Looking for SATA HD recommendations

[grrl]

I'd like some recommendations for swapping out my two ATA HDs for two larger SATA drives. I don't really need more than 300 GB, but will go larger if the price is still around $75 a drive. My two main considerations are heat and noise, as in this price range there doesn't appear to be much speed difference (although I could be wrong.

The System Builders thread recommends either Western Digital AAKS, Seagate 7200.11 or Samsung Spinpoint F1 series. Is there much of a difference between them? I've only used Maxtors, but only because Staples used to have great deals on them.

I remember reading one of the 7200 versions was problematic. I assume it's not the .11.

Are any of the new features significant - like perpendicular recording, parking the heads off the platters or intelligent scanning?

Is the a noticeable advantage to 16mb versus 8mb buffers?

In case it helps, my motherboard is an Asus A8N5X.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The WD6400AAKS is hands-down one of the best drives available. Good size, great performance, quiet, reliable.

It is indeed the 7200.11 series that is problematic. Seagate has released some firmware updates for that series of drive.

But the 6400AAKS performs better than any 7200.11 drive.

 

[grrl]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
The WD6400AAKS is hands-down one of the best drives available. Good size, great performance, quiet, reliable.

It is indeed the 7200.11 series that is problematic. Seagate has released some firmware updates for that series of drive.

But the 6400AAKS performs better than any 7200.11 drive.

Thanks.

From what I've read it seems the WDs run cooler. Do you know if that's true? I know that some SATA drives run hot.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: grrl
...but will go larger if the price is still around $75 a drive.

Is $88 shipped, without rebates, for a terabyte close enough to $75 for you?

Personally, I have two F1 drives, a 750G and 1TB. My case is currently open, so I decided to touch them just to check...they're barely warm, I let my finger sit on them for awhile. And they beat my 80G Raptor in performance. Of course, my Armor has a 120mm fan bolted on the drive cage, so that might have something to do with it...

 

[techmanc]

Hard drives are a funny thing no matter how big they get we eventually end up filling them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: grrl
Thanks.

From what I've read it seems the WDs run cooler. Do you know if that's true? I know that some SATA drives run hot.

Actually, in my HTPC, the HD seemed quite warm, almost disturbingly so. I don't know if that's normal with the 6400AAKS or not.
It has very little (actually, no) airflow where it is.

 

[Marty502]

I just bought the AAKS500. With AAM enabled it runs very cool and very quiet, it loses a bit of performance but I don't think it's something you can notice outside of benchmarking tools, so it's irrelevant. It's much better than my old 7200.10 Seagate.

Any Western Digital drive is a better buy than any modern Seagate drives. Seagates don't support AAM and some series have reliability issues. I have no experience with the Samsung F1 though.