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new hd needed for beige G3 tower...

eyelikeart

eyelikeart

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Jan 2, 2001
11,897
1
Metairie, LA
one of our G3's has a whining hd...so it needs a replacement pretty soon...

I haven't shopped for hd's in a while...so does anyone have any insight on where's the best buy? models u prefer & why?

thanks! :p
 
IBM latest HDs have come under fire for high failure rates, so I would avoid them for now.
Western Digital and Maxtor should both be OK brands to go with.

Now you have to decide how much you want to spend, and what kind of RPM, Buffer sixe and GB you need...
 
3.5" hd's are fairly cheap these days I know....

I'm predicting 30-40 gigs for around $100-$150 will be the most likely range...

and yes...after all the talk of IBM hd's....I think we'll stay away...how unfortunate for IBM...: :rolleyes:
 
I don't really think there are an problems with IBM drives. They will probably operate for just as long as any other drive without failure. There were some reports of drive failure from IBM drives, but in the end, it didn't seem to be any worse than other drives.

That whole fiasco was just a disasterous PR, marketing and documentation mistake. I think I'll still trust their drives.

Matthew
 
IBM

IBM has cleared up much of that recent news about their dirves. I have 2 of them with no problems. I use them at work on HI-Availability systems that never come down. We also use Segate cheeta SCSI and Fibre drives... but you dont need those. I would go with IBM or Segate. Those are all Sun uses in all their big boxes... or at least the ones that use that kind of storage. And there StoreEdge solutions like the T3.

"30-40 gigs for around $100-$150" your paying too much. I just got a IBM 60GB 7200RPM ATA dirve for $99. It was on sale but you can do better than 30-40 for $150. Get OEM... you dont need a box do you? and you dont need any mount kits.. you just need screws ... and you can use the ones that hold down your old broken one. OEM will knock off like $30 off the price. ... and 40GB goes fast... I should have grabed a bigger one. I just got the 60GB becuase thats what came with my Mac. In case I want to mirror them later one.. the need to be the same size.

sotrage is cheep... buy big!
 
ive found pretty good prices on everything at www.newegg.com a 120gb drive with a 8mb buffer for $210. ok you probably want something smaller but considering a 40gb drive runs about $100 something 3 times as large with thelargest buffer in the market for a little over twice the price is pretty amazing. but you can find deals at newegg for smaller drives as well. check out clearanced items as well, but be careful.

as for all this talk about ibm drives. puh. ibm will always be my idea of the best hardware manufacturer. maxtor and wd have always been the ones plagued by drive failures and despite the fact that they seem to have pulled their act together in recent years i still distrust the drives (though that 120gb drive im talking about is a wd). seagate used to be very high end but has dropped prices and quality so they are more comparable with the competition. in all honesty they all seem to make good drives nowadays. apple uses maxtor ibm toshiba and seagate as far as im aware so you can also go by trust what apple trusts.

and one last thing. above size sound should be a priority. some drives are loud! others as whisper silient. ibm, wd, seagate, and maxtor all make drives that are loud and drives that are quiet. seagate used to be infamous for loud drives, and wd doesnt have too great a rep either. but all of these companies offer technolgies that make quiet drives so be sure to look for that as well.

for good inf o (but not prices) i always reccommend www.transintl.com. poke around a little on their site and you will find out some neat stuff.
 
Don't the old beige G3's take SCSI hard drives? If so, then all of the prices listed above are meaningless. SCSI hard drives are much more expensive if you want more than 20 gigs. You can find 10 gig UW scsi drives on ebay for only $20 though. (10,000rpm!!)

-Pete
 
Originally posted by ptrauber
Don't the old beige G3's take SCSI hard drives? If so, then all of the prices listed above are meaningless. SCSI hard drives are much more expensive if you want more than 20 gigs. You can find 10 gig UW scsi drives on ebay for only $20 though. (10,000rpm!!)

-Pete
Click to expand...

All the beige G3's, be they towers, All-In-Ones or Desktops, have ATA (IDE) controllers on the board. Some did have PCI SCSI cards and SCSI hard drives, but switching to IDE drives is not a problem.
 
Originally posted by eyelikeart
Hitachi took over IBM's hard drive unit....so I wonder what we'll see??

anyway...we're going for a 60 gig IBM from
otherworldcomputing

thanks again for all the replies! :p
Click to expand...

eye'-
One caveat about those drives...they're not meant to be used for servers. From the specs:
* Recommended power-on hours (monthly) 333

That's less than 14 days of use per month, or 11 hours/day...just thought you should know...
 
Originally posted by Rower_CPU


eye'-
One caveat about those drives...they're not meant to be used for servers. From the specs:
* Recommended power-on hours (monthly) 333

That's less than 14 days of use per month, or 11 hours/day...just thought you should know...
Click to expand...

hmm...well what do u think of the Western Digital & Seagate compared to the IBM??
 
I have found for quality of produce, and support the companies rate as follows (best being first)

Seagate (#1 for SCSI drives)
Maxtor (#1 for ATA100/133 drives)
IBM (#1 for 2.5" mobile drives)
Western Digital (have had many of these fail, of different sizes).

This is all based on my experiences (i.e. real world not ideal conditions) and should be taken as you see fit.
 
From my experience

I'd agree generally with Alphatech.

Western Digital drives that I've had have been VERY unreliable even on macs that haven't had a lot of bashing, not many files moved around or even on the machine, and still very unreliable, requiring frequent reformats.

The same goes for the stock Fujitsu drive Apple put in my PBG3, but the IBM travelstar in there now has been brilliant.
 
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