camcondor
Free Member
I've put this here as we haven't got a Computing forum (yet) and hope its in the right place for now......
Word has it that there are masses of IDE Harddrives out there that wholesalers and retailers want to shift as the technology is in its death throes for harddrives at any rate......this can work both ways for potential buyers -
AVOID buying IDE harddrives in order to upgrade a system, also avoid buying motherboards that only offer IDE support. Ensure that the newer SATA standard is supported on any new motherboard or powersupply purchase. For Mac owners its a no-brainer as the system HDDs have been SATA for ages now.
If you have an older IDE based system and want to expand / buy a new harddrive you can STILL BUY AND USE A SATA DRIVE - cheap SATA controller cards which slot into PCI or PCI-E slots are readily available for around £10 and are really easy to install.
IF THE IDE DRIVE COMES REALLY REALLY CHEAP: it may be worth using it in an external enclosure as extra storage, but remember, it is a lot slower than SATA and an older technology. Enclosure prices for IDE drives are really cheap at present, but be careful that you get the correct type of enclosure, ie IDE or SATA, for the drive you intend using. There are hybrid enclosures that will take either, but you do pay a bit of a premium.
Laurie
Word has it that there are masses of IDE Harddrives out there that wholesalers and retailers want to shift as the technology is in its death throes for harddrives at any rate......this can work both ways for potential buyers -
AVOID buying IDE harddrives in order to upgrade a system, also avoid buying motherboards that only offer IDE support. Ensure that the newer SATA standard is supported on any new motherboard or powersupply purchase. For Mac owners its a no-brainer as the system HDDs have been SATA for ages now.
If you have an older IDE based system and want to expand / buy a new harddrive you can STILL BUY AND USE A SATA DRIVE - cheap SATA controller cards which slot into PCI or PCI-E slots are readily available for around £10 and are really easy to install.
IF THE IDE DRIVE COMES REALLY REALLY CHEAP: it may be worth using it in an external enclosure as extra storage, but remember, it is a lot slower than SATA and an older technology. Enclosure prices for IDE drives are really cheap at present, but be careful that you get the correct type of enclosure, ie IDE or SATA, for the drive you intend using. There are hybrid enclosures that will take either, but you do pay a bit of a premium.
Laurie