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Old 27th Nov 2018, 10:54 am   #21
radioman
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

OK, thanks for the advice : the laptop is more than ten years old (it's a Toshiba Satellite SA50 and originally used Win XP).
So pretty ancient - I intend to install a light Linux operating system on it and see how it performs (or not!).

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Old 27th Nov 2018, 11:26 am   #22
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

Memory is likely to be the deciding factor. You will need an absolute minimum of 1GB and 2GB is preferable. This may be expensive or impossible with very old hardware.
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Old 27th Nov 2018, 12:10 pm   #23
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

Thanks Paul but I'm aware of this
I have a few spare memory modules all ready to get fitted so it won't be a problem.

Andy
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Old 27th Nov 2018, 4:59 pm   #24
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

I use SSD's for my Windows OS (C) drive and standard machanical drives for the extra storage space and for my backup (D, E, F, etc).
Most of the advantage of SSD's is gained when using one for the OS, giving faster bootup and program launching, etc.
I have stored mechanical HDD's for quite long periods of time with no data loss, so I trust them pretty well (so far!)
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Old 27th Nov 2018, 5:41 pm   #25
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

Whiskas.
Do you leave the backup drives online when not in use? Not a good idea, any problems with the computer hardware or software could corrupt your backups.
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Old 27th Nov 2018, 5:43 pm   #26
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

Hi Frank,
Asidce from the SSD for the OS drive, I have one standard 3.5" HDD built into my PC, the others are removeable drives in USB enclosures. Never had any problems so far!
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Old 25th Dec 2018, 10:54 pm   #27
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

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Originally Posted by Paul Stenning View Post
For EIDE there isn't a lot of choice, either second hand or refurbished, and both are a gamble. Not much point in buying an SSD for such an elderly laptop, as it won't be able to run an operating system modern enough to properly support SSDs.

At least the CPC ones have a warranty (although that doesn't cover any data on the disk) and are cheap enough.

Make sure you have backups of anything important. Never rely on a single drive as the only place data is stored, regardless of type or age etc.
I'm in the same boat with older laptops including an Acer Aspire One 533 except this one has SATA giving more options as well as supporting 64 bit like AMD. I have an IBM Thinkpad with an Intel M series CPU @1500mhz and 1280 megs of RAM. It is getting to the point of Win10 being totally useless on even the Acer with an Intel Atom N455 @1.66 and 2 GB of RAM. A SSD really helped the Acer in speed of boot, performance etc but other than running Win 7 which will soon be unsupported I have been dual booting Linux Ubuntu AND Win 7 as a transition to giving the finger to Windows. As for the IBM I run Lubuntu on it and the lite versions run great with modern support and software including quite old drivers.
How good do these lite versions work one might ask? I also have an HP OmniBook XE3 with an Intel PIII 800 MHz CPU and a whopping 128 megs of RAM. It was originally sold with Win2000 Pro and Puppy Linux 4.3.1 will not run live as it is totally run in RAM so I installed it permanently on the drive with a swap partition to work as RAM. It flies on this software but I put this mint book in mothballs and use the IBM instead. This one I'm looking for a larger drive instead of the 30 GB IDE and it is to the point of the IDE SSD being cheaper than used overpriced mechanical. Don't forget the older HHD are 4500,5400 RPM as well slowing things down even more. Linux isn't that bad anymore for GUI slaves like myself and if your older hardware is fast enough as many still is a regular flavor or Ubuntu will work quite well! Another alternative is run the original IDE hard drive and use an external USB drive with a SATA SSD which are dropping in price.
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Old 26th Dec 2018, 12:05 am   #28
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

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.....SATA SSD which are dropping in price.
Hmm.....$69 for a 1Tb 7200rpm versus $220* for a 1Tb SSD (Oz funny money of course)... no competition, I'll run with slow and cheap.

*Samsung EVO 850
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Old 26th Dec 2018, 12:52 am   #29
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

I’m running a 256Gb 850 pro as my backup disk and it’s not even half full including OSX system image.

Managing data volume is the most powerful cost saving exercise...
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Old 26th Dec 2018, 2:11 am   #30
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Default Re: Cheap hard drives

While my System drive is currently showing 349Gb free of 464Gb and could run a small drive, the Data drive is showing 305Gb free of 931Gb.

I have a 'thing' about drive space being available when I need it.
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Old 26th Dec 2018, 9:12 pm   #31
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There is a use for old mechanical HDD.I’ve bought a couple of "clean pull", both Maxtor as I have Seagate & Powermax ,(both same firm) HDD test programs. I've no intention of using them in everyday use as I only want them as out of PC backup. And two of them- belt & braces ,just in case one fails. On the topic of SSD, I use a Kingston SSD as my main OS hard drive , as it is big enough to hold W10 and WIN XP . Boot up is very fast butI'm now on a warranty replacement as the first failed in approx six months. But saying that I've had a Maxtor 80GB go faulty in less than a week . Cheap at circa £35
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Old 26th Dec 2018, 10:00 pm   #32
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Simple bit of arithmetic, what's your data worth (including time to re-instate OS and applications etc.) v.s. cost of drives. I have many small (2TB is the biggest) external hard disks, all for backup and a mirrored server for data/films etc., well worth the money spent on new ones. And I back up frequently.
 
Old 27th Dec 2018, 4:57 pm   #33
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MM- I agree and using second hand drives is asking for trouble. I only use new drives ( SSD or mech) in my PC, but I do have a couple of clean pulls ( both Seagate or affiliated maker) to act as backups. Once backed up ,they reside on a shelf out of the PC. I use two , as insurance .
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Old 27th Dec 2018, 5:48 pm   #34
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Indeed backing up is very important in this ephemeral digital age. I got a call from a company I worked for a while ago about a design I did "have you still got it", reply "yes" (they had some patent issue) I popped round and gave a copy of my backup to them and to my surprise was handed a quite large cheque, paid for all my backup hardware and some...
 
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