The interesting thing about hard drives this week is that the 120GB drives on both IDE and SATA channels cost about the same.  The mere $10 premium between Seagate’s 120GB drive seem worth it to go with the SATA version, but understandably not everyone has compatible motherboards.  As you will see from our charts, the 8MB buffer costs about 10% more over 2MB cache drives, but it certainly is not a necessity.  In fact, if you plan on using your drive for simple storage (like an MP3 server), you really do not even need to invest the extra money in neither 7200RPM nor 8MB cache. 

We recommend grabbing a high performance 80GB drive for a new system drive (to hold the OS, games, etc) and then purchasing a slower, larger drive for storage.  Maxtor’s incredibly massive 300GB hard drive debuted very recently with only 5400RPM and 2MB buffer.  Although it is slow, it will run cooler and perhaps outlast two 160GB drives (while costing the same). 

SATA Drives Memory DDR
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  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 1, 2003 - link

    i have always like IBM hard drives now that i am ready to got to Serial ATA 80GB or higher i would like to request information on which Serial ATA is the best. Based on price, warranty, heat build up, speed, and anything else i left out. Thank you very much and keep up the great work. Your web site is one of the best i have found.
  • KristopherKubicki - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Its all fixed now. We have had a few errors while adding the "Change" column into the guides. It basically just displays the price delta over 7 days time. We are all done with any coding so it should all be ok.

    Kristopher
  • Anonymous User - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    THIS IS SOOOO COOL!

    EVERYTHING IS FREE. I better post in hot deals really fast.

    I don't know what to get first, the free 300 GB drive, or all the free ram I could hope for.

    But no, really, there are some serious problems with the price engine.
  • KristopherKubicki - Friday, September 5, 2003 - link

    OK much better. Pretty soon the guides will start displaying week changing price as well ;) Should be neat.

    Thanks for the partience.

    Kristopher
  • Dilsnik - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Still can't see any charts.
    8:30 PM Thursday Sept 4 2003
  • KristopherKubicki - Thursday, September 4, 2003 - link

    Ah, its a problem on our side. Im fixing it. ;) We are trying to make it display weekly price changes as well. Give me an hour or so ;)

    Kristopher
  • BurninUp - Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - link

    Why can't I see any charts? Darn XP and java I bet. Where can I get a Java plug in for stinkin XP pro?
  • KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - link

    fixed.
  • Anonymous User - Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - link

    The "check prices" link for the Raptor drive links to the wrong drive.
  • KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - link

    My apologies. My data was based on the Raptor preview rather than the actual review. I have updated the data. Thanks for helping me out SUOrangeman and Jeff.

    SCSI drives should be added later this week.

    Cheers,

    Kristopher

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