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need help picking a new HD

mcveigh

mcveigh

Diamond Member
I need a larger HD. eventually it will end up replacing a current 320GB drive in my HTPC.

but first I'm going to use it to back up my wifes PC (500gb in raid 0) so I can wipe and do a clean install without a raid array (she bought it before we met).

I'm thinking of getting a phantom external drive in 1-2TB, with usb/esata. use that to backup my wifes stuff. then swap drives in the enclosure.

1) my question is go with WD greenpower drives or samsung eco drives??? my main concern is durability and quietness.
2) this will be used with vista and XP
3) these will be used for data storage, tv recording and playback.

I think the WD drives have a good track record in those areas. but some reviews say samsung are quieter. I've been reading reviews at silentpcreview and still am undecided.

any input is appreciated!!!!!!!!!
 
nobody?
well I think I've decided I want to get a WD 1.5TB drive, WD15EADS
I remember reading about WD switching to 4K sectors I think and there might be issues with XP.
I'm hoping this one doesn't haven't have any new crap
 
the EARS model are the 4k sector drives
EADS is the traditional one

from most accounts i've heard the green (5400rpm) drives aren't much quieter than the 7200rpm ones, so if you can get a similar price on a faster drive i'd suggest doing that.
 
from what i understand you will be ok, its the EARS drives that have the new 4k stuff, the EADS do not, at least the 2TB one i own does not.

One thing to consider, my 2TB drive makes some annoying clicking sounds when its parking the heads, every 2-3 min. I think there is a firmware tool of some kind that you can use to disable the head parking you might want to look into that, personally i pulled the drive and moved it into my server so i cant hear it. From what i understand the drive will park the head after 8 seconds, i was useing it to store MP3's and the program i use to playback caches the MP3, so every time a song started i would hear a click, it soon drove me insane.

Some info about it in this thread

http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=459272
 
I've got 2 WD EARS 1.5 TB drives, and they are pretty quiet and cool running.
Unfortunately, they keep parking the heads every 15 seconds or so, and from what I read, this will shorten their useful life span. Reading on Seagate forums, they have the same problem with green drives or laptop drives.

I'd think you would want a hd for a HTPC to park and spin down after 30 minutes of inactivity or so. If you can achieve that, a green drive should work for you.

-joe
 
Yeah i was worried about the shorter lifespan as well since im running 3 Seagate 1.5TB LP's in RAID 5 in my server plus the 2TB WD green , so far so good though the seagates have been running strong for 7 months, no bad sectors or signs of early failure. Only had WD drive for 2 months so to early to tell.
 
Rifterut said:
Yeah i was worried about the shorter lifespan as well since im running 3 Seagate 1.5TB LP's in RAID 5 in my server plus the 2TB WD green , so far so good though the seagates have been running strong for 7 months, no bad sectors or signs of early failure. Only had WD drive for 2 months so to early to tell.
Click to expand...

Be sure to check the drives periodically with "smartctl ?? /dev/sdx"
 
anyone ordered from newegg lately? I want either the WD15EADS or WD20EADS. but zip zoomfly is out, mwave doesn't carry them. I just haven't ordered hard drives from the egg the past few years because of their packaging.
 
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