just a thought, about what hard disk to choose

[Admiral]

I think I'll push for the IWILL KA266-R motherboard or maybe get a ViA KT266A board (in which case I might look for another soundcard) . Depends on how late I'll build the PC, by that time I could opt for a Palomino over a 1.4 GHz Thunderbird also.
One thing is getting clearer, if I go non-raid I'll get the 60GXP IBM and if I'll go raid I'll choose the two WesternDigital drives.

The only components I will want to upgrade for the whole of next year are my Kyro II (get a Kyro III or Matrox's next product) and the CPU (if I get a TBird and not a Palomino this year).

The new system should look like this:

IWill KA266 (or the KA266-R) motherboard
1.4 GHz Thunderbird
2x256 PC2100 Mushkin DDRAM
IBM 60GXP hd (or the two 30GB WD)
Yamaha CRW2100S B10 (16x/10x/40x SCSI) CDR + Adaptec SCSI
2904 controller
Sony fdd
SB Live 5.1
Hercules Kyro II (this one I already have, I'll be putting the G400 back in the current system)
17" IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 410 (for the BNC connector, Kyro II image is good but I miss my G400's image)

Edit: Oh, and I'll want to install Win2k on it on a big NTFS partition

[borat]

nic choices but get a palomino not a t bird they are quicker and cooler + i doubt they'll be much more expensive

[DOG]

Like borat said, you should check out the WD Caviar xxxAB. Looks like they now come in 20/30/40/60 GB's.

Now if you want to be the first one on your block with something that is seriously awesome check out the new Rocket Drive Solid State Disk

It starts at 512 MB and goes up to 4 GB, with plans to expand to 8 GB and is suppose to be available this month.

[Dr Mordrid]

Best Buy is selling a generic 25g drive for $79 USD. In reality it's a WD 30 gig 5400 rpm AB.

Dr. Mordrid

[CHHAS]

Just compared the WB 600 AB with the Cuda IV using Storage Reviews database, they are so evenly matched it's hard to tell which is the 7200 RPM and which is the 5400 RPM drive from just looking at the results.

I did however, notice on their message boards that the 'Cuda IV is shipped which acustic damping set to the maximum, disabling this should supposedly reduce the seek time by a millisecond without doing much to increase the noise level.

http://www.storagereview.com/jive/sr/thread.jsp?forum=1&thread=17445