Technical Note

[captain_slinky]

Did you know that an EIDE Hard Drive and a SATA hard Drive are completely different, and you actually need a SATA Motherboard to use a SATA hard Drive?

Well now I know!

Seriously, when I bought the silly thing I thought it was just some silly proprietary bit of title work, no more important than the words "Seagate" or "Western Digital". I had no idea that it meant a completely different type of hook-up.

So now I have a box full of half-a-terabyte mocking me, making me wish I had known what the heck a SATA was. And now I have to decide... take it back and swap for a smaller, more expensive EIDE drive? Or buy a $30 SATA enclosure? 'Twould be nice to have 500GB of storage in a portable USB device... but I've had problems in the past burning data off of a USB storage device on to DVD.

Any suggestions?

Comments

[rogh-sensei.livejournal.com]

Holy God, Slink. Shell out for a SATA-capable Motherboard and get it over with. And while you're at it, make sure it's got PCI-Express connections for your new video card.
COMPUTER MAKEOVER YAY!

If this is not financially feasible (And I have the names of some very good and reliable online stores) then the SATA enclosure is far superior to the EIDE HD.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess i *could8 liquidate some of my off-shore holdings and cash-in some of those long-term investment bonds to get a new motherboard and video card... :P

Going with the enclosure :)

[rogh-sensei.livejournal.com]

You're daft or just uninformed if you think it costs THAT much to overhaul a machine. Try Newegg.com or Tigerdirect.com for some great great deals on some serious hardware.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Naaaaah... the point is that we have *no* money. Shelling out $90 for a hard drive was strapping enough!

[rogh-sensei.livejournal.com]

Aaaah. That I can understand. :)

[hallerlake.livejournal.com]

Get the enclosure (and spring for Firewire if you can, it's tons more reliable as far as transfer rate vis a vis USB2) - adaptors are rather hit or miss from my perspective.

[collisions.livejournal.com]

This may not be helpful, but I have 2X 160GB IDE drives that I used to use before I put in SATA ones. Don't know what you are trying to accomplish in general, but 320GB of storage may help.

If you are interested, let me know.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

That's actually very very helpful, considering that what we're trying to accomplish is just to get a bit of storage space available so that we don't have to immediately burn stuff to DVD then delete it to make more room on our hard drives! What would you like for your drives?

[collisions.livejournal.com]

If you are unable to return the 500GB drive because it's open, I'm interested in that - we can talk about if you want a bit of cash thrown in as well.

If you can return it, go ahead, and we can talk offline about a trade. I may require the head of one of my enemies. Or something.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Sounds good! We'll see what can be done!