(DEAD) Maxtor 80GB 5400RPM $60!

[supesman]

I have a question: I'm primarily going to use this drive for storage, is it okay to make this a slave on the same ide as the master HD? Or should they be on seperate IDE cables? i have my CDRW and DVD on the same IDE as well. thanks

 

[poppagene]

supesman
depends upon the speed of the other drive. (the ATA not the rpm) in general if the other hdd is ata 100 no problem. If it's ata 133 there may be a small drop in speed. Better to let the cd & dvd share a cable and have the hard drives share the other cable.

 

[bann3d]

from staples.com order status

Order Date: 5/24/2002
Order Status: Shipped
Scheduled Delivery Date: 05/28/02

i saw yesterday morning at 7am that it was in stock but since i was about to miss the train i ordered it at 8am when i go to school. subtotal was 105.98 (tax) after 40MIR it will be 65.98, not bad in my book. this hdd is the same as the compusa deal that was a few months ago, except that was 99.99 (after 40 IR) so this is a great deal

 

[randomlinh]

has anyone who ordered on the last day received an email confirmation? I ordered it, didn't get anything.. ordered the cd burner later and got something this morning for it.


blah, i was afraid of this.. they just called to say the drive was OOS.

 

[dartjeff1]

I ordered this drive a while ago, but hadn't sent in the rebate. Now I can't find the rebate. Does anyone have a link to it?

 

[Stevem627]

I also need to track down the rebate form. Any help here?

 

[Pothead]

go to staples.com, click on rebates, and search for maxtor

 

[dartjeff1]

I searched on the Staples site, but all I see coming up is the rebate for the 7200 RPM version. I have the 5400 RPM version. It seems like that staples only lists rebates that are currently valid? Can anyone else find this rebate, or does someone have a copy they downloaded that they can email me?

 

[KLineD]

Using HDTach, my drive has a seek time of ~21ms...thats real high in my opinion, no? My other (7200rpm) drives all are around 9-11ms...

 

[ponch007]

dartjeff1 -- check you email

 

[MdkExecutive]

I would like a copy of the rebate also.
Pretty Please

Why did staples take it down so soon?

 

[roykevin]

yeah, I'm also having trouble finding the rebate. I called staples cs and they said it was an MIR,
So I called maxtor directly and they said they never had that rebate from staples for 80gb 5400 rpm drive.
so can someone please send me the rebate? thanks

 

[ponch007]

For the rebate go here

 

[Jombo]

ponch007, you are a life saver!!
thank you much.

 

[kenja]

Nice public service, Mr. Volger.

I emailed Staples Rebate Center yesterday, stating the UPC and SKU numbers, and Parago sent me a .pdf of the rebate form.

 

[Replay]

KLineD

Using HDTach, my drive has a seek time of ~21ms...thats real high in my opinion, no? My other (7200rpm) drives all are around 9-11ms...

Partition the drive, and get a big boost in speed where you need it most. I used 8G for the primary OS partition (largest size available with 4k cluster size), 72G for a second partition (32k clusters, waste space...).

Maxtor 5400rpm 80G installed with 8G and 72G partitions, ATA66 controller. < SILENT and runs cool
HD Tach speed on 8G section: 12.6ms random seek, 35.9 burst, read 36.7max 24.0min 35.8ave 5.8% cpu
HD Tach speed on full 80G drive: 20.9ms seek, read 36.1 burst, 36.9max 16.2min 29.3ave 4.8% cpu

Maxtor 7200rpm 80G < runs hotter, louder, faster, whines when it spins up or down
HD Tach speed on 8G section: 8.6ms random seek, 41.4 burst, read 42.4max 29.5min 39.9ave 6.8% cpu
HD Tach speed on full 80G drive: 12.2ms seek, read 41.4 burst, 42.4max 21.9min 34.8ave 5.7% cpu

 

[KLineD]

damn, any ideas why mine takes so long to seek then? 21ms is WAAAAY too high, and <MUCH> slower than your reported 8ms and 11ms...

