Feb 17 2009 - Serial ATA may be the dominant interface on new computer systems, but those with an older computer looking to increase their hard drive space may only have an IDE interface. Unfortunately, the major hard drive manufacturer's have all but stopped producing IDE drives in any sort of quantities. This means that the drives available tend to be smaller capacity and more difficult to find. Here as some of my recommendations based on my research and experience for those looking for drives to expand their existing IDE interface based computers.
1. Best Capacity - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB
©Seagate
If you are looking for the highest capacity drive available for the older IDE interface, the choice of drives is the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB. This is the largest hard drive that was ever produced for the older ATA interfaces but it is now out of general production. This means that the drives are not as easy to find and generally carry a fairly high price compared to drives that are smaller than it. In fact, it is generally possible to buy two 500GB drives for the price of this drive. Still, if you need to get the most space on a drive with this interface, it is the drive to get.
2. Best Capacity Alternate - Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB
©Western Digital
While Seagate did manufacturer a 750GB hard drive, it is difficult to find them at reasonable prices these days. As a result, the highest capacity drive that can be readily found is the Western Digtial Caviar SE16 500GB. The drive does only have half the capacity of SATA drives but at least the price is not too much more than a 500GB SATA based drive. The drives performance is fairly good thanks to its high data density and 16MB cache but will be limited by the IDE interface. For those that need extra capacity for their older PCs, this is the drive of choice right now.
3. Best Value - Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 500GB
©Hitachi Global Storage Technologies
For those looking for the best overall value, then you are looking for the drive with the lowest price per gigabyte. This goes to the Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 500GB drive with an average price per gigabyte of 12 cent that is very low for an older IDE based drive. While it has the same capacity as the Western Digital Caviar SE16 drive, performance is a bit lower. The drive is also a bit more difficult to find in the marketplace compared to the Western Digital drive.
