Computer IDE Hard Drives - Maxtor - Western Digital - Samsung

Hard Disk Drives are the file cabinets of your computer. They store your data and "remember" what you worked on. It is literally the file cabinet for your PC and Mac. Hard drives differ from memory or RAM (Random Access Memory) in that even after your computer is powered off, your stored data remains. In the case of RAM, your data disappears immediately after losing power. Hard drives keep your data even after the power is turned off. Data is literally written onto the drive; a spinning "disk" capable of storing up to 300+Gigabytes of data. There are several types of hard drives existing today: IDE, SCSI and SATA. IDE and SCSI have existed for more than a decade. SATA is fairly knew. It is designed to become the new standard; combining the speed and reliability fo the SCSI drives and the low price and "easy installation" of the IDE hard drive. In this article, we'll focus on IDE Drives. IDE drives have been the workhorse of the storage business for the past decade. IDE drives are inexpensive, easy to install and very reliable. They can be programmed via jumper to act as a singel drive, master drive w/ a slave, or a slave drive. There is even an option for "Cable Select" meaning that the drive is automatically set as a master, single or slave depending on what part of the cable it's attached to. IDE cables have 2 connections. The end connection is for the master drive, the 2nd connection for the slave drive. Depending on what part of the cable you connect the ide hard drive, the computer automatically detects the Master/Slave relationship. This makes installing ide hard disk drives very simple and convenient. IDE hard drives typically have a lifespan of approximately 5 years. They can, however die at anytime. Hence the need for regular backups. I have personally experienced a high defect rate for the newer 250GB and 300GB IDE drives. Something about the larger sizes that I haven't had much luck with. The 120GB and 160GB have proven to be very reliable. The price of IDE hard drives do not rise much w/ each additonal size increase. Due to the nature of the manufacturing process, it doesn't cost much more to develop a 160GB drive compared to a 40gb drive. It just requires that the manufacturer add more platters. .		Street prices start at about $70 and go up from there. Again, the price increases are not relative to the size. The prices rise just slightly w/ each additional size increase. The top manufacturers of IDE drives are Maxtor, Samsung, Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi and Toshiba. Some legacy names are Conner (bought by Seagate) and Quantum (bought by Maxtor). IBM also makes some hard drives in limited quantities. IDE hard drives have differing speeds of rotation. The faster the rotation and seek time, the better the hard drive performs. Seek time ranges between 6ms to 9ms. RPM speed range from 4500 - 7500 rpm. You want to purchase the lowest seek speed and the high RPM number. Memory also plays a part in the performance of the IDE hard drive. Called Cache memory, some drives come with 2mb, others with 4mb or 6mb. The more memory, the faster the drive will perform. In caring for your hard drive, do not drop it, strike it, or physically abuse it. You may think all the bad thoughts you want, as this will not physically harm the drive. Hard drives also come in different sizes. The two most popular sizes are built for desktop PC's and notebooks PC's. There is now a 3rd smaller size being developed for the famous Apple iPod. There is literally a hard drive in every Apple iPod. Notebook hard drives usually run at 4500 - 4800rpm. Desktop IDE hard drives run at 5400rpm or 7200rpm.