Topic: Know of any large capacity HD's for cheap (Read 4325 times)

JaredH · « **on:** October 07, 2002, 01:37:11 pm »

I finally broke down and tested out the APE encoding and Im really impressed by the quality and would like to start the process of re-ripping my library into APE files. Only problem is I currently only have 60gb worth of space to store my music files. As of right now i have roughly 4000 MP3's on that drive. I realize I would need a lot of space. But everyone starts somewhere. Anyway, does anyone know where I can get some high capacity HD's for considerable prices?

Matt · « **Reply #1 on:** October 07, 2002, 01:50:07 pm »

Welcome aboard

zevele10 · « **Reply #2 on:** October 07, 2002, 01:56:35 pm »

You may have only one plug for another drive.In this case the bigger you can put is a 100.GB
If you are in US,you can get it a very nice price.Beside this,100GB IS NOT that hudge if you speak about APE...

JaredH · « **Reply #3 on:** October 07, 2002, 01:57:10 pm »

Thats right, APE is your baby isnt it, Matt? Well hats off to ya man, great job. Now all we need is portable support for APE files.

JaredH · « **Reply #4 on:** October 07, 2002, 02:02:31 pm »

If thats the case, i can buy a few 100gb internals and build external setups for them and daisychain them together and hook them up. May lose a little bit of speed but it would be an option. Im dont have the money to get into a small server system. I have to use a little bit of the redneck in me and rig up something slightly less advanced. But isnt that the fun of computers, building your own personal set-ups.

zevele10 · « **Reply #5 on:** October 07, 2002, 02:16:49 pm »

I have a tower with a 30 and 40 on the first card[?].
I have a ATA 30 or 300with a 120 and a 160.I still can plug 3 other drives.All of it was not very expensive.I mean the box and the ATA

JaredH · « **Reply #6 on:** October 07, 2002, 02:22:30 pm »

Definately something worth looking into. this APE encoding has really got me intrigued.

JorgeGVB · « **Reply #7 on:** October 07, 2002, 03:16:38 pm »

Try www.GoogleGear.com for good deals. Also you might looked for OEM versions and even refurbs for better prices. Western Digital makes some excellent IDE hard drives with 8mb of cache on board.

Ken Brookings · « **Reply #8 on:** October 07, 2002, 03:49:57 pm »

I bought a 120Gig Buslink external USB hard drive for cheap, about 70 bucks I think, on Ebay. Works fine, should hold 4000 files at 15mb each or so with no problem. Takes a while to transfer that much but I only use it for archiving so I just save at night.

nila · « **Reply #9 on:** October 07, 2002, 04:22:30 pm »

I recommend the IBM Deskstar 120GXP - I think it goes up to around 120Gigs and it's pretty cheap for that range of drives.

It got reviewed by: www.pcpro.co.uk and is rated as the best EIDE hard drive right now.
That's pretty good considering it's also one of the cheapest - I have two 80 gig ones setup in a Raid 1 array and they're working great for me.

Moonshine · « **Reply #10 on:** October 07, 2002, 07:16:41 pm »

I think you'll find that the 120GB models are the current sweet spot for large drives. Personally I would go with IBM or Maxtor for large IDE drives. I've seen a lot of Western Digital drives fry, so I tend to stay away from them. www.pricewatch.com is a good spot to start if your looking for dirt cheap vendors.

Keep in mind that Maxtor (and I'm sure others) are getting ready to ship a whole new generation of large capacity drives. Maxtor will start shipping its 320GB model (in quantity) in another month or so. List price is 399$, but discounts will follow.

I'm in a similar position to you (ready to re-rip everything to ape). I'm just ripping what I can for now and waiting for the 320's to hit the market for a bit. Then a monster raid server will be born.

zak326 · « **Reply #11 on:** October 07, 2002, 08:25:56 pm »

last I heard places like Comp USA Fry's and lots of others have started really cutting prices on hard drives. and manuf are also giving ebaates (like Office Depot even).

Out here in LA, western Digital HD 80 g and 120g were each going for under $100 after rebates. the 40's and 60's were even less. It seemds the new rule of thumb is $1 per gig. Sometimes you can pyyramid the rebates and discounts and I know that Circuit City on a fluke was selling 80g hard drives for about $40 because the bocx was labeled wrong.

Also you might look online at a site called New Egg. I just got a Geforce4 card from them about $150 less than they were selling out jhere, and the service was quick and as promised. At first I didn't buy from them because they don't like to talk to their custiomers, but in the end there was no need. What a surprise!

Kurt Young · « **Reply #12 on:** October 07, 2002, 09:00:49 pm »

Dunno if you've seen it yet, but www.pricewatch.com is a pretty good resource for finding prices online. They're listing 180GB's for $300, 160GB's for $260, 120GB's for $130, and 100GB's for $120.

JorgeGVB · « **Reply #13 on:** October 08, 2002, 05:10:10 am »

If you are looking for rebates and discounts on any computer components (and more), check out http://www.techbargains.com

Markeau · « **Reply #14 on:** October 08, 2002, 10:53:18 am »

Somebody somewhere mentioned Best Buy having WD 120GB drives for less than $100 after rebates.

