Want to upgrade my empeg and get two 60 gig drives. A quick search on Pricewatch shows that a Toshiba 60.0GB UIDE, 9.5mm 13ms 4200rpm 1MB DMA100, drive is about 205 bucks. Is this a recommended drive for the empeg? Anything else I should consider before buying these drives?

- Thanx
- Jon

Greetings!

First time I have ever seen a non-IBM 60GB hard drive. I have not had any problem with the 60's in general, if that is of any help.

I would goto www.dellhome.com and snag a couple IBM 60giggers. Their not much more than the toshibas you listed. Personally I think the IBMs are worth the extra money over the toshibas. Aslo you might wanna search around and see if there are any dell coupons you can use. Good luck.

I agree with cblake. In fact, here's what I found when I hopped over to Dell's site:

I dropped 2 x IBM 60GB Travelstars into my cart and tried some coupons. I couldn't find any that worked. But there are two promotions running on the site - 10% Off Data Storage and Free Ground Shipping. Total came out to $415.93, shipped. That's about $208 a drive, and the best deal you'll find.

How do you get the 10%? I can't find it on their web site...

- Jon

It popped up on its own, once I added the drives to my cart.

It worked when I went in as a home user. For some reason, it considered me a small business user before...

- Thanx all!
- Jon

Ok, so that was a good deal. Thanks for the help. Got 2 60 gig drives from Dell cheaper than I've ever seen anywhere.

Maybe you can help again. I'm not looking for a EIDE 120 gig 7200 rpm drive. I've heard that these can be had for 99 bucks, but I can't find one that's close to that price. Any ideas?

- Jon

... EIDE 120 gig 7200 rpm drive. I've heard that these can be had for 99 bucks...

I'd sure like to know who told you that - and where that person found such a deal. I've had my eye on the Western Digital SEs, but I've never seen any drive of that type for that price.

A friend told me that he got one for 99 bucks at a Best Buy type store. He said that it was marked 5400 rpm, but that there was a note inside saying congrats - you got a 7200 instead! He also said his brother bought one but his was actually a 5400. I don't care which one I get. I checked at Best Buy and Fry's - they have good prices on the 80 gig drive, but the 120 still is kinda pricey...

- Jon

IMO, the only way you are going to find a 120GB for $99 is if it is 5400rpm. For me, that's not fast enough. I'm going to start building a new machine next year, but even my current computer (a Dell Dimension 4100 with a few modifications) came with a 7200rpm drive.

Might wanna check out these sites and see what you find. Your not going to find a 7200 drive for $99 though. In fact I don't even know of place that has 5400 120's at $99.99. Good Luck and let me know if you find a super sweet cheap deal.

www.newegg.com
www.mwave.com
www.googlegear.com

EIDE 120 gig 7200 rpm drive

I got a WD 120gb 7200 RPM 2 meg cache drive for $50 after rebates thanks to the pricematching deal that I believe Rob posted over in Off Topic. The local Best Buy wouldn't knock the drive down to $150 since the store was in Denver (about 60 miles from me), but they did knock it down to $170.

Hmm, a couple weeks ago, my friend got a WD 1200jb-se drive, the 120gb 8 meg cache model, for $130 at compusa. Well, it was $230 on sale, I believe it was around or over $300 normally. Then, there was a $100 mail in rebate. I thought that was a sweet deal. He got the last one in the store, but I let him since his HD had just crashed the night before, and hence needed the immediate replacement.

The WD1200JB drives (120MB, 8MB cache) go for C$300 at my local distributor now, so they should be available for around/under US$200 nowadays. I have one here, and so far it gets good marks -- very rare for anything from "make it cheaper" WD.

-ml

wow! I waited months for the prices to come down and finally paid over 300 for a 60gb IBM a few months ago.. this is CHEAP!

Dell sent me a note today (the day my 60s were supposed to ship) and they are now delaying shipment, possibly until the 16th. The weird thing is that you can't even find the 60s for sale on their web site anymore. The guy that I called to ask about it says that they probably stopped selling them...

Hm.

Anyone know if someone price matches on line? I could send them my Dell receipt...

