[mcp6453[_2_]]

It looks like it might be time to buy up an end-of-life supply of 500GB IDE 3.5"
hard drives. They're getting scarce and expensive. Not every computer has enough
available slots to add a SATA controller card. I've had mixed results with on
drive SATA-to-IDE converters.

Does anyone have a good source for Western Digital Blue or Black drives?

[mcp6453[_2_]]

On 2/4/2011 9:44 AM, mcp6453 wrote:
It looks like it might be time to buy up an end-of-life supply of 500GB IDE 3.5"
hard drives. They're getting scarce and expensive. Not every computer has enough
available slots to add a SATA controller card. I've had mixed results with on
drive SATA-to-IDE converters.

Does anyone have a good source for Western Digital Blue or Black drives?

As soon as I sent this message, I did one more search and found them, of all
places, in stock at my local BestBuy store for $65. That's the best price I've
found.

[Scott Dorsey]

mcp6453 wrote:
It looks like it might be time to buy up an end-of-life supply of 500GB IDE 3.5"
hard drives. They're getting scarce and expensive. Not every computer has enough
available slots to add a SATA controller card. I've had mixed results with on
drive SATA-to-IDE converters.

Does anyone have a good source for Western Digital Blue or Black drives?

You're already pretty much too late to get any server-grade IDE drives at
this point. All the Hitachi Ultrastars with IDE interfaces have been
discontinued. I think some of the Seagate Barracudas might still exist.

I'd try Newegg.com. They have good prices on close-outs.

Note that if you don't need a lot of storage density and you need something
rugged, the Endurastar J4K50 is hard to beat. 50 GB max, 4000 rpm, intended
for embedded automotive systems.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mr Soul]

I'd try Newegg.com. *They have good prices on close-outs.
I'd 2nd that. I buy most of the parts for my DAWs at Newegg.

Mike

[MG[_4_]]

"Mr Soul" wrote in message
...
I'd try Newegg.com. They have good prices on close-outs.
I'd 2nd that. I buy most of the parts for my DAWs at Newegg.

Mike

+1 on Newegg, also

www.microcenter.com

Not always the cheapest but a good outfit to deal with.

mg

[mcp6453[_2_]]

On 2/4/2011 1:57 PM, MG wrote:


"Mr Soul" wrote in message
...
I'd try Newegg.com. They have good prices on close-outs.
I'd 2nd that. I buy most of the parts for my DAWs at Newegg.

Mike

+1 on Newegg, also

www.microcenter.com

Not always the cheapest but a good outfit to deal with.

mg

I'd forgotten about MicroCenter. Thanks for the reminder.

[Mike Rivers]

On 2/4/2011 1:57 PM, MG wrote:

www.microcenter.com

I have a local Micro Center store and that's where I go for
parts. You can still get new Western Digital Caviar and
Scorpio IDE 320 and 500 GB drives there, but all of the
smaller IDE drives that they have now (like what I need for
my Mackie hard disk recorder) are refurbished. They do seem
to have plenty of 2-1/2" IDE drives, however. I should
probably get a new one for my Thinkpad while the gettin' is
good.

I wonder how much they replace when they refurbish a drive.
If they replace all the mechanical parts and the heads,
probably pretty much good as new (electronic failures seem
to be either caused by something or are random). I dunno.

I've also never been able to figure out how the different
model names rank, and what they're ranked on. I seem to
remember that Black (at least in the Western Digital line)
was the best, but I've rarely seen those for sale in the
places of ill repute where I shop.



--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff

[Frank]

On Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:41:04 -0500, in 'rec.audio.pro',
in article IDE Hard Drives,
Mike Rivers wrote:

I wonder how much they replace when they refurbish a drive.
If they replace all the mechanical parts and the heads,
probably pretty much good as new (electronic failures seem
to be either caused by something or are random). I dunno.

I could be dead wrong about this, Mike, but it's my understanding that
it has been many years since any drive manufacturer actually
refurbished (repaired) a drive.

Instead, what happens is that a purchaser returns a drive mistakenly
believing that it's a bad drive. In actuality, what happened is that
the user improperly installed the drive into their system and it
wouldn't work, or the user's system was in some way incompatible with
the drive. The drive, meanwhile, is actually fine.

The manufacturer, upon receiving the returned drive, runs the usual
tests and sees that the drive meets specs, and repackages it and sells
it at a discounted price since it's, technically speaking, a used
(previously owned) product.

Side note: I seem to recall that Dell, a number of years ago, got into
trouble with the FTC for selling refurbished parts as new.

In the rare instance where the manufacturer finds that the drive is
actually defective, the nature of the defect, mechanical, electrical,
whatever, is reported to the manufacturing engineering department. The
manufacturer then sends out a replacement drive, which is often one of
the "refurbished" drives that I mentioned above.

In today's world, the only time that's it's cost effective to perform
a drive repair is when the user has sent the drive to a data recovery
facility so that, hopefully, some of the user's precious data can be
recovered. The cost of this service is often in the $800 to $1200
range, far beyond the replacement cost of the piece of hardware.

I've also never been able to figure out how the different
model names rank, and what they're ranked on. I seem to
remember that Black (at least in the Western Digital line)
was the best, but I've rarely seen those for sale in the
places of ill repute where I shop.

You really should stop shopping in those places of ill repute. You
never know what you might pick up.

P.S. Thank you very much for your recent NAMM Winter Show report.
Loved it!

--
Frank, Independent Consultant, New York, NY
[Please remove 'nojunkmail.' from address to reply via e-mail.]
Read Frank's thoughts on HDV at http://www.humanvalues.net/hdv/
[also covers AVCHD (including AVCCAM & NXCAM) and XDCAM EX].

[mcp6453[_2_]]

On 2/4/2011 3:41 PM, Mike Rivers wrote:
On 2/4/2011 1:57 PM, MG wrote:

www.microcenter.com

I have a local Micro Center store and that's where I go for parts. You can still
get new Western Digital Caviar and Scorpio IDE 320 and 500 GB drives there, but
all of the smaller IDE drives that they have now (like what I need for my Mackie
hard disk recorder) are refurbished. They do seem to have plenty of 2-1/2" IDE
drives, however. I should probably get a new one for my Thinkpad while the
gettin' is good.

I wonder how much they replace when they refurbish a drive. If they replace all
the mechanical parts and the heads, probably pretty much good as new (electronic
failures seem to be either caused by something or are random). I dunno.

I've also never been able to figure out how the different model names rank, and
what they're ranked on. I seem to remember that Black (at least in the Western
Digital line) was the best, but I've rarely seen those for sale in the places of
ill repute where I shop.


For Western Digital consumer-grade drives, black is best, blue is next, green is
garbage.

[Mike Rivers]

On 2/4/2011 4:38 PM, mcp6453 wrote:

For Western Digital consumer-grade drives, black is best, blue is next, green is
garbage.


I've always been happy to settle for second-best, so at
least I can still get IDE Blue Western Digital drives
without ordering on-line.


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be
operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although
it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge
of audio." - John Watkinson

http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com - useful and
interesting audio stuff