=36047

16mb cache instead of 32mb. How important is a HDD's cache?

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I read somewhere that Maxtor come with a 3yr warranty, as opposed to the standard 1yr? Maybe that would be a good one to go for then.

MasterBlaster76 added 4 Minutes and 54 Seconds later...

According to this, Seagate and Maxtor are one and the same:

Seagate Extends Maxtor Retail Hard Drives Warranty - 3-years of limited warranty for retail Maxtors - Softpedia

Is that accurate?

 

[Kev]

I've only ever bought bare bone drives, never seen the point of a retail package for a hard drive. Not that fussed by a 3 year warranty either. Chances are after 3 years you'll be replacing it anyway.

500gig is probably sufficient for you. I have an older 250gig and a 500gig in my system and neither are anywhere near full.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I tried playing the Ashes 2009 demo just now while running a scan and it lagged like a bastard! Would getting a new HDD with 32mb cache help with that? It's going to take forever to scan/defrag this S.o.B, so if I could play something while it's doing it, that'd be good.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

HDD being done tomorrow. It's a 500gb Maxtor 32mb Cache. Will the 32mb cache help with stuttering when playing while scanning?

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Got the new HDD, now dual booting with Win 7/XP. The thing is, XP is installed on the old drive, yet even when loading XP or anything else on the old drive, I can hardly hear it being accessed: I can only hear the ordinary sound from the new one, with the 'rattle' of the old one only being heard very briefly (less than a second, in most cases). Why's that?