Computer Help- HardDrive info

[396_WAYS_TO_SPIT]

I am looking to buy another hard drive. My secondary storage drive just went south. I am will be buying a external drive this time. What should I be looking for? Is 8mb cashe better than 2? If so please explain why. Also, does fire wire transfer faster than usb 2.0? Any info is appreciated.
Thx,396

[Tom Brown]

OK... I'll bring you up to speed.
Capacity: more is better
cache: more is better
usb version numbers: higher is better
Hope this helps. :cool:
Smart assing aside...
No, Firewire isn't any faster than USB2.0. They're about the same. Forget the cache size. It won't make a noticeable difference and is completely irrelevant in a backup drive.

[396_WAYS_TO_SPIT]

OK... I'll bring you up to speed.
Capacity: more is better
cache: more is better
usb version numbers: higher is better
Hope this helps. :cool:
Smart assing aside...
No, Firewire isn't any faster than USB2.0. They're about the same. Forget the cache size. It won't make a noticeable difference and is completely irrelevant in a backup drive.
Sounds good to me but What about brands? There are some good deals floating around. Should I buy a higher $$$ drive or one that suits the needs for the best price?
396

[mickeyfinn]

MTBF (mean time between failures) is going to be similar with all of the major manufactures drives. Some drives make a little more noise than others when accessed, but for a secondary storage drive, who cares if you hear a little clicking every now and then (at least you know it is working) :) ). Go for whatever is cheapest. You could probably buy two of the cheaper drives on the market and still spend less than you would for the high dollar drive and have much better reliability. On that note I would also go for the internal ide drive instead of the external unless you need it to be portable. Save a ton of cash and not have it on the desk in the way.

[buzzaro]

Is this strictly a back-up drive or are you running a RAID 1 stripe?
If its strictly a backup storage secondary drive and youre OS and other programs arent going to be running on it you really just need a large capacity and wont notice any performance changes between a high performance HD and a standard one. Ive found this site to be very helpful in finding a decent price: http://www.pricegrabber.com/

[shueman]

$1 per Gig is a good deal/rule of thumb. Maxtor externals are solid. I got a 340g for $299 at Fry's last year.
Nice thing about an external is portability between machines with compatible operating systems. Best use is data storage, images, music files, etc. Don't load software, as there is a access lag, at times, as the drives will "sleep" when not being sourced.

[Tom Brown]

I'd go for the best price. They will all have the cheapest hard disks in them, anyway.
If you're fussy about hard disk brand, get an enclosure (20~30 bucks) and put the drive in it yourself. It will install with a couple of plugs and four screws.
Personally, I'm a big Samsung fan. They run quiet and cool.
... but for external storage, it's not going to matter.

[396_WAYS_TO_SPIT]

Thanks for all you help fellas;) I will hit up best buy tonight and find the best bang for the buck;)
396