Maxtor or Seagate IV ?

[herbage11]

Trying to decide on a 40 gig HD. I like both the Seagate Barracuda IV and the Maxtor Diamond Max...On Newegg the Prices are Seagate = $78 Maxtor L series = $88. They both look great. So what do the smart people of anandtech think and why? Thanks all for your help

 

[chansen]

Both are fast, quiet drives

Maxtor is slightly faster, but less quiet.

I bought the Seagate.

If it helps, toss a coin.

 

[herbage11]

LOL seems like they are close enough too really toss a coin and be happy. I have not found too many owners of the L series Maxtors w/ the fluid bearings....Curious to hear if they are as fast as other maxtors and quite as Seagate that would be worth the extra $10 they are over the Barracuda . thanks

 

[Mem]

I like my Maxtor D740X(non-fluid bearing version) it`s fast and quiet,may not be the fastest but it`s still a very good HD plus you get the great customer support Maxtor have.

 

[Rand]

I havent heard many problems with either drive besides a few of the Barracuda IV's having a high pitched whining noise, but those have mostly been fixed via RMA and all of the new one's are fine.
Both manufacturers are generally reliable, though personally I'd give the edge to Maxtor.

The Barracuda IV is somewhat quieter, while the Maxtor D740X is slightly faster... and the D740X supports ATA133 if you care.

The Barracuda IV tends to have an abnormally large performance drop when running in ATA33, so if your going to be utilizing the drive in an old ATA33 mobo it will be a decent amount slower then the D740X in ATA33.... but that's a very minor issue since any semi-recent board has at least ATA66.
The Barracuda IV also doesnt tend to take to well to RAID setups, but again that's a relatively minor issue.

Both drives seem reasonably capable of taking an out of spec PCI bus, up to 37.5MHz or so.

I've got the Maxtor D740X (Fluid Dynamic Bearings model), and have been very happy with it. Even with FDB it's still slightly louder then the Seagate Barracuda IV though.

IMHO it basically comes down to this:

If you want performance: Maxtor
If you want low noise: Seagate
If cost is an issue: Seagate, as it's slightly cheaper and pretty close in terms of performance.

 

[herbage11]

thanks for the info all.....good to hear maxtor has great customer support have not had one of them yet....thanks again

 

[jonmcc33]

I use Seagate and I won't use anything else. I got a Seagate Barracuda IV 60GB drive after Christmas and it's been awesome since I got it. It's the best quality hard drive I've ever seen. It has a shield that covers the controller card to help against ESD. What other brand has that? I don't know. The drive felt very heavy, much more than other hard drives I've held. It makes no noise at all. I couldn't hear it if I got right next to the drive with my ear.

 

[herbage11]

thanks .. both Maxtor and Seagate sound like real sturdy drives...that is what makes this so tuff.....did not know about the shield though sounds like a good feature...

 

[Motero]

Seagate Barracudas are great drives

 

[BFG10K]

I stick to Seagate for all of my HD needs and I don't bother with anyone else. Seagate drives are fast and quiet.

 

[herbage11]

I have heard nearly nothing bad about Seagates..Looks like it is the way to go....thanks all

 

[Bozz]

I have a seagate hard drive and so does a friend so that makes them the best in the world

Just kidding

 

[BD231]

Yeah go with the Segate man, their great.

 

[ssanches]

Both are good HDDs. I prefer the Seagate even though it's marginally slower because of it's excellent acoustics.

 

[jorken]

I'm getting a new 80 gigger within a week and was considering either maxtor or seagate. I think i'm going to go with the seagate, no specific reason why really, i just... felt like it

 

[agentK]

i really apprecieate Seagates shield. it makes handling much easier.