- Jon

they did the same thing with the two 40 gigers i ordered during one of their insane deal sales. I got them in the mail 2 days later... but they are STILL sending me emails saying that they are delayed. I'm hoping to see 2 more show up soon. =]

Greetings!

I had that happen also. In a burst of uncharacteristic honesty, I called them and told them the order arrived. They were genuinely surprised that I got the disks. Apparently, they are OEMed from another source, and that source had not sync'ed the orders yet. I don't know if they would have ever sync'ed (and charged my credit card, since they have to revoke the charge if the order times out) without my calling...

You very well may. When my sister's computer didn't arrive on time, they apologized and sent another with the same specs. The second one arrived on time, and then the first arrived shortly after. But we were also honest, and sent one back.

If you're still looking, check out the link below for a better price on an IBM 60 Gig drive. It's only a 5400 RPM, but I don't know anything about laptop drives. Do they come any faster than that? What are the ones that shipped with the Empegs?

And while we're on the subject, if you buy the hard drives yourself, you have to install them yourself, correct? Does SonicBlue still do upgrades?

Anyway, hope this link helps.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=882570

So Dell ended up screwing me on this order. They cancelled it without even contacting me...

Anyone have another lead for a similar deal? I want to buy 2 IBM Travelstar 60 giggers...

- Jon

Well www.newegg.com has them but they are kinda pricy there but I ordered some 40gb Travelstars from them yesterday. Dell had an almost too good to be true deal going with the travelstars and free shipping to boot. Also it says "usually ships in 1-2 weeks" below their hard drives. Eck! Thats really slow.

-Calvin

I had my Travelstar 40gb from them in under a week. Of course they seem to be confused somehow, their status page shows it hasn't shipped.

Just a quick update.

After 2 emails to some high powered Dell execs including Michael himself and 4 or 5 of his VP's, they've agreed to reimburse me for the difference in price if I order the drives from someone else.

I was pretty upset that they 1) cancelled my order without even informing me and 2) when I called to find out why the support person told me that the systems were down and that I should call back in 2 hours. When I did that, the support person I got this time told me "oh yeah, I know which department told you that... The systems weren't down, they just decided to blow off their customers! Unreal customer service!

A little tenacity can go a long way...

- Jon

Errrr.. I just ordered 2 40gig Travelstars from them. Hope they are decent about it. Anyone order notebook drives from them lately?

-Calvin

I too just placed another order from Dell for a 120 GB WD 8 meg buffer HD. Their price was too good to pass up. 157 delivered... and I'm a glutton for punishment.

I still haven't had confirmation that they have shipped the drive... I am starting to really distrust Dell.

- Jon

Greetings!

I must be one of the lucky few.

I ordered four of the 60GB drives (2 to upgrade LabRat, 2 as a gift - shhhh...). I received all four drives almost immediately (2-3 days). I then got a whole bunch of spam saying that the order was delayed and that they would try to get them out to me in the next few weeks and that I would have to call them and tell them to keep the order active or they would cancel it.

Eventually, in a fit of honesty, I called them and said I got the drives. They were genuinely surprised. Apparently, they are all shipped from a third party supplier, and the databases for the order had not sync'ed. There was no record at Dell that the order had been fulfilled - at all. I told them it had.

I then received paper invoices & credit card charges for three of the four drives, and more of the same spam for the last. I was honest once, so I let this last drive slide to see if they would figure it out. Eventually (read this as yesterday) I received the paper invoice and credit card charge for the last drive.

Dell really needs to get its act together, "dude"... At least for the peripheral sales department. I don't know about the rest of their purchasing system.

Ok, I've been burned again by Dell.

Here's the description of what I ordered:

"Hard Drive, 120 GB, 7200 RPM, Average Seek Time 8.9 ms, Internal, 100 MBps, Ultra ATA/100 Interface, 8 MB Cache, For Dell™ Desktop Systems"

Of course, what did I get? A drive with a 2 MB cache!

Argh!

That's it, I'm giving up on Dell.

- Jon

Was it a Seagate?

Nope, was a Western Digital.

- Jon