Hello I've found a couple of second hand Excelstor hard drives going cheap. I have never heard of the company before though. Has anyone used a hard drive made by them? Are they good and reliable or just cheap tat?
I've seen a handful of people with them, but they seem to be pretty exclusive to the UK. You might try browsing the forums over at Hexus, one of the largest UK PC sites I know of. You might come up with a better feel. Other than the name, I don't know much more about them. For all I know, they could be a rebadge company (it does happen), but I simply don't know.
you say "cheap", but how cheap are they, and what size are they? i would stick with a brand that was tried and tested to be honest, ive always had Maxtor or Seagate, and never had a problem!
Not really the route I'd take, buy cheap get cheap is a particularly evident motto in the component world. It's better to spend a few extra bucks on a tried and true Seagate or Western digital drive than worry about a low profile one. From what I've seen they're cheap for one main reason, they have dinky 2MB caches and that's not something you really want in a new drive, 8MB's makes a bit of a difference speed wise as lets say when you open up program and it takes awhile to load and then you close it later. As you open it again it will load faster as some of that info was stored in the cache, good little investment in my book.
The hard drive is for an 'older' system build that i am putting together. I'm doing it as part of my course in Comptia A+. I've decided to opt for a well known brand, the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 45 10 GB. My system build already has a reliable Maxtor 20 GB HDD but it's rotational speed is only 5400, as apposed to the Plus 45's 7200. My first system build is almost complete now. So far i've put together: PCICASE Hyperline II Microstar DVD ROM Drive Samsung CD-RW Drive ECS P6BAT-A+ Mobo (arrgghh VIA based) Pentium 3 700 Mhz CPU (overclocked to 933 Mhz ) 3 NEC 128MB PC100 Sticks (384 MB) nVidia Geforce 2 MX 400 AGP (32 MB) Maxtor 20GB HDD 5400RPM NEC USB 2.0 PCI card Standard 3com Network card Standard Intel Modem Card This setup would have been 'the shit' 5 years back.
Heh, yeah sure would have, perhaps a bigger drive though. I had no idea 10Gig drives were ever 7200rpm, just no demand for that kind of speed when you're only dealing with a single 10gig platter.
I am slightly moving away from the original topic here, but it is related to my setup. I've got a 230W PSU, I think it is a branded supply but i can't recall the name right now. Do you think it is okay to handle 3 PCI cards, 1 graphics card, 2 HDDS, 2 CD drives, 3 sticks of RAM, an overclocked Pentium 3 (and fan) and 2 case fans?!! What would be the worst case scenario? Would the PSU explode?
I'll come swinging to the rescue here, and first of all answer your first question, i have used Excelsor in quite a few budget computers i've built before. The Excelsor range of hard drives are exclusive to the UK as suggested before, they are actually quite reasonable drives, they are budget hard drives, for budget builds / upgrades in older systems. I have two of the 60GB IDE 7200rpm 2mb Excelsors running in my Gentoo Linux box, i've had them for over a year and a half of solid use without any problems. This drive is perfectly ok for any computer, although performance wise it's more suited to a storage / backup computer or an older system such as your pentium 3, or non-gaming machines. As for your PSU, your PSU is labeled as 230W, this is your MAX output, ie, if pushed as far as it could go due to the power consumption of your computer, it technically should be able to produce 230W of power (but would most likely either not produce that, or blow/fry on reaching 230W). Before you get worried, i must tell you the first thing u must know about PSU's is the fact that the Wattage (too a certain extent) doesn't mean jack-shit A PSU has several different power outputs to your computer, these are called "Voltage Rails", each Rail outputs a necerssary different Voltage, on every ATX PSU today you will find these rails: +5.5V / +12V / -12V / -3.3V and a few more i can't be bothered to list anyway, you're computer requires your PSU to contanstly provide 5.5V (+/- 5%) to the +5.5V line, if it provides to muhc power it will damage your components, and if it provides under 5.5V you will experience problems with the hardware as it is not being powered correctly. The voltages on your PSU are determined by your PSU's Amper output (Amps) on each Rail. These typically range between 0.3A-40A. If you look at the label on your PSU you will understand this alot clearer. Anyway, you're answer.. Yes 230W of your powersupply even if it is a cheap generic low end psu should be enough, although if you have a Phase Change cooling unit cooling your P3 & ur overclocking it by 2GhZ then no.. it wont - but i doubt ur doing (2Ghz = slight exageration). I hope this helps. And if you do have any problems with your computer, disconnect the power to some components so you're JUST running the minimum to run ur computer (video card / 1piece of memory / 1 hard drive with OS on) then add the rest gradually until the problem reoccurs. Then you know what the maximum combination of hard drives / memory sticks / cds are for your power of PSU. Long but i hope.. helpful.
Thanks for your help. Power supplies form a part of my A+ course so your information is helpful. I will have a closer at my PSU and post its ratings over the weekend. Like i said, i don't think it's a generic PSU, more likely an unfamiliar brand.
Just to let you know I haven't forgotten about this thread, I haven't had time to look at my PSU yet. Although I can tell you it is made by a company called 'Sparkle' and is 235W not 230W. Have you heard of this brand before?
Okay, finally the moment has come. I am armed and dangerous with my PSU ratings! Are you ready? Okay, enough of the crap! Here they are in full: SPI Sparkle Power Int'l Ltd Model Number FSP235-60GT Input: 100-120/200-240v~,10/5.5A,60/50Hz Output:235W +3.3v=14.0A(ORG), +5Vsb+0.8A(PURP) +5V=22.0A(RED), -5=0.3A(BLUE) +12V+8.0A(YEL), -12V=0.8A(BROWN) P.G. SIGNAL (WHITE), GROUND (BLACK) FUSE RATING: 5A,250V~ What does this tell you?
