Hard Drive Question

[Burkeville]

Hello,
I have just started using 120 gig drives and they seem to give me more problems than the 60s or 80s. How full should I let a drive get?? Has anyone else had problems like this?
Thanks

[Bob L]

The 120 gig 7200 drives have been all I have been using pretty much since they first came out. I have'nt experienced any problems.

Exactly what kind of problems are you talking about?

Bob L

[Burkeville]

Hmm, sometimes windows will not see the drive at all or say it was unsafely removed. I have lost 1 120 gig drive recently and got a new one on warranty and now it is playing up too . Although it is pretty full . Only 3 gig free.

Every client always has a safety drive. One for storage and one back up that I drag and drop to at the end of every session. Seems to be the fastest cheapest way . Perry thinks this is not good for 10 years plus storage though. Unless I keep a old machine running for that purpose. I still get the odd quarter track and even f1 tapes in. Thankfully I still have the machines.

kb

[Bob L]

I have noticed that sometimes things can get weird when people are using the ATA-100 port on some motherboards, which probably require special drivers to be installed.

I have seen drive performance and stability go up drastically by re-connecting to the ATA-33 port (if the motherboard has a choice) and removing the special drivers leaving only the basic bus mastering drivers installed.

Many tend to scoff at ideas like this, but I have personally solved many tech issues for many of my users with this suggestion.

Again, this is just a suggestion and may or may not solve what you are experiencing... definitely experiment at your own risk.

Other more technical wizard masters of the hardware may be able to shed different light on this matter.

Bob L