Hard drive choice

[uOpt]

Hi,

[EDITED because both WDs are actually Caviars]

I'm going to throw out my 4 Maxtors now that 2 of the 3 which I bought a few months ago failed or begin to fail. Bummer. My previous Maxtors all worked

I think my choices come down to either:
- Seagate barracuda ST3200822AS (200 GB for $128)
- WD Caviar WD2500JD (250 GB for $149)
- WD RAID special edition Caviar WD2500SD (250 GB for $210)

I am tending to the Barracuda which I learned is fast and reliable and many people like it.

However, two things keep me:
1) 250 GB would be a big advantage for me, I try to keep the number of drives low
2) heat, the barracuda is supposed to get pretty hot
3) noise. I heard different opinions abut the Barracudas, some say it's loud, other says it is quiet. From what I learned they have the lowest idle noise but the noises raises dramatically on use. Can anybody confirm this?

So, what's you opinion, is the WD JD (non-RAID special edition) nearly as fast and reliable as the Seagate? Is the Seagate loud on use and produces more heat?

What about the RAID special edition? Is that worth the money if noise and low power consumption is what you want?

 

[uOpt]

Shameless BUMP.

Anyone got opinions about Caviar versus Barracuda?

 

[Regs]

I am a little confused when you reference the WD Caviar as "RAID Special Edition". Is there a product description of this?

 

[PumpActionWalrus]

The Seagates are extremely quiet, I cant hear them over my 2000 rpm case fans. I thought they were broken when I first got them because I couldnt hear them running before I got my controller. AS far as heat goes, they rarely get warm.

 

[tfinch2]

get the seagate

 

[uOpt]

Regs, this is the drive I'm talking about:
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=22-144-179&depa=1

Probably not a big deal and not worth the money over the other caviar. When I initially posted I thought this is an entirely different drive.

 

[n7]

I actually would prefer Seagates, but i have two of the 250 GB WD Caviars, since my case only fits four HDDs, & getting the largest within reasonable price was my goal.

They have been awesome thus far, & are not noisy at all.

If you can live without the extra 50 GBs, the Seagate would be the best pick due to longer warranty, however.

 

[dug777]

If there is a longer warranty involved (i kinda gathered that from the other posts ), then go the seagates- i am sure that they are quite acceptably quiet- as you have i hear many conflicting reports of the noise levels- but i suspect that it really comes down to how noisy your case is right now, how noisy your computer environment is- and whether noisy HDDs sh*t you to tears- i suggest (if u can) either playing with both at the shop- or seeing if any of your mates have one to have a play with

From personal experience (160GB WD Caviar) the WDs are very quiet at idle- but i can hear it when it is under use, a couple feet from my thin alu case with 2x80mm case fans, stock xp2000+cooler, and a 9800pro..if that helps

 

[Elcs]

Apparently according to the Western Digital Warranty program/tool on their website, my brand new 200GB WD SE has 4 years warranty.

I havent been disappointed by any of my WD HDDs so far however my 1 and only Seagate is a 420mb thing which still works 6+ years on.

 

[uOpt]

Noise is a primary concern for me now that I don''t have my computer on the opposite side of a wall anymore.

I don't care for the warranty as such since I don't think I'll care much for a drive after 3 years. It's not like a trusty motherboard which develops its own personality after all

However, the longer warranty is expressing more confidence. Also, WD did badly crew up in the firmware department a few years back and I resolved to never buy WD again. Of course that was before 2 out of 3 Maxtors died on me...

 

[uOpt]

I wonder whether any or all of these drives has tagged command queueing?

In the SATA world that doesn't seem to be possible before SATA-2, but what about the parallel drives?

EDITEd to add: there's a review here:
http://storagereview.com/artic...30615ST3160023A_1.html

 

[SUOrangeman]

Since you've referenced StorageReview.com, I assume you've compared the drives head-to-head via the performance database? When it comes to storage, I'd trust the guys there before I'd trust the guys here (no offense toward AT intended).

BTW, I have a 36Gb Raptor, 160GB Seagate, 160GB Maxtor, and a 120GB Caviar IDE-to-SATA via adapter in my home system. One of the 160s sounds like it has gravel inside when it seeks. I *think* it is the Seagate, but I am not sure. That's the only one I hear above system fan noise.

-SUO

 

[windraider]

the Raid edition drives from WD are actually a different drive line from the regular caviars. they are subjected to the same rigorous burn-in testing that the raptors undergo before they are sold to ensure their reliability. WD started this series of drives because they apparently were getting lots of people buying drives, slapping them in raid arrays and having them fail. there was a news blurb on them a while back, i'll see if i can find it for you and post it, but that's why the price difference. basically like speed binning chips for higher performance, you get a better drive, (supposedly, mechanical devices still being mechanical devices) but it costs you a bit more. anyway, don't know if this helps your decision or not, but just thought i would let you know.

Cheers

here's the link to the news article about the raid edition drives

Cheers again

 

[erikistired]

i just replaced my 2 seagate 7200.7 drives with a single hitachi deskstar 7k250 drive (120 + 160 vs 250). i know it's not possible, but the system just feels snappier. i know pata vs sata isn't supposed to make a difference, but even booting up just seems quicker, and the system seems a bit quicker to respond. so i dunno.

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
get the seagate

 

[Varun]

Even though you don't have it listed, consider the Samsung. I have one, it's very quiet, and Storage review puts it a bit ahead of the Seagate as far as performance.

I'm quite happy with the spinpoint P80's.

 

[DrCool]

MartinCracaucer
just curious.. but what models of the Maxtors were you having trouble with?

I have three 80GB Seagate HD's, and recently fubared a pin on one of them.. despite my error, Seagate has an awesome warranty, and they essentially do a straight exchange, no questions asked. My drive was 2 years old, and still has 1 year left on the warranty.

I have experience with a Maxtor 8.4GB, WD 15.3GB, 4 x IBM 20GBs, 8 x Seagate 80GBs, 1 x Seagate 60GB, 1 x Samsung 8GB, 3 x Seagate 40GBs, 1 x WD 30GB.

Those are all drives i've personally used over the years. (I'm a computer nut, what can I say)

Out of all those, i've really only had problems with the Samsung which developed a number of bad sectors before it was retired. I also had one of the IBM drives not work for a couple reboots, but after letting it sit over-night, worked fine. The others were all sold, and are probably still in use.

I've never had a drive just QUIT on me, but I've had some close calls (samsung and IBM). I've also pulled some stupid manuevers (due to computer tweaking / upgrading / beta testing, etc.) and lost semi-important data. I now maintain 2 physical hard drives in my personal systems, that way.. no matter what happens to the primary, you'll always have a secondary with your important files.

 

[uOpt]

The drives are 160GB MAXTOR 6Y160M0 SATA.

One went on strike after the computer has been running for months and then I turned it off for some hours. Obviously a case of something burning in and then not liking cooling down and restarting.

The second one showed hard read errors at the end of the drive yesterday. Today it pretends to play nice again but obviously, if it failed me once, what am I going to do? The great thing is that as long as it pretends to work I cannot send it in for warranty

All data not destoryed (= set back to the last backup) is in RAID-5 or on mirrored filesystem, so I am watching the situation now.

 

[uOpt]

WAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I lost my Doom3 savegames!!!

WTF?

There should have been a copy on the local disk in the Windoze box. Where the hell are they?

Maxtor, I will sue your ass off :disgust:

 

[JBT]

I would go Seagate for the 5 year warrenty.