80GB HD ...................$99 at CompUSA

[Technocrat]

Would anyone pick one of these up for me??? They have a ton in California but I don't have any here in Kansas.

 

[Z80]

I upgraded my Panasonic Showstopper from 30 hours to 80 hours with this drive last night. It ROCKS! I also eliminated the macrovision copy protection by changing it to a ReplayTV identified unit. Head over to the AVSForum for instructions, software and support. I was really surprised on how easy it was to do

By the way, I ran some benchmarks on this drive before patching with the ReplayTV image. It is comparable to a 30GB 7200 RPM drive in the Sisoft Sandra benchmark test. I've got a couple 30GB 7200 RPM drives and this drive is way quieter and produces way less heat. Your really not going to notice any difference in speed.

PS: If anyone has a Showstopper or ReplayTV unit in good working order they'd like to sell, I would be very interested. PM me. Thanks

 

[huesmann]

<< I agree. Anyone else wondering why they bother to check "local" availability when you order online, only to ship the item from Texas? Staples does the same thing. >>


Plus they say this item isn't available from some Tejas locations!

 

[huesmann]

Picked one up last night in Rockville, Md. They had a dozen or more stacked up. Anyone who wants me to pick one up for them, PM me and we'll see if we can work anything out. Price is gonna be $105 ($100 plus 5% Md. sales tax), plus shipping, of course. Sale only runs til Saturday, but they may or may not jack up the price on the remaining stock after that. YMMV.

 

[chrisjor]

I got one here in Cincinnati on Monday.



Question: If you mix various speed drives in your system, are all drives limited by the slowest drive? I will most likely use a 20 - 40 gig 7200 rpm drive as the boot drive (plus programs) and this drive as storage. If a program running off a 7200 rpm drive needs to have data that is stored on a 5400 rpm drive, will that degrade performance? Personally, I do not think any of this matters as we are talking mili seconds, but I am curious. Also, what if you mixed ATA 66 drives and ATA 100 drives on a Mobo or controller card which supports ATA100? Will all data transfer be limited to the ATA 66 drive speeds? I would never mix them, but I am also just curious about this. I will most likely put my 60 gig ATA 66 drive in an external enclosure.

 

[overclock]

<< Picked one up last night in Rockville, Md. They had a dozen or more stacked up. Anyone who wants me to pick one up for them, PM me and we'll see if we can work anything out. Price is gonna be $105 ($100 plus 5% Md. sales tax), plus shipping, of course. Sale only runs til Saturday, but they may or may not jack up the price on the remaining stock after that. YMMV. >>



I got one there last night too! They have a ton left.

One note, I got a Quantum! On the circuit side there is the Quantum chipset. Is this good or bad? I haven't removed the drive from the ESD bag yet. To read the chips use a flashlight to shine thru the plastic bag. What is everybody else getting? Another thing is that the box is the "big box" instead of the "small box". Remember this from a few deals ago how the Quantums were in a big box and the Maxtors were in a small box?

 

[huesmann]

<< I got one there last night too! They have a ton left.

One note, I got a Quantum! On the circuit side there is the Quantum chipset. Is this good or bad? I haven't removed the drive from the ESD bag yet. To read the chips use a flashlight to shine thru the plastic bag. What is everybody else getting? Another thing is that the box is the "big box" instead of the "small box". Remember this from a few deals ago how the Quantums were in a big box and the Maxtors were in a small box? >>



How odd! The one I got was a Maxtor! I got a big box too. Seems strange that they'd have Quantums and Maxtors mixed together. It said on the box something like "Made for CompUSA by Maxtor." Does your box have something similar for Quantum?

 

[overclock]

The box says Maxtor. But you have to check the drive itself. The label on the drive says Maxtor but on the bottom of the drive where the chips are there are at least 2 chips that say Quantum. So it looks like they are "rebadged" Quantum drives.

Check you drive and let me know.

 

[DVDKing]

I think there's a couple ways to tell whether the drive is a Maxtor or a rebadged Quantum. Of course, both are made by Maxtor now and it will say MAXTOR on the box and on the drive itself. There are actually 2 different model numbers for this drive if you go the the Maxtor site. The Quantum drive is a D540X-4K with an actual model number 4K080H4 while the Maxtor list D540X-4D with a model number 4D080H4. I have never seen a Maxtor drive of this size with a 40GB platter, you know the 4D080H4 model.

