SATA Question

[OverVolt]

Well I haven't read any articles in about 3years.

I have 2x WD Raptors SATA 150, the old ones. They both whine bad.

I'm just going to replace them with the cheapest possible new HD, and alot are SATA3.0 these days.

Is it compatible with older SATA I?

Also, any suggestions for a cheap replacement drive? Short on cash these days :X

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

SATA 1 is compatible with SATA II / 300, etc. Also, the cables use for all SATA drives are the same (you don't need another cable for a SATA II hd). As for the hard drive, pick something with a good warranty and that fits your budget. There have been quite a few hard drive threads lately--check them out if you want other recommenations.

If you are looking for specific suggestions, what is your budget?

 

[Zelpo]

Seems the Seagates have the best warrenty (five years) right now. Drives are cheap now-a-days. Best bang for the buck is the 7200.10 320GB model

 

[Roguestar]

The WD3200KS is much cheaper for an unnoticeable performance difference.

 

[Auric]

Eschew Seagate (and their Maxtor branded models) if noise is a concern.

WD cannot have as quiet seeks as Hitachi T7K500 and Samsung T166 and those will also outperform the older tech KS (perhaps the AAKS is on par). They are about $80 for 320GB. One snag with Hitachi though is if it comes set to SATA300 and your storage controller cannot negotiate then there is no way to change it to SATA150 as there is no jumper and it is done via software.

 

[Skotty]

There are occasionally compatibility issues. My roommate had a slightly older PC, and bought a new SATA II Western Digital drive. It didn't work in his PC. However, it had a jumper setting that put it in SATA I mode, after which it worked fine. Might not be an issue with all SATA drives, but it was with this one. However, since it had a jumper setting to fix it, it still wasn't a big deal.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: Zelpo
Seems the Seagates have the best warrenty (five years) right now. Drives are cheap now-a-days. Best bang for the buck is the 7200.10 320GB model

seagate is not the only manf w/ 5yr warranties...i am pretty sure some of the maxtor line has them too

 

[Zepper]

Until now I've had good luck with Hitachi SATA drives (I just had my first DOA - but I think it was from Newegg's poor packaging). There is no SATA 3 yet, the 3.0 means 3 gigabits = 300 megaBytes per second. Hitachi uses a software utility to set their port speed, the default is SATA (150MB/sec) for compatibility. If you have SATA 2 ports (300MB/sec) then you will need to use their Feature Tools software to change the speed. Since most Hitachi drives available are OEM, you will have to download the software from their web site - there are links at MajorGeeks.com to make DLing easier. There are several utilities that are useful for SATA drives there including DFT (Drive Fitness Test) which I always use (in thorough mode) before comitting data to a new Hitachi drive. Hitachi are among the best value drives available for price/performance - my 7K80 handily beats my older 10k SCSI drives. Longevity on these new models has yet to be determined. The DOA was a 7K160 (160GB version) that cost a bit over $60. shipped and those are even faster than the 7K80s - the tradeoff is a bit more noise but judging from the buyer reviews - not much more noise. Compared to older drives, they are nearly silent.

All SATA 2 drives that I'm aware of are backward compatible with SATA - most use a jumper. AFAIK, Hitachi is the only one to use software for interface speed setting.

.bh.

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Zelpo
Seems the Seagates have the best warrenty (five years) right now. Drives are cheap now-a-days. Best bang for the buck is the 7200.10 320GB model

seagate is not the only manf w/ 5yr warranties...i am pretty sure some of the maxtor line has them too

I've had that 320 Seagate for a year. Absolutely a great drive.

 

[Auric]

Zepper, while it was true that previous generation Hitachi drives were set to 150 by default, the T7K500 are apparently set to 300. Has your experience been diff'rent?

 

[Zepper]

All are set to 150 by default at the factory. If yours was set to 300, then somebody was playing with it already - or one slipped by from the factory, I'm not saying it couldn't happen.

IAC, I sent off an inquiry to Hitachi GST...

.bh.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: dainthomas

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: Zelpo
Seems the Seagates have the best warrenty (five years) right now. Drives are cheap now-a-days. Best bang for the buck is the 7200.10 320GB model

seagate is not the only manf w/ 5yr warranties...i am pretty sure some of the maxtor line has them too

I've had that 320 Seagate for a year. Absolutely a great drive.

and your point is???? i am just saying that seagate is not the only drive that has a 5yr warranty.... i mean have had seagate, maxtor, wd and basically all the brands in scsi and ide format and still use drives that are 7+yrs old...but still have had all of the manf die on me. i don't understand what your point is, please explain

 

[Zelpo]

Sounds like basic feedback to me.

 

[Zepper]

Hey Auric,

Sorry, I was wrong. The T7K500 are set to SATA 2 by default. But they can be set back with Feature Tool. I hope the sleeve they come in is clearly marked with warning labels as this can cause mucho hair pulling if folks aren't warned - unless it has some kind of auto-detect feature like many SCSI drives do.

.bh.