[conspire] new computer?I

[paulz at ieee.org]

 First,  I am thankful for all of the constructive comments.  

I did a little "window shopping" for components.  If I open my box and put in new motherboard, new CPU, RAM and storage, I can expect to spend $500 - 600.   That will get me more cores and more storage than I had before.

One area that really affects the price is storage.  
2T HDD  $504T HDD  $752T SSD  $250-350
I've seen the benefit of cache on a HDD, but I need some more reason for the delta dollars.
Now if instead I get a laptop, I get a new display, keyboard, power supply and case which I don't really need.
+++Now regarding "failing drive". 
Booting Debian has become problematic.  /  is on the "bad drive".
On two different computers, the SeagateToolKit says "No device mounted"On both computers the WD Data Lifeguard recognizes all of the devices.  Even found SSD on USB port.
When I am 110% sure that I have absolutely all of the important data files safely copied, I will try more tests including write 0's.


    On Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 12:49:39 PM PST, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:  
 
 Quoting Tony Godshall (togo at of.net):

> I would go with modern SSD and an IDE adapter (msata-ide) over buying
> actual legacy IDE drives.

There was no real question of Paul being in the market for a new PATA
('IDE') drive, even if the (allegedly) failing drive had been PATA,
which it wasn't.  If that _had_ been the case, and he wanted to replace
the (allegedly) failing PATA drive, the logical replacement would have
been a second, large, modern SATA drive on the motherboard's second 
SATA connector, not anything new including an mSATA-to-PATA adapter on
either of the two PATA connectors.  Because KISS.

In addition, the guess that the drive is failing does not IMO seem
well-supported.  The obvious thing Paul should try is the Seagate
Tools's so-called 'zero fill erase option', which I mentioned upthread.
This is, I gather, Seagate's current implementation for IDE of the
traditional low-level format routine.

I mention this because one should always attempt to recondition
allegedly failing hard drives with low-level formatting before giving up
on them, unless there is some separate reason for getting rid of them,
like they're ridiculously small and/or slow for the current year's
needs, or they keep emitting smoke, or they are now cruising at a
constant zero RPM.

But, as you say, I would definitely consider SSDs first if pondering a
drive replacement in preference to a new hard drive.  The benefits are
ludicrously large.

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