whats the difference between IDE and EIDE harddrive?

[pokergod]

I have to replace the harddrive in my laptop, its 2.5 inches. I think its ide. but whats the difference with EIDE? thanks

 

[vavog]

Almost everything is EIDE these days. Its an 80 pin cable as oppose to the old 40 pin cable. (e= extended). But the question should be is your hard drive IDE or SATA? Sata is standard these days but if your laptop is older, its likely IDE.

 

[LadiesMan69]

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but EIDE only applies to 3.5" drives, the 2.5" only have 1 connector type.

However, if you are talking 3.5" EIDE ... if the new HD is >= 80 GB with >= 4 MB cache get the 80 pin cable as it will make a big difference in how fast your data is transferred from the hard drive to the memory. If hard drive is less than 80 GB or 5400 RPM, it will not make a difference in speed or efficiency.

When buying a hard drive I used to love Western Digital as they are excellent quality and their office is right in Toronto, so if it breaks down, your supplier can get a replacement in less than 24 hours. They have the policy, give us your bad drive, we immediately send out a refurbished replacement. Other companies first try to fix your broken drive before giving you a new one.

Today, I think Seagate is better because all seagate drive have built in cooling gel, 8 MB cache and they are the only drives with 5 year full coverage warranty. All the other manufacturers are at 3 years.

 

[vavog]

Cooling gel? Really? Didn't know that. Cool.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Today, I think Seagate is better because all seagate drive have built in cooling gel, 8 MB cache and they are the only drives with 5 year full coverage warranty. All the other manufacturers are at 3 years.

Agreed.
However I did notice WD now offers a 5 yr Warr on some but not all of their drives. Maybe WD will increase this to all if they see Seagate giving them too much competition in this regard.