Best 500gb HDD for (budget) performance

[googlemad]

We have a number of ex classroom P4 2.8ghz systems in our back room which are to be redeployed over the summer to general staff.

 

Anyway since DDR PC3200 prices have shot through the roof and these systems have 5400RPM 2MB cache 40GB IDE drives in I was thinking there is a larger performance gain from new 7200RPM 16MB cache SATA drives. And we can recycle them a lot more universally than RAM.

 

Could anyone recommend a good 500gb HDD from CCL? And am I right in thinking it appears to be the best capacity/price ratio? (It seems overkill but seems stupid to purchase half the capacity for a few quid less!)

[3s-gtech]

Best drives for this sector seem to be the Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives, I think the 500GB is readily available. The 1TB is much quicker again, but probably not worth it for your needs. How much RAM do the PCs have - 1GB should do fine but the best place to pick up some more cheap is Ebay.