Newegg raptor 74 gb 2+ = $80 each

if you are a fan of the raptor 'enterprise class' hard drive, and want to get one of these smaller ones for the quicker access you can get with a smaller hd, or maybe to raid a couple, newegg has a deal: normal $100, now 80 if you buy two or more.

my guess is these are no longer being made, and the competition in hard drives has moved on, so they are liquidating these. once the bulk that are now out there in newegg and anyone else's warehouse are gone, the price will probably go up past 100.

I believe that these drives are SATA 1, and they do not support NCQ.

You can't saturate the SATA 1 interface anyway. The NCQ would only be an issue with RAID, and perhaps only with Intel software RAID, "Intel Matrix Storage" manager.

These little 10K drives are hot, small, and I've heard noisy. On the other they're really fast.

yes they are hot and noisy.

i put one in a comp i built for my dad - he is not too comp-savvy, and so he gets really slowed down and frustrated when he has any comp problem.

i used two of these raptors - one 36gb then one of the big ones - as a way to get a more reliable HD.

people's experience seems to be either they run forever, or the failure rate might be higher than the average (reasonably priced) drive. So, if you get a good one, and it doesn't fail in the first couple months, you are good-to-go.

they are noisy - you can really hear them reading - i believe because mechanically, they are different from other HDs - built differently to be 'enterprise class.' that's what you hear.

i think they do run hot. well, i know they do - SMART said they were hot, so I put a fan on the two in his comp, - so add a bit of fan noise, but drive temp is fine.

they are fast.

i was not really sure if they got hot just cuz i had two in the comp, but my comp has 2 drives (neither a raptor) and no fan for the drives, and no problems so far (4 yrs).