My hunch is that the Maxtor drive has a serial number which include mostly letters (usually short - about 5 or 6 characters) while the Quantum drive has just numbers (usually very long like 9 or 12 digits). Of course the drives are also different in term of the layout of the chips and the jumper setting. Look on the drive itself to see if you see Quantum on any of the chips.

So has anyone gotten a real MAXTOR drive (the 4D080H4 model?)

 

[RandomCoil]

For the Seattle-ites in the crowd, Montlake Terrace and Bellevue are out (the CompUSA stock system said Bellevue had some on Thursday, but when I arrived they said they were out -- the "in stock" drives were reserved).

Kirkland still has some.

And how 'bout that rain?

RC

 

[aldamon]

My drive is being delivered today, so I'll let you all know if I get a Quantum or a Maxtor from ordering online.

 

[dietrologia]

If you don't mind dealing with OEM and a rebate, Fry's Electronics has a Seagate 80gb 7200rpm drive on sale for $99. Sale is good thru the 26th. Just in case you want other options.

 

[huesmann]

I dunno, my drive shows up in BIOS and Device Manager as Maxtor...don't recall the exact model number but it was something-80-something. Would it show up that way if it were a Quantum? I'm not about to uninstall it just to check if the chips say Quantum or Maxtor.

 

[yogurt]

I got one from the East Hanover, NJ store a few days ago. It IDs as a MAXTOR 4K080H4, so I guess it's a Quantum. Works fine so far.

 

[JesseKnows]

chrisjor - no, one drive does not affect another. 7200 means your data will arrive at a faster pace and with less rotational latency. ATA100 means your data will arrive faster (but probably not meaningfully so).

Each IDE channel accesses only one drive at one time, and the other drive is not active until the first is done. The transaction is set for the active drive, using its characteristics.

 

[Electronics4Life]

My drive just arrived. I ordered online and recieved a quantom.

On a side note, I am going to use this drive in a home lan file server box. If i use fat32 on this drive will it be complatible with my win2k ntfs box? As in will I be able to transfer files from the fat32 box to the ntfs box?

 

[overclock]

Is the Quantum drive loud? I want to install it tonight but only if it is worth it.

 

[RandomCoil]

Electronics4Life:

The NTFS/FAT32 transfers you were talking about won't be a problem. You can even have FAT32 and NTFS drives in the same box and Win2k will read both.

Of course, why you're putting FAT32 on anything you'd think it call a "server" is kind of mysterious to me....

 

[StormRider]

<< Is the Quantum drive loud? I want to install it tonight but only if it is worth it.
>>



Mine turned out to be a Quantum and it was very very quiet.

 

[FredFlinstone]

Thanks. Picked on up at the Troy MI store. They are not out on display. If you ask at the parts/service desk, they will get one from the back room.
Freddie

 

[Pin87a]

<< Of course....Out of Stock at the CompUSA near my house. (King Of Prussia PA) But there's plenty in New Jersey...I hate NJ.... >>



Just picked another one up in Mt. Laurel NJ
There were like 40 left on the shelf.

According to the website they are in stock at the King of Prussia Store.

You can check here.

 

[Hoinch]

just a FYI Maxtor & Quantum merge last year and I think Maxtor bought out Quantum. But for sure Quantum makes better drives than Maxtor before. Now it's pretty much all Quantum drives rebadge as Maxtor. Of course there are some old Maxtors drives around but I perfer Quantum. Quantum at one time paid me $100 for down time when my SCSI drive went out and then sent me a better model. Quantum is one of the better companys out there and still making SCSI unlike WD killing off SCSI but that's just my 2 cent opinion.

 

[DIGIWIN]

Good Deal!


MyPcCity

 

[JameyF]

FYI, I tried to PM this to staple's maxtor 5400 rpm 80 gig drive. After the Staples rep talked to the rep from compusa, she told me they had different manufacturer's part numbers. Compusa told the Staples rep that Stapels had the older discontinued model (that contained letters and numbers), while the Compusa version was the newer drive (contained about 8 or so just numbers, mostly 0's). This seems to confirm for me, Compusa is selling the Quantum made drives, while the older drives are Maxtor made.

Sorry for the hard reading, but I thought it would be interesting to add.

 

[huesmann]

I guess I also got a Quantum. BFD. Whatever.