New HD purchase

[bassvax]

OK gang I'm looking for fresh opinions/experiences with hard drive brands. Let's say I know that ultimatley I would be best to buy a new mobo and go from there, but I would like to stick with the current setup for now. Current specs:
Amptron (PC Chips) PII-3741LMRT mobo www.amptron.com (http://www.amptron.com)
128MB RAM
500MHz Celeron
WD 5400 10GB HD (IDE 1 primary)
Quantum 2.5GB HD (IDE 1 secondary)
Sony CRX 140E CDRW 8x4x32 (IDE 2 primary)
50x CD-ROM (IDE 2 secondary)
Voodoo 4-4500 32MB PCI
Integrated Sound
HP 932C Inkjet
2 Absolutley useless USB ports Sis 7001 chipset (Until I Install Win 98 SE on the new HD and get the patch)
17" Samsung Syncmaster 753 DF Monitor

According to the mobo site:
Onboard IDE Channels
Primary and Secondary PCI IDE channels
Support for PIO (programmable Input Output) modes
Support for BUS mastering and UltraDMA 33/66 modes

So my quest is for a 30-45GB HD to make my primary which I will then switch from Win 98 to 98SE. I do a bit of audio CD burning and would like to get some benefit from a 7200rpm upgrade but keeping the 10GB 5400 as secondary (I realize this may not be of any benefit having the slower HD on the same IDE). There is no room for a another controller card on this mobo so I am stuck with the current IDE channels. Looking for suggestions for a purchase and maybe config suggestions as well. Thanks http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif


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Jerry

[Rick]

For what it's worth. Here's my 2 cents.

I'd go with the 30 gig ata100 drive from Ibm.
Partition it into 2 or 3 drives.
One the primary dos ( C http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif at 20 Gig
Then divide the extended partition into 2 logical drives.
One at 80% to serve as a data drive.
Then have the other 20% as a temp , cache , and other junk drive.
Loose the old 10 gig all together.

To get the Udma 66 from the M/B you'll need to install the 80 wire ribbon cable on the primary ide controller and connect it to the ata 100 drive.
The old drive will not benefit from that configuration

By Setting up a partition as temp, cache drive you can reduce the amount of Fragmentation on your primary and data drives.
Setting the environment statement to use that drive for all temp files and cache
Including the windows virtual memory and all browser's to cache on that drive.


Check your Bios for direct support of the 30 Gig.
It should support it. Doing away with the need for device drivers

[Paleo Pete]

I'd keep the 10GB drive and the performance difference should be negligible. I've had very good results from my old Maxtor, had it 4 years in this machine, and no problems, even after the power quitting while the computer was running at least 30 times. (Electric company here won't even think about fixing or replacing the lines, and we lose power 3-6 times a month on average.) Once even got hit by lightning and lost a modem and printer port, the Maxtor keeps chugging away. Seagate and Western Digital also have very good reputations, I have older 85-340MB drives by both still sitting here working perfect in 386-486 machines, and two in my PB P-60.

Partitioning...I'd try to stay with partitions no larger than 6-8GB, that makes more partitions, but gives you at least one large enough for backup purposes, and lets defrag run in less than 2 days...lol The 30-45GB for primary sounds good.

If you plan to junk the 2.5 let me know where the dumpster is. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif


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My hairdresser charges me a finder's fee!!

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[Rick]

Paleo Pete

We have very different views on hard drive I see.
And on at least one program. ( defrag )

I've always been a firm believer in hardware as the best enhancement for all system.
I've also gone to lengths to avoid using Defrag on all my systems.

I find that by setting up a system with a temp partition for all the program files that cause fragmentation I don't need to run it. Or the taskmonitor program for defrag. (Taskmon.exe)
Freeing up another 2.5 meg of ram for my programs.

On one system I installed all the software and ran each in turn.
In the order they will be used each day.
After setting the environment to put all temp, swap , and virtual memory files on the temp partition that is.

Then I ran defrag once and allowed it to make the changes according to the files it created.
I removed taskmonitor from the startup and never ran it again.

On my personal system that I am using at this moment.
I have done the same except I removed taskmonitor after a fresh install of win98 se.
Installing all my software and then using the Speed-disk program from Norton's.
The only difference between the two is the boot speed of my system.
Taskmonitor wasn't allowed to move windows to the first position on the disk so it boots a little slower (cold boot) Other than that few second both system at equal in performance now.

Now if I could just find a way to force the print spooler to use the temp drive http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif

Also. It's obvious that we both use the cascade upgrade systems on our old systems.
The kids still love when I upgrade. One got the old 15 gig the other got the 8.5
Both are waiting for me to get rid of this Q95 monitor(only 2 months old ) and already on it's way to the upgrade pile http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/frown.gif
Sorry I can't remember what dumpster the 2.5 and 4.3 gig ended up in. It's been emptied several times since then anyways

[bassvax]

Hey Gang thanks for the suggestions/advice. I had a wonderful weekend with the new IBM Deskstar 75 GXP 46.1GB 7200RM Ultra ATA 100 HD that I was overcharged for in wholesale purchase. Anyways...the install f/disk and formatting went flawlessly drives c: thru g:. As did the install of Win 98SE. That install of Second Edition actually cured my sorry USB chipset problems from previous and so I ended up installing my HP Deskjet 932C with USB this time. I have a 10GB Western Digital 5400RPM (bought new in June 2000) for sale if anyone is interested. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif Pete check your mail...
On another note...I copied my favorites folder to a cdrw before starting and I was able to add them into their appropriate folder after installing and downloading all of my Microsoft updates etc. Keep in mind that I was using the same CDRW drive and software as before thus it was OK to use a cdrw disc. Thanks again...

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Jerry

[Paleo Pete]

Glad to know you found out about the Favorites folder trick. That can be a nuisance when you reinstall, my first couple of times I had to search out links for weeks...now I just copy the folder to a floppy and I now have links on this machine that are 3 years old, still there after 3 installs.

Emails are a different story, only way I've come up with is to save them as text files and put them into a folder on the hard drive for later reference. Same for the address book.

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If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

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