 

[Greatwolf]

I'm getting similar seek times to my 5400rpm maxtor drives too. When I run HDTach through it I get access times around 20.5ms-22ms. Transfer rates average about 16-28kps. Even if I give it the benefit of the doubt and minus 6ms to account for rotational latency, it's still no where near it's specified 11ms access time. I might try repartitioning the drive up into smaller parts but I'll have to find time to move all my stuff on it to another drive. And replay, how were you able to get a transfer rate of 30+kps? mines couldn't even hit 30kps when I was benching it.

In short the seek times were very disappointing. When I run this test with my older 20gig maxtor (7200rpm) I get a seek time of about 13.3ms, which is much closer to it's specification.

One other question, as far as gaming is concerned which would be more important on which the speed of a game loads? Is seek time more important or the rate at which it can transfer data?

Thanx

 

[cbarria]

I can't find the rebate for this deal anywhere. Could someone send me a link to the pdf or the pdf itself to nospam@alianor.com ?

Thanks!!!

 

[cbarria]

FOUND IT!!!

THANKS!

 

[KLineD]

ill try calling maxtor see what they say...maybe RMA my drive

 

[gsaldivar]

"...as far as gaming is concerned which would be more important on which the speed of a game loads? Is seek time more important or the rate at which it can transfer data?..."

For a large number of small, non-contiguous files - seek time will be more important.
For a small number of large, contiguous files - transfer rate will be more important.

You can minimize the affect of seek time on large numbers of small, non-contiguous files by occasionally defragmenting the drive.

Hope this helps!

 

[Replay]

Hi Greatwolf,

And replay, how were you able to get a transfer rate of 30+kps? mines couldn't even hit 30kps when I was benching it.

Your slow transfer rates could be caused by:
1) DMD not enabled in windows for your drive (control panel > system > etc.). This would be indicated by high CPU usage according to HD Tach.
2) Cable not recognized as ATA66-ATA100 compatible, or installed backwards, or sharing the cable with a slow ATA33 device(?).
3) Onboard ide controller has ATA33 specs (& not the newer ATA66/100/133).
4) There is no number 4
5) Something else, that someone else will think of

Partitioning, and using a smaller OS partition at the beginning of the drive has several benefits.
1) You get a big boost in seek times as the heads don't have to fly all over the drive. The performance approaches those dubious Maxtor specs, more importantly, the speed is on par with the measured speed of the Maxtor 7200 RPM 80G model.
2) The small cluster size of an 8G partition, 4k, saves on slack space compared to the usual 32k partition. It doesn't seem like much, but I have 50,000 files in my windows subdirectory, so it adds up.
3) Easier to back-up your OS and apps from a small partition. Make cloned copies of all or part of your C: drive to the secondary partition, copy from there to CD media for more security.
3a) Easier to reformat just the C: partition, and reinstall the OS, without losing all of the stuff on the other partitions.

Defragment the 80G frequently, as seek times are slow, but transfer rates are not bad once the data is located.
I put my games, MP3s, DivX stuff on the large D: partition. Could have made more partitions, but that can be a pain to work with.

One other question, as far as gaming is concerned which would be more important on which the speed of a game loads? Is seek time more important or the rate at which it can transfer data?

It depends , transfer rate is the key if you have large files, fast seeks are important if you have many files to load (or you let your drive get many fragmented files). Of the two I'd rather have the fastest seek times, if they come with reasonable transfer rates too.

 

[iamme]

i know this deal's long gone, but just wanted to say thanks again. finally got around to installing it, and this baby's quiet as a mouse

 

[nonchalant]

Alright!

My drive is full already hehe.

Yeah and the reabte has to be postmarked by tommorow. I was looking for the printout that I printed out from staples website right after I got it (I filed online but u still need to mail it in). I can't find it though. I went to the rebate status page on staple's site but I couldn't find the form to send in. Anyone know what to do? I still have my orginal reciet, and the upc, i just dont have the forms that were filled out and that i printed out. If I manage to find a blank rebate form and print it out, then fill it out and mail it in will that casue a problem? I would call CSR excpet I am at work and not allowed to use the phone for personal calls. Thanks!

PS, i know this thread is long dead, hehe