Advice on hard drives.

[LFCJohnSmith]

I am buying a hard drive to put in my pc to use to back files and the like up to. I have looked on shopzilla and have found these two hard drives at these prices:

Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B - Hard drive - 160 GB - internal - 3.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 8 MB

Dell : Hitachi Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B - Hard drive - 160 GB - internal - 3.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 8 MB : System Drives : Home & Home Office

at £34.40

And

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 - Hard drive - 80 GB - internal - 3.5" - ATA-100 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 2 MB

Dell : Seagate Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 - Hard drive - 80 GB - internal - 3.5" - ATA-100 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 2 MB : System Drives : Home & Home Office

at

£32.95.

As you can see the top one has twice as much memory and only costs about £1.35 more than the bottom one, so is it a smart investment or is it a load of crap? Could you tell me what the pro's and cons are of the two drives and what one I should go for.

 

[kmote]

The seagate has 2MB memory, 80GB storage and is an ATA drive. The hitachi has 4x the memory, 2x the storage and is SATA.
The first thing you need to do is check which interface(s) your computer has. SATA should be used in preference to ATA.

 

[LFCJohnSmith]

When I run sandra it says that type is ATA and interface is SATA.

I have looked again at shopzilla and I can see hard drives that are 320GB which are only £30, will they be any good or would they rubbish and a waste of sapce?

EDIT: What is the memory used for in hard drives, and why is it important?

 

[carnageX]

Double check by physically looking at the drive in your computer.

What brand are the 320GB drives?

The cache is important because that is where files are temporarily stored during read/write. The larger the cache, the better the drive can perform (32mb caches are currently the largest).

 

[LFCJohnSmith]

It has a little red cable that goes to the hdd from the mobo. It is not a big thick IDE cable just a little slim one, is that sata?

What are the advatnages and disadvantages of the two.

The drive is:

Seagate DiamondMax 22 320GB Hard Disk Drive 7200rpm SATA 16MB (Internal) (STM3320614AS

 

[carnageX]

Yes it is a SATA drive.

SeaGate is a good brand; see if you can get a 7200.11 series drive, though (32mb cache). Western Digital is also a good brand.

 

[LFCJohnSmith]

Will I have to buy a SATA cable or will it come with one?

 

[carnageX]

If it is a retail drive: will most likely come with one. OEM drive...depends on the place that ships it. Usually they do not include one, however, so it would be a good idea to order one just in case, unless you can get one for cheaper at a local shop.

 

[LFCJohnSmith]

I can only find Seagate drives that have 32mb cache that are about 500GB and they cost more so I dont really want to spend that much, it isn't going to be a major problem is it?

Also I am buying the drive of amazon so does that mean that I had better buy a lead from somewhere as it wont come with one?

 

[Muffin Man]

how much does the one on amazon cost?

this is a cheap 32mb cache one

500GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 32MB ST3500320AS 7200RPM - Aria Technology

and cable if it dosen't come with one

Serial ATA Data Cable - Aria Technology