I'm planning on getting a 320GB SATAII HDD as my current 120GB SATA Samsung Spinpoint really couldn't fit my usage .

Many would have recommending Seagate for its performance and most importantly 5 years warranty provided. However, I wonder if I could lay myself on for another Samsung? Hahaha... just having this feeling that I'm preferring Samsung's HDD than the Seagate's. Weird one...

Anyway, did Seagate did provide 320GB model for their 7200.11? I thought the mininum for it will be 500GB and 7200.10 only has 320GB?

Hmmm.....

320GB Seagate 7,200rpm 16MB cache RM275 with 3 years warranty

VS

500GB Seagate 7,200rpm 16MB (32MB?) cache RM460 with 5 years warranty

VS

500GB Western Digital 7,200 16MB cache RM360 with 3 years warranty

Which you guys will pick? I think probably we already reach 2TB or 4TB HDD by 5 years time... and no one will talk about 500GB HDD anymore... like what happened to 20GB and 40GB these days...

Alright, answering to everyone's call

Finally I made up my mind between the WD 500GB GreenPower and Seagate Barracuda 500GB...

Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 3Gb/s NCQ 500GB 32MB Cache Hard Drive
Model : ST3500320AS



Any software to recommend to check on the bad sector and error?

Hehe... yeah . Since that WD Green Power is a low performance HDD, so I picked this one instead which they said the 32MB cache benefits if used as system HDD. Now I'm running my OS on this 500GB HDD and backup all data on my previous 120GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA HDD.

Anyway, would there be any performance loss if I'm using SATA2 and SATA1 HDD on my SATA ports? I don't ever think even SATA2 HDD would go beyond 150MB/sec bandwidth due to mechanical HDD limit?

Alright, will trying HDTune later on .

RM445 at LYP

Hmm... since installation till now. Just doing formatting and organizing the files inside. Splitted into 2 partitions of 82GB each for OS and programs & games etc., while another 3 partitions of 100GB each for DATA, ANIME & SERIES and MOVIE store . The previous formatted 111GB of Samsung SATA HDD will be used as BACKUP . A bit too much for the OS, programs and games thou... but just "tabur" la at the moment . Else defragmenting will be a pain if I'm putting beyond 100GB in a single partition .

Noticeable increment in speed of access and loading etc. Games wise and others haven't really try .

Nah... not need to be PCZone... many other shop can offer around that price too .

BTW, I have a question here. I formatted my HDD into 5 partitions and it become:

C:
E:
F:
G:
H:

D: has been used for my optical drive. I managed to change the drive letter to be C:, D:, E:, F:, G: by using Administrator Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management and set my optical drive as H:.

However, when I load Windows bootup disk and using the built-in disk partition (before installing Windows), it stated my partition as:

C:
E:
F:
G:
H:

Anyway to change it to the proper order as C:, D:, E:, F:, G:?

That's what I did actually. After divide the partitions, I install Windows on C: and then only proceed to format the others.

I don't think there will be any option for you to do so without selecting the option to install Windows?

Yeah, I did that and it works on Windows. However, when I load the Windows bootup disk for re-installation or so, the built-in partition program shows C:, E:, F:, G:, H: and D: still been used up for my optical drive .

The cheaper WD 500GB which is the Green Power series is actually a lower performance HDD compared to Seagate Barracuda's . You still can use it like any other normal HDD, nothing different. Green Power series utilize lower power consumption, thus lower heat generation and lower read/write speed overall.

Well, honestly I don't see any BIOS setting for assigning letter drive or doing partition . The max BIOS can do only set your 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so... HDD in sequence .

If nothing can be done, might as well I just leave it and deal with the Disk Management everytime ba .

XP Pro SP2 .

Ah well... I think you have mistaken me. Yeah, I doesn't have the drive letter problem after the assignation by Disk Management in Windows. What I mean is the HDD itself. I bootup my rig using Windows XP BootCD and then enter the Partition Manager, the place where you can create and delete partitions on your HDD(s) before you selecting one to be installed with Windows. The partitions there still labelled as:

C:
E:
F:
G:
H:

Haha... then I wonder how come last time I could set my Samsung HDD as C:, D:, E: as default

Tarak setup RAID la

For SATA2 3Gb/s HDD... what DMA mode I should run for maximum performance? Currently I'm on Ultra DMA Mode-5 on my SATA2 port .

Ya, I just bought the Seagate 500GB 7200.11 32MB SATAII HDD .

BTW, no one can help me regarding the Ultra DMA Mode setting?

But in HDTune its indicating my Seagate can go as far as UDMA-6 and my Samsung UDMA-7 summore

Nope, haven't install Vista for myself before in my life so far .

U just got my PM . Can get it at LYP .

Hahaha... actually it is no big deal with the drive partition letters. Just I'm preferring everything could be "in order" so it would just looks much neater . I didn't care much and just splitted my 500GB into 5 partitions. It would be a pain if you're gonna defrag a large partition leh .

Need to switch to AHCI mode?

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 is utilizing 250GB per platter drive. So you would only see 500GB, 750GB and 1TB at the moment .

500GB 7200.11 available in 16MB internal cache as well. They mentioned the cache only would benefit if you're using it as system drive. If using it just for data storage, it doesn't matter I guess

Anyway, do I need to ENABLE ACHI MODE for my SATA?

Currently it's running on IDE mode and there are IDE, RAID and ACHI to pick from.

Anyway, just faced a few BSOD while rebooting my Windows . No idea what happened but finally I managed to load Windows after the 5th attempt .

Use Windows's Utility ScanDisk? Or any good application to be recommended?