[G4] Internal Hard Drive over 120 GB?

[Thubten Kunga]

I think it depends on what Mac and your overall hardware version. If 
you're going to add a drive to an ATA 100/133 bus/card, you might as 
well forget about the $70 120 GB WD SE and go for the $150 200 GB WD SE 
w/8MB buffer or $228 for the 250 maximum (net 233). Why stop at 120 if 
the bus can see up to 250GB and higher (when they reach market)?

But it's true that the sweet spot on low cost per GB VALUE is currently 
the 120 WD SE. These puppies are becoming the "20GB drive of 2003" if 
you know what I mean. So unbelievably inexpensive how can anyone not 
want to lose smaller drives.

And what's up with the RAM? I got a FREE 256 DDR 2100 stick at Office 
Max Sunday after rebate. GOD! Meanwhile, the price of 512MB 2100 DDR 
RAM has dropped from $65 to $42 in the last two weeks. 
JEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZEE. Pardon my amazement at these price drops. Office 
Max is "selling" 48x24x48x CD-RW drives for FREE after rebate. When 
will all these FREE deals end?

I guess this is the upside of the coming depression of 2004. We'll all 
be so tricked out with all the free and near free stuff on the market 
this year that there will be nothing left to buy next year (except a 
new dual 970 PowerMac of course). The the real depression will set in. 
; ^ )

WD has a rebate program this month through May 29th that returns to you
$30 off 80GB
$80 off 120 GB and 160 GB
$100 off 180 GB 200 GB and 250 GB drives. Most of them are 7200 RPM 
SE's with 8MB buffers.

All  the big resellers are offering their own rebates and/or lower 
prices to maximize sales this month. Circuit city is currently offering 
the 120 WD SE for $80 after rebates. Office Max offered the same drive 
for $70 last week.

I just populated a new dual 867 with two 250's on the ATA/100 bus and 
two 120's on the ATA/66 bus. I'm booting off one of the 120's 20 GB 
partition and realize very fast performance. No card necessary and 
almost 700 GB for $686 (including 8.25% sales tax) available for 
anything I can throw at it for a long time to come.

How do you measure 2x performance Sr Ferenczy? Scratch disks on the 
ATA/133 yes. But NOT the System performance. That's why I put the 250's 
on my MDD's 100 bus and use the 66 bus for the system.

I must say that fully tricking out an MDD is a hell of a lot easier 
than previous Mac models. It is almost effortless. Apple has figured 
out how to make upgrading any modern Mac brain dead easy.

k

On Monday, May 5, 2003, at 04:24  PM, sr ferenczy wrote:

> i got close to 2x the performance when i moved my 120 GB WD SE (8mb 
> cache) drive to an ata133 card (acard) i now have a pair of them on 
> the card, and use them for DV. i believe they can be booted off of 
> even on the card....
>
> in short, yes you will see increased performance booting off of the WD 
> drive on an ata 133 card.
>
> sandor
>
> On Monday, May 5, 2003, at 04:03  PM, Glenn Peterson wrote:
>
>> Sandor,
>>
>> If I purchase an WD 120GB hd with 8MB cache would I see a better 
>> speed increase from putting this as my boot HD or connecting it via a 
>> PCI IDE controller?  I am trying to figure out if I need to purchase 
>> a controller or if I could just configure it as the boot HD and see a 
>> speed increase.  Thank you.
>>
>> Glenn