Hard drive advice

[Mookow]

I've gotten sick of only having 40GB of storage, so I'm looking to pick up a 120GB drive with a 3 year warranty and a 8MB cache.

Newegg has these, and there is a neglible price difference between all of them:
Hitachi
Western Digital
Samsung
Seagate
Maxtor

Are any of these significantly better than the others? I notice the Seagate has a .4ms advantage in seek times. The Maxtor has the longest seek time, plus it is more expensive, so thats out IMO. Do any of these have a reputation for unreliability? I have a fairly well cooled case, an Antec SX1040B with a fan blowing over the HD cage, two fans in the back, plus two in the PSU. None of these fans are particularly high flowing, but they are fairly quiet, too, which is a big plus.

Right now I'm leaning towards either the WD or the Seagate.

 

[Ardan]

If this isn't Serial ATA (which you didn't mention, so I'd assume it is not), then I would say the Western Digital drive. Hitachi's Deskstar 7K250 SATA line is very very nice, I use them and would definitely recommend them. I hear there are Parallel ATA versions online, and if that is the case then I would recommend that instead. The Deskstar 7K250 line is considerably faster in many real-world applications than the Western Digital and especially the Seagate.

For Parallel ATA, however, I would choose that WD drive. We have used an 80GB version of that for a long time in our other computer and it is fantastic. One peice of advice: don't believe anyone when they say the seek times are 'loud' for that drive. You can hardly hear it, and I also have quiet systems. One has a relatively low-spinning 92mm fan in the rear, in a relatively cold room. The WD hardly makes any noise, and the same goes for my Hitachi. I have a 120mm fan in the rear, and a 120mm fan in the front (that just died ) and I still can't hear it.

The new Hitachi's are very very nice, and mine never makes a sound. Yes, you can notice the difference between the two drives. One loads XP Pro in about 6-7 seconds (WD), and the Deskstar 7K250 takes 3 seconds to load XP Pro, never more. It loads games like BF1942 and large files/directories faster as well. This isn't saying the WD isn't fast: as we all know, that WD drive is fantastic. I'm just saying that the Deskstar 7K250 drives are just simply ultra-fast. Acoustic Management appears to come disabled by default (on mine and a friend's it was disabled) on them, and they are still quiet. The Feature Tool *DOES* work with the newest Hitachi HDDs, and you can enable various power-saving modes too.

So, to recap, I would recommend a Serial ATA or Parallel ATA Deskstar 7K250-based hard drive OR a Western Digital SE drive if you can't find one of those. You really can't lose with either of those hard drives .

 

[Markfw]

I like Maxtor for speed and its pretty quiet, Seagate I think is the quietest, and I have heard good things about the Hitachi, I may need to try one of those next.

 

[MichaelZ]

Hmm, all are fine. (I don't know about Samsung though)

Don't take those seek times listed too seriously. If you had SISandra, I'm sure you'll find that those are not all that accurate. My Maxtor 80GB 8MB has a seek time of 8ms and same with my twin WD 80GB's 8MB.

Best value would seem to be Hitachi. I've got two IBM/Hitachi 40 gig 7200RPM drives in various rigs and they've been running strong since I got them around Nov' 2001. So Hitachi gets the thumbs up.

This Maxtor 80 giger 7200 8MB which was the cheapest at the time is also very good. That Seek time of 9ms which you mentioned is nothing I wouldn't be concerned about. I was pleasantly supprised by the report SISandra gave me when I ran it. Average seek time of 8ms and very nice transfer rates.

Finally three 7200 8MB Western Digitals, two 80s and a 120 (this one is rather loud) overall all have been trouble free.

However I find a lot of variation in WD drives. One of my WD 80GBs is a fair bit faster than the other one. Seek time of 8ms vs 9ms. The 120GB I have is loud but the exact same model, which I sold and installed @ work recently was just as quiet as my 80GBs.

Just reduce the companies down to ur favourite 2 brands and flip a coin. There's really nothing wrong with any of them but keep in mind with hard drives there are no guarantees.

 

[Mookow]

Yeah, my motherboard is parallel only, so that's what I'm in the market for.

Ardan: This is part of that line, correct?

Currently shows OOS, but supposed to get more in today. I guess I'll take a look over at mwave. Thanks for the long and informational post.

 

[Cheetah8799]

If you want a quiet drive, go with Seagate. May be a tad slower that WD, but the noise difference is very noticable.

 

[Cerb]

Get the 160GB Samsung. It's $97, 3-yr warranty. Only 2MB cache, but a fantastic deal. The difference between 2MB and 8MB are practically nothing, just that other manufacturers only have a 3-yr warranty on 8MB drives.

