[CUBE] Hard Drive Upgrades

[John Allan]

> Just found a Maxtor 120 at Fry's for $88 after $30 rebate including 8%
> sales tax. Claimed to run super quiet as one of its features. ULTRA
> QUIET FDB Motor. Has 8 MB Buffer. Ultra Series. You can do better from
> retailers on HDs because of the extensive use of rebates to sell them
> all the time.

I went for a 120 Maxtor 8 MB, by accident as I meant to pick up a WD but am
generally very happy with it. One hell of a lot less quiet than the previous
IBM Deskstar and even the Seagates that I have been fitting recently.

I forgot about Maxtors for a while but they are very OK.

Noise wise, I do get a low resonance off the Cube with it tho'. The Cube is
sitting on a hard table with metal legs. Pick it up; pretty much no noise.
Very quiet. Still looking for some silicon nipples like they use on glass
tables to replace the bubble wrap and lift it off the surface a little.
Tried the phonecard stuffed in the drive bay trick but need to think rubber
or something.

Interestingly, the 8 MB cache drives offer 30% plus drive performance in
single user machines according to that storage URL but not in server set
ups.

John

> No fan either way. Skip the 2 MB cache. They are way out of style. 8MB
> cache is easily found for the same money.