Which hdd?

[andyl33t]

im building a fresh new system and i need a new hard-drive. i want it to be 250gb-300gb. Should i get SATA or IDE(n00bish question), is SATA faster?
i want to spend about £80 or less. What hdd should i get? why do some drives have higher rpm? what difference does that make? and this computer will be used for gaming. Whats raptor? whould it be better to get one raptor drive and another hdd?
Thanks

[andyl33t]

i will also need a new Dvd-rom drive and dvd-rw drive. What ones should i get? the dvd-rw should be fast and able to write dual layer.
Thanks

[rseven]

Sorry, only one question per post. LOL
Seriously, the Raptor's are WD's 10,000 rpm SATA drives. The are very fast and reportedly noisy. I use SATA drives and yes, they are faster than the IDE's (PATA), and they are very quiet. Higher rpm's translate into a faster drive. SATA's are just a little bit more expensive than the IDE drives and are worth the small premium. The Raptor's are much more costly per gigabyte of storage space. Getting to drives a, asmller rapor for a C drive and a larger one for storage is a nice combo, but it is certainly not within your stated budget.

[andyl33t]

is the only reason that people buy raptors because of the speed?

[rseven]

Yes, I believe so.

[andyl33t]

if i get a 74gb or a 36.7 gb raptor, should i just install windows on it? or should i install my programs on it aswell?

ill probably get a raptor, what other 120gb - 200gb hdd should i get?
also what about the dvd drives?

[cooter]

if i get a 74gb or a 36.7 gb raptor, should i just install windows on it? or should i install my programs on it aswell?

That is what most of us do, proggys and windows on fast drive such as raptor or in my case SCSI and large storage drives for data.

Also SATA is not really faster then PATA unless you have a raptor, it is very negligable. I still recommend SATA, cuz of the cable size. Also make sure your system has SATA ports. Another thing is that a 250-300 gb drive will cost you about $130 US for a 250GB and around $200 for a 300 GB, not sure how that translates to your currency.

Raptors are not nearly as cheap per GB but fast drives are definately worth it in my opinion for your OS and apps and games.

[andyl33t]

Thanks, what make for another 160gb drive would you recommend?

[dark_15]

Seagate and Western Digital are good choices IMO.

[andyl33t]

what about maxtor?

[rseven]

I would go with western digital. I believe they are faster than Seagates and more reliable than Maxtor. I also believe the moon is made of green chesse so, weigh my opinions accordingly.