The WD and Hitachi will probably be the fastest. The Seagate should be the slowest. With the new 'cudas, Seagate lost its reliability halo--they are all about even.

The Samsung can also be set up for either quiet or performance. It's dead even with Seagate's noise in quiet mode, and the Seagate drives are currently locked (IIRC, the PATA 7200.7 drives are locked into quiet).

Come on Fedex, free me from this WD!
(Got a Spinpoint coming right now, just left NJ)

 

[LED]

I own a couple of the .Hitachi's (SATA Versions) and they top performers so far, come with a 3 yr warrany , 8MB cache (yes it does make a differnce) and run $92 shipped from the Egg...due in any day... There is acoustical software for it as well.

 

[Ardan]

Originally posted by: LED
I own a couple of the .Hitachi's (SATA Versions) and they top performers so far, come with a 3 yr warrany , 8MB cache (yes it does make a differnce) and run $92 shipped from the Egg...due in any day... There is acoustical software for it as well.

Yes, I pointed this out already.

Originally posted by: Mookow
Yeah, my motherboard is parallel only, so that's what I'm in the market for.

Ardan: This is part of that line, correct?

Currently shows OOS, but supposed to get more in today. I guess I'll take a look over at mwave. Thanks for the long and informational post.

Yes, that is the Parallel ATA version. From what I hear, the performance is basically the same. Well of course, though, given that the SATA version uses a bridge . I think my old Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and this drive have the same noise level as well (which would be whisper-quiet).

I agree with whoever else that was that said the Hitachi is the best deal. As you can see, it is $92 for 120GB/8Mb cache and a 3-year warranty and Hitachi has excellent support.
I don't think it is 'locked' into its Acoustic Management setting...I think it is moreso that no software supports unlocking it.

 

[NervousNovice]

Is the Seagate still the quietest?

 

[NervousNovice]

Originally posted by: NervousNovice
Is the Seagate still the quietest?

For the SATA model.

 

[JBT]

Go with the Hitachi I was going to go with a pair of them instead I got a 74Gig Raptor. From all the research they were very fast and quiet too.

 

[AluminumStudios]

Everyone has strong opinions on hard drives because you can't help but feel loyal to ones that serve you well and hate companies that cause you to loose data.

I've experienced faillures of all major brands, with the exception of a few debacles like the IBM GXP's from a while back that had a phenominal failure rate due to defective parts, it's pretty much the luck of the draw when it comes to reliablity.

I do have to say though that in my experience I've seen more Seagates fail than all other brands put together, and as a result I never consider Seagate as an option.

I currently have 9 Western Digital humming away at home and have had a wonderful experience with them. I find their peformance to be decent too.

It's easy to look at numbers and see which drive has faster specs, but remember, once you add in a little fragmentation and a little overhead from the OS and whatnot, small performance difference pretty much disappear in the real world.

What am I getting at? I"m not really sure anymore ... For me, I avoid Seagate and buy Western Digital based on years of experience and work in the field on countless systems (both desktops and servers.)

 

[Ardan]

Well, I do believe he was asking so that he could get input from real users of it instead of going just by the specs. Storagereview does a great job of doing that too. The thing about the Hitachis is that, when you add in fragmentation (before you defragment), they don't slow down much. When I first loaded XP after the install, it took 1 second to load. What is it now after months and months and months? Roughly 3 seconds. It shows up in just about everything else, hence the reason I think he should use them, aside from the silent operation.

 

[Mookow]

I have decided on the 120GB 7K250 Hitachi 8MB cache hard drive (parallel interface). Normally I do my ordering from newegg, but they are OOS right now. I found a good deal at www.zipzoomfly.com, but apparently they have ethical problems with buying bandwidth, because I cannot login before it times out. I hate sites that make you register an account, but I'm willing to do it when they have a good enough deal. But it took ~6 attempts to register, and now that I am, it has taken ~15 attempts to log in, and it still hasnt succeeded.

Anyone want to suggest GOOD sites to order from? Mwave.com doesnt have the model I want. I'll be checking pricewatch+resellerratings, but often AT word-of-mouth is a more reliable method.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

i would recommend a 160gig drive,they are the "Sweet spot" right now for price/size ratio if your not bothing with rebates.

 

[Mookow]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
i would recommend a 160gig drive,they are the "Sweet spot" right now for price/size ratio if your not bothing with rebates.

Actually, you are right. For an extra $10 I can get 40GB more. Going to get the 160GB.

And I started this off looking for a 80 GB drive.

 

[Delorian]

Western Digital drives rule, I've had 4 or 5 of them in the past 10-15 years and they have exceptional quality, only one problem drive which I bought refurbed anyhow, RMAed it and a new drive was back only 4-5 days later. Good drives with good support is definitely worth a couple extra bucks.