I spent a few months arguing with myself about which hard drive I should get. I wanted the following in order of importance:
1) Reliability
2) Quiet idle noise
3) Maximum performance
To meet my standards, I considered five companies (well, basically all the major options I suppose):
-Seagate
-Samsung
-Maxtor
-Hitachi
-Western Digital (but ONLY their Raptors. I hate their other drives)
I started with Seagate's offerings since they have 5 year warranties and are regarded as quiet, reliable drives with good performance. However, I already have a Seagate 120gb 7200.7 and a Seagate 40gb 7200.7 in two other computers. The 40gb drive is very quiet, but the 120gb drive has a very high pitched noise that I absolutely can't stand. Some people can't hear it because it's such a high frequency. I can hear it though, and it's super annoying. Therefore, I didn't want a Seagate drive, because the 120gb and 160gb drives were the only models I had in mind. They're fairly average performers anyway, meaning the only thing they had going for them was the reliability.
I also considered one of the 16mb cache Maxtor drives for their high performance and decent noise. Judging by the limited reviews on Newegg then, I was apprehensive of their reliability. Around this time I walked into the local computer shop owned by a young guy who focuses mainly on gaming machines. There was a brand new Maxtor 300gb 16mb cache hd sitting in an anti-static bag on the counter--DOA. I know, I know...every company has defective products. Signs were pointing towards mediocre reliability, and that was my #1 concern. Now it doesn't seem like a bad choice, but few people have adopted these drives so far, and I'm wondering why.
Hitachi seemed like a decent choice because they have pretty good user ratings on StorageReview and they're supposed to be fast and quiet. They have that "meow" noise and a weak 1 year warranty, so I quickly dismissed them despite the 20gb IBM "Deathstar" that's still running strong in one of my machines.
I almost went with a Samsung 120gb SATA hd because I'd used one in a computer I'd built for a friend several months ago. It was the quietest drive I've ever heard. There's a design flaw in the Asus K8V-SE Deluxe that keeps the hd light from working with SATA hard drives on the VIA SATA controllers, so I couldn't see the hard drive activity. I could
never hear it either! Of course, the system was built in a very quiet Antec Sonata. Nevertheless, the Samsung was very impressive. Plus, it has a 3 year warranty, and performance was acceptable. For the most part, simple computing in Windows XP felt no different than the Seagate 120gb 7200.7 in my other computer, and the Samsung seemed to outperform my Western Digital 40gb 8mb cache hd. According to HDTach scores, the Samsung had the highest average read speed out of the three drives, meaning I'd guessed correctly.
I happened to use my friend's computer only a couple weeks before I got my new hard drive. One thing HDTach had revealed when I built his computer was a terribly slow random access time of 22.5ms (vs 13.6ms for my WD400JB and 15.7ms for my Seagate 120). I was trying to update my friend's video drivers to the cat. 4.12s for the sake of being up to date, install a couple patches for some games, and a couple new programs. He's just a typical computer user, and hadn't defragged the computer since I built it (the OS has even endured the massive SP2 update since then). The Samsung's slow access time became very apparent as it tried to perform the updates...it took several seconds longer than a similarly fragmented Seagate hd.
I knew I had two choices at this point:
1) Get the Samsung for it's awesome silence and suffer slow access times and defragment more often than usual in attempt to hide that problem
2) Get a WD Raptor.
I had hardly considered the WD Raptors because of claims I'd heard here at AnandTech, like CheesePoofs's remarks. However, I wasn't entirely happy with any of my other choices, so I investigated them a bit further. The first thing I checked out was user reviews. I was amazed by the high user ratings, and especially the number of reviews?there were more reviews for the Raptors than all other drives combined.
As everyone knows, the 74gb Raptor is claimed to be the fastest desktop hard drive on the market. StorageReview and other reviews declare it as such. While reading reviews I noticed that the 36gb Raptor was sometimes nearly matched by other high-end drives such as the Maxtor 16mb cache hds. The 74gb model had a significant advantage over its 36gb brother.
I listened to the audio clips here at AnandTech and noted that the 36gb Raptor sounded appreciably louder than the 74gb model as well. Reviews confirmed this. So, the 36gb Raptor was out. I posted
a thread here asking more about the acoustics, because I couldn?t really tell much about idle noise from the sound clips. I mostly heard that the hd had very loud seek noise, but a few users claimed silent seek noise, as did many reviewers.
By this time (as you can see by the great length of this post), I was growing tired of deciding. I said to myself, ?What the heck?if I don?t like the Raptor, I can sell it and get a cheaper drive.? And thus I went with a 74gb Raptor.
As CheesePoofs says, the Raptors have a high dollar/mb ratio, but it's really up to your needs. In my case, the Raptor fits my needs perfectly and is simply the best hd I've ever owned. It's completely worth the high price tag in my opinion.
The Raptors are built on SCSI technology, which should mean they?re built for reliability. Like Seagate hd's, Western Digital's Raptors carry 5 year warranties. WD usually doesn?t provide long warranties, so this suggests they have more confidence in the product. I've kept all of my hard drives for longer than 3 years, and I feel better knowing that the hd should last until I decide I?m done with it. If not, I?ll know that I can have it replaced if it does fail after 4 years. That took care of the 1st hd attribute I?d looked for.
My 74gb Raptor is silent when idling, just liked I'd hoped for. I never hear it while writing e-mails or forum replies such as this or essays in Word. The seek noise is loud, but I've never minded seek noise. In fact, I somewhat disliked the lack of seek noise from the Samsung hd because it felt like the computer wasn?t doing anything (although the thoughts were false). The Raptor?s drive heads move incredibly fast, so much of the seek noise is actually my case panels rattling. If I had rubber grommets such as the Antec Sonata?s hd mounts have, my Raptor would be much quieter. I can tell because the seek noise is hushed greatly when I apply pressure to the side panels of my tower.
The performance is top-notch. My computer boots faster, applications load MUCH faster, games and maps load faster (that?s actually the least noticeable since those take so long), and I never feel like the hd is a bottleneck as I often do with my other drives. It?s just plain fast. It more than fulfills my 3rd hd characteristic wish list.
Go to Newegg and enter search for all hard drives (enter $0 to $9999 in the min and max price fields). After that loads, choose the option to sort by best rating. The Raptors are at the top.
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Cliff notes:
With all of that said, get a 74gb Raptor if you want incredible performance, you don?t mind seek noise, you either don?t need more than 74gbs or you have a 2nd hd for storage, and you need reliability.
If you want silence and can sacrifice performance, I highly recommend a Samsung hd. It?ll keep up with an average hd as long as you keep it defragged.
If you want better performance and a mostly quiet hd, consider a Seagate as long as you don?t pick up on really high frequency sounds like I do. Mine perform well.
Maxtor will obviously be your best choice if you want speed and an abundance of storage, and don?t need a 5 year warranty. Check out the
the StorageReview Leaderboard.
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