Ata100 Hd?

[Paddy]

I'm looking for four ATA 100 HDs with a view to RAIDing them in my server. It would be nice to have as close to 1TB as possible as well as redundancy - so I guess I am looking at 300GB+ drives. Most of these drives are ATA133, but are they backwards compatible? (its for an adaptec 2400A).

What model should I consider? Reliability and total capacity is more important than speed.

Oh, and I can't afford to go SCSI!

[Fat Tone]

They'll work in the highest UDMA mode they can. In my experience you should be fine.

[Wombat]

The 2400A is an ATA100 card, but Adaptec's site says it supports 48-bit addressing, so it should be able to support the larger drives.

On this side of the pond, I've seen Seagate 300GB ATA drives going for $160.

[lecter]

The Western Digital JB series also seems like a good buy...both me and my friends have had them in our rigs for 2+ years now and they haven't missed a beat

[UtwigMU]

AFAIK WD drives don't perform in RAID as well as other's.

Otherwise I recommend Seagate, make sure you buy through authorized reseller to get 5-year warranty.

[Paddy]

Cool! Performance is not as important as redundancy.
I'm gonna go for 300GB drives as I can not justify the price increase for the 400GB ones. A quick search found a 300GB ATA100 Seagate HD for £124. That seems reasonable to me, but not when they are £80 on the other side if the pond

[UtwigMU]

Well they're 172 Quid this side of Channel.

[Paddy]

OK, I wont moan too loudly.. but can i moan a little?

[Fat Tone]

I think I might get me one or two of those biguns when on that side of the pond in a few weeks time

[Paddy]

hmm.... PM me before you go I am looking to get four - so that would be quite a saving

[Fat Tone]

I considered offering, but it'll be a few weeks and I can make no guarantees of having the time to look. I do intend looking though I wondered what the customs implications might be if found with 6 hard drives, a stash of ram and usb memory sticks?

[Paddy]

Dunno... I don't think it would be an issue as its not enough to sell.. Just dont walk through the 'anything to declare' isle! £240 for 1.2TB of storage is cool though

[Wombat]

£124 isn't bad. They're $180+shipping here, unless on sale.

[Paddy]

Cheers!

The Adaptec card hasn't been delivered yet... It should turn up this morning