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Hard Drive upgrade

J

JOSHSKORN

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2007
Messages
262
I need help on picking a new hard drive. I currently have a 500GB Hitachi HDD that has lasted me 3 1/2 years and is still going strong. I'm running out of room. The meter has turned red.

My Mobo is a P5N-E, supports SATA II.

I don't know what my budget is. I'd like to spend as little as possible. I've seen drives on Newegg for roughly $60-$70 for 1 TB and 1.5 TB capacities, and I've also seen a WD Black for almost $90 which received a customer choice award.

I'm a gamer. Specifically CoD, Battlefield, soon to be Crysis 2 and then Duke Nukem Forever. I've got a lot of games installed and I do play all of them. I also had to use a 200 GB external drive to store my data because I ran out of room. Anyway, I'm THINKING of something that runs 7200 RPM. That's the best you can get with SATA II and a single drive setup, right? Also looking for at least 1 TB of storage. If it's not to much more costly, I'll get something higher, as I mentioned that I saw not much price difference between 1 TB and 1.5 TB.

What I'm looking for is anyone with personal experience with a hard drive of that size and speed, what the performance is and if they're satisfied with it. I'm not ready to invest in a SSD yet. Maybe in a couple of years when the price goes down. It doesn't have to be Seagate, it can be anything. Thanks.
 
ratedm said:
If you're willing to raid them and really benefit for gaming, I would go with a pair of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795
Click to expand...
I don't want RAID actually. I'm not familiar with it and I don't really want to learn at the moment. Plus, this drive is SATA III. My MOBO is SATA II.

ratedm said:
If not, I know it's not at least 1TB but maybe consider this at only $55:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319

I've used both of those drives now in builds and they are solid performers for a mechanical drive. I've also had good experience in the past with RMA'ing WD Blue drives. Never had a black fail.
Click to expand...
I looked at this drive too. Do you game? How would you rate the performance? Good enough? Again, I'm not going for uber performance like what you'd get out of SSD, as long as it works.
 
Go with this drive and you'll be set:
$65 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
As Danny & Skillz both linked get the Samsung F3 1tb drive. Great drives & better bang for buck then pretty much anything else on the market at the moment.
 
JOSHSKORN said:
I don't want RAID actually. I'm not familiar with it and I don't really want to learn at the moment. Plus, this drive is SATA III. My MOBO is SATA II.


I looked at this drive too. Do you game? How would you rate the performance? Good enough? Again, I'm not going for uber performance like what you'd get out of SSD, as long as it works.
Click to expand...

As said in here, the sata III doesn't mean much for a mechanical drive and I would overlook it as a sole factor. I just know it's a good drive and recommended it. The other one is also good and yes I did use it solely for gaming. Basically between these and the Samsung, I would just use a personal judgment and get whichever one you want. You can't go wrong either way.
 
The Samsung F3 is a better bang-per-buck drive than the two drives that ratedm referenced earlier. The added storage capacity for only $5 to $10 more (depending on the drive) can only help.
 
Haven't made a purchase yet, but I found a Hitachi 2 TB Open Box internal hard drive for not much more than a 1 TB. I don't know that I would NEED that much storage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298R

Would there be any reason not to buy an Open Box hard drive? The new version of this hard drive is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298

I've always used Hitachi with no problems in the last 3 1/2 years which is why I'm questioning this purchase. Otherwise, I'm thinking I'll go with the Samsung F3 mentioned earlier in the thread.
 
JOSHSKORN said:
Haven't made a purchase yet, but I found a Hitachi 2 TB Open Box internal hard drive for not much more than a 1 TB. I don't know that I would NEED that much storage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298R

Would there be any reason not to buy an Open Box hard drive? The new version of this hard drive is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145298
Click to expand...

Big reason is that you don't know what the previous user did to that hard drive. At least with brand new you have a reasonable chance that the drive hasn't been adversely affected by prior use.
 
I would steer away from Open Boxes, especially on something as delicate as a mechanical hard drive. You wont go wrong with that Samsung F3. I have two of them in RAID 0.
 
I Got 3x Open box 2tb Samsung's off newegg earlier this month. Its a risk, but I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. If you get a bad drive then RMA with the manufacturer since they all base the warranty period off the date of manufacture.

Of note as well.. My Open box drives I ordered on 03/11/11 & the date of manufacture was 02/28/11 according to samsung. & none of them showed any sign of being anything but perfect. Given the time from manufacture to me ordering I seriously doubt that they had been shipped from Samsung to newegg, then newegg to someone else & then back to newegg before that. Seems like they may have been labeled as open box for some other reason.
 
I went ahead and purchased the Samsung F3 1TB this morning off Newegg. Thank you all for your assistance.

One question I have. I've heard WD and Seagate offer Acronis to transfer your data (never used it before). What will I get with Samsung, or what will I have to find online?
 
That samsung is oem and won't come with software. That said your best very is a fresh install of os and manually transfer what you need afterwards if your not keeping your old drive as well
Posted via Mobile Device
 
bastage said:
That samsung is oem and won't come with software. That said your best very is a fresh install of os and manually transfer what you need afterwards if your not keeping your old drive as well
Posted via Mobile Device
Click to expand...

That's what i would do too. Then just wipe your old drive when you are done and use it for backup stuff. I'm not sure if those programs actually transfer the OS over anyways like ghosting does? I've used 2 (neither listed) and they just transfer registry settings and user profile settings and data for the most part.
 
Acronis True Image can transfer an "image" of your old drive over to your new one, just like Symantec/Norton Ghost. In fact, True Image is generally preferred over Ghost.
 
tiraides said:
Acronis True Image can transfer an "image" of your old drive over to your new one, just like Symantec/Norton Ghost. In fact, True Image is generally preferred over Ghost.
Click to expand...

If you do a lot of cloning between different brands of disks, True Image 2011 is worth the $50 price.
 
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