DeathRider · « **Reply #15 on:** October 08, 2002, 04:03:14 pm »

I have a question that is off topic but on the APE issue,
Matt, Since you are a programer type maybe you might be able to answer this question. Say I start going over to APE instead of MP3 is it possible to flash the MP3 player in my truck as one would a chipset in a computer, Meaning that would it be possible to add the needed info to the MP3 decoder chip in the player to recognize APE. Hope I didnt confuse anyone with this question.

JaredH · « **Reply #16 on:** October 08, 2002, 06:01:08 pm »

Thank you all for all the wonderful leads on cheap HD's. but after posting this thread i realized that ive got a bigger fish to fry before i start investing in more HD space. Ive got a horrible stuttering problem while playing 3D accelerated games and im running a system with 1024mb PC2100 and a GeForce4 Ti 4600 and i shouldnt be having these problems. Ive been told that the problem may stem from the Williamette P4 that i have. So I may have to invest in a Northwood with 512k cache sometime soon to cure that problem. Im hoping I find that its something less expensive. Wish me luck. Computers are going to be the death of me, as well as my wallet.

Scronch · « **Reply #17 on:** October 08, 2002, 08:53:57 pm »

http://www.stuttersfa.org/
http://www.stuttering.org/
http://wv.essortment.com/helpforstutter_nom.htm

ba dump bump

But seriously, folks, what's the absolute cheapest >=100GB external firewire hard drive? Or maybe even a super deal on a 60GB or 80GB external firewire drive.

Scronch

dnoyeb · « **Reply #18 on:** October 09, 2002, 04:30:16 am »

www.ebay.com

I got my 60GB for ~$40 bucks. Its an udma66 I believe, but for MP3 files this is more than acceptable. I think 60GB was the biggest consumer maxtor had at udma66. Perhaps you will end up getting an ATA100 interface or whatever its called, but try not to waste money getting an ATA133. put that extra doe into making the drive bigger. Also consider RAID since 4000 files represents a lot of man hours...

p.s. i installed my maxtor in compatibility mode because it was too big for my old Asus TX-97x. I didnt know till I had formatted and started using it that this made it 1/2 its size

xen-uno · « **Reply #19 on:** October 09, 2002, 09:38:59 am »

Death,

>>is it possible to flash the MP3 player in my truck as one would a chipset in a computer, Meaning that would it be possible to add the needed info to the MP3 decoder chip in the player to recognize APE.

Not likely - the decoders for portable are written in assembler or some some other real low level language for speed/storage reasons. The only people who could really do it are the MFR's themselves, and thats what firmware updates are. Some portables use mp3 specific chips (the decoder hardcoded in the chip). An example of this is the LAN device SLiMP3, where other formats are transcoded into mp3 on the fly.

Jared - Have you tried changing playback to DirectSound? It fixed all my problems.

Xenno

Galley · « **Reply #20 on:** October 09, 2002, 07:38:02 pm »

I got the Western Digital 120GB Special Edition drive for $129 after rebate.

I have only used 32GB so far.

RemyJ · « **Reply #21 on:** October 09, 2002, 07:48:01 pm »

Coincidentally, I got my $100 rebate checks on those drives today. Great deal, great drives.

JaredH · « **Reply #22 on:** October 09, 2002, 10:30:44 pm »

After looking around, once i get my video problem figured out and buy a P4 2.2 chip with 512k(should keep me pacified for about a year) im planning on investing in a Western Digital Caviar 200gb with 8mb cache. Kind of expensive, but will drop a little by the time i get to buying it.

PhatPhreddy · « **Reply #23 on:** October 10, 2002, 11:37:47 am »

Check out the Maxtor 160gig EIDE UDMA-133 Hard Drive which runs at 7200 rpm with an 8 megabyte buffer, with fluid dynamic bearings (I understand it's VERY quiet) for just $116 each.

Here's the data sheet on the drive: http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentat..._data_sheet.pdf

Go to www.zones.com and enter in the search area the item number 01021145.

Scronch · « **Reply #24 on:** October 10, 2002, 03:52:12 pm »

When I click on the item on their page, it goes back to their main page. It's an internal drive, right?

PhatPhreddy · « **Reply #25 on:** October 10, 2002, 10:38:45 pm »

They pulled the page after an hour or two....

Looks like they are not honouring the price either... Pretty poor as some people even phone to confirm the price was correct and to verify that they would be shipped the drives...

Bob Sorel on AVS tried to pick up 8 of them

!!! The price is back to 279 !!!

RemyJ · « **Reply #26 on:** October 11, 2002, 08:25:29 am »

Don't forget that IDE drives over 137gb need controllers and/or BIOS upgrades and drivers to support them. It's not a given.

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Author Topic: Know of any large capacity HD's for cheap (Read 4325 times)

zevele10

zevele10

nila