need 3 256Gig HDDs - any good deals anywhere?

[guydewdney]

doign a mates-all-on-bb-so-we-might-as-well-back-each-others-stuff-up-on-an-old-pc-with-a-big-hdd thang..

so need 3 pcs (old P2s will do) with big hdds - the old pcs not a problem - but three new 256s makes a difference ont he price..

any particualrly good deals at the mo?

 

[scotth_uk]

Beware the old machines that will not support the big drives!

 

[guydewdney]

true.. but there are ways round that...

 

[Maff]

ebuyer.co.uk seems to be one of the cheapest at the moment.

 

[frog1520]

Sounds like a good plan!

Make sure you have some decent ventilation in the case - the new big HD's run pretty hot! You might want to look at SATA drives - they have neater cabling than conventional IDE which can help increase airflow.

I've had 8 x 250Gb WD's running in a RAID for about a year with only one failure. And thats with an 8 hour a day disk surface test, so they have been hammered a fair bit.

Of course the problem with big drives is if a big drive fails, you lose a lot of data! If you're only using them for backup though, it might not be an issue to you, but otherwise you might want to look at mirrored disks or some sort of other RAID....

Good luck!

 

[guydewdney]

we thought about raid / mirror - but at teh end of the day thats what we are doing - mnirroring stuff across bb / vpn to just back up important stuff (dodgy video downloads/ digicam photos / emails / documents etc)

speed is irrelevant as its on a 256k line anyway- as is noise (so no cases - so coolign a bit irrelevant - as is reliability to a point)

 

[Maff]

What you need is a cheap Dedicated Server with a big HDD for backups and restores connected to a 100Mbit connection

 

[Flyer]

What you need is a cheap Dedicated Server with a big HDD for backups and restores connected to a 100Mbit connection

Happen to know where you might get one of them, then Matt??

 

[guydewdney]

my brother works for http://www.aspectgroup.co.uk/ - pretty serious it company - hes the it developemtn director or somthing - but thats just cheeky. i already have a 60 gb web server at my disposal (as in the www. dewdney blah server taht i post pics on) - ditto my email (also dewdney dot blah) - so asking for a 250 gb hdd is taking the mikey.. but he does have the equipemt (halon fire extinguishers, massive ups's etc)

 

[uumode]

ebuyer.co.uk seems to be one of the cheapest at the moment.

Agree.. or ebayer (cheap Far East.. have to be careful of the VAT and customs though)

Most economical would probably be a smaller hard disk size X2, than one big largest (more expensive per gb) hard disk.

If you buy it on Barclaycard or CitiCard then you have a 60 day price drop guarantee if you find the price cheaper from another retailer.
This works PARTICULARLY well for PC components or PCs due to the industry's rather rapid price erosion

www.barclaycard.co.uk/Products/Apply/Card_Benefits/Price_Promise/index.html
www.citicards.co.uk

Barclaycard has free extended warranty that doesn't cover hard disks, CitiCard has extended free warranty that covers 'all electrical items' .. whatever that means.

 

[marcos]

but he does have the equipemt (halon fire extinguishers,

Which are now illegal of course.

 

[craigyb]

Do you need PC's or storage space, have you considered NAS filers. These are available from 40 GB to 480GB, just attach to the network, have USB 2 ports for additional storage and backing up. PC's can attach via the network or the USB ports.

Cheaper and less noisy to run than a PC.

Scan used to sell the Buffalo and D-link products, but they only seem to have the D-link and Ximeta in at the moment....

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=118013

Just a thought if all you want is network storage...

 

[guydewdney]

noise i couldnt care less about - its going in the attic. PCs are inherently fixable - that thing isnt really.. you can always find a new MB / power supply etc etc - nice idea tho' - and yes - all i need is mega storage; speed is irrelevant...

 

[craigyb]

I can't really see much going wrong with these things, the buffalo link stations look the doggies, they start at 120GB upwards, just stick 3 of these in the attic. Take up no room and your floor boards wont rumble.

http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/NetworkProducts/HDH120LAN.html

 

[guydewdney]

thats cool but as above...