• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Best 300 GB Hard Drive?

mrBA1105

Member
I've been hanging around the forums lately and noticed that a lot of you guys favor Seagate much more than Maxtor. I'm currently configuring a system and it seems like the hardest part to choose is the hard drive. I know I want a 300 GB SATA HDD, but I'm not sure which one. My rig will be used for light video editing, entertainment (DVDs, music, etc.), and gaming. Here are the competetors:

Maxtor DiamondMax 10


Maxtor MaXLine III


Seagate 7200.8


Some general questions: does Maxtor's 16 MB buffer improve performance much? How much more quiet are Seagate's drives? All of these drives have NCQ, as far as I know, which one utilizes it the best? Lastly, a big selling point is Seagate's 5 year warranty, would I have to worry about a Maxtor dying young?

Thanks guys.
 
If I'm right I think both DiamondMax 10 and MaxLine III are the same just sold to different markets.

As per your questions.

AT has a review somewhere but I really can't honestly say or to the point of knowing how much of a increase in performance there is from 16MB cache alone. There were other improvements other than 16MB cache that Maxtor included which is tough to isolate from to tell if cache made a big difference.

Can't say how much quieter a Seagate is than a Maxtor (never had a Seagate) but I can say from word of mouth is that Seagate's previous drives were quieter than latest. Which is probably irrelevant in your situation.

Yes on the NCQ question and I haven't seen many comparisons if et all between the 2/3.

As for longevity, I've had my Maxtor for a bit under 3 years so I can't speak for 5 years (or more) but some say yes and some say no when it comes to Maxtors dying young. I will admit I've heard more bad than good but maybe that's just because Maxtor is sold @ more places and more widely available, I dunno.
 
I prefer Western Digital. But of those choices, I'd go with Seagate due to the quietness of their drives and the 5 year warranty they now offer. Even I might start switching over to Seagate drive from now on.
 
Seagate is my favorite company for HD's. Amazing quality and great warranty.

I would personally get 2x 200gig drives for basically the same price though.
 
i read somewhere the new maxtors are quite a bit faster. the new hitachi drives also have 16meg cache btw.

I dunno but segate, but my 2 WD drives are soo freaking annoying, their noise is like resonating with my chassis fan noise or something, drove me nuts, then i gave one of the drives to my dad and things quite down a bit
 
Back
Top