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New Hard Drive - Maxtor or Western Digital

C

CotswoldCS

Senior member
I'm in the market for a new hard drive to temporarily replace two IBM Deskstar 75GXP drives which I have had to RMA.

I'm only looking at a 40GB. I may buy another depending on what happens with my 2 IBMs.

Here is my shortlist

Maxtor Fireball3 40GB UDMA133 £56.39
Western Digital Protege 40.0GB UDMA100 £57.57
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus8 40GB UDMA133 £61.09
Western Digital Caviar 40.0GB UDMA100 £62.27


I hear that Western Digital drives are the best buy these days. I have bought and used both and been pleased.

I have ABIT KR7A-RAID-133 mobo. The Maxtor drive is the only one (on my list ;-) ) that supports the 133 interface but is it really going to make much difference. I understand that WD drives are faster?

Reviews & Benchmarks - I have read This review but does anyone know of any others?

What's the difference between Protege and Caviar and Fireball3 & Plus 8 ?????


I'd love to hear from you!
 
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus8 hands down, when your talking very little price differance between 5400 rpm and 7200rpm its a no brainer. And even if you resell the drive it is easier to sell a 7200rpm drive b/c some idiot will crap your thread and say 5400rpm is worthless (which I do not subscribe to that theory). Also the Caviar is a close second but it is older technology and the DiamondMax Plus8 uses 40gb per platter tech, and gives higher data density and should be much faster. Also the DiamondMax Plus8 uses some 541DX technology which has a set aside parking position so it is near impossible to get damaged clusters and what not in shipping etc.
 
IBM 120GXp. I'm sold on them. Also had good luck with Maxtor so far. Never dealt much with WD in the last few years, just back in the day. The 120Gxp is a solid line of HD's. That's what I would go with. Also ata133, is just hype, your board won't be able to take advantage of that until serial ata.
 
For me to pick one of the WDs is a no-brainer.

I actually have 4 WD drives running in the 3 machines here, with 2 of the drives being 7 years old. All are running perfectly (knock on wood).

I've witnessed 2 Fireballs live up to their name - they actually caught fire -- 2 separate incidents. (Used to work at an ISP, certain servers, particularly usenet news servers, eat harddrives for breakfast).

P.S. Much like your situation, one of my WDs is replacing a Deathstar.

Going by the spec sheets on WD site here and here, the protege actually has a bit faster transfer rate then the 40GB Caviar, but 3ms slower read seek times, which I think will end up more important for most uses.

I haven't seen anything bad about the DiamondMax, but based on experience with Fireballs (LOL) I would stay away from them.
 
Originally posted by: glugglug



I've witnessed 2 Fireballs live up to their name - they actually caught fire -- 2 separate incidents. (Used to work at an ISP, certain servers, particularly usenet news servers, eat harddrives for breakfast).
Click to expand...




/me laughs out loud!

Anyways. I would say a western digital special edition is the way to go. It has a slight edge over the others. Between IBM 120gxp, Maxtor and WD. You really cant go wrong. I wouldnt get a IBM lower than 120gxp though. Most of the ones under that really blow. 120gxp is nice though. Maxtor is always good. Ive never had problems with a maxtor. WD is similar to IBM in terms of technology. All 3 brands are good. Seagate is another good brand. (I guess as long as you dont get a fireball? LOL) Its really what you can find for the cheapest ammount of cash. This last month has been gold to buy a hard drive. Ive bought a 40gb WD for $20 after MIR, a 60gb WD for $30 after MIR, and 2 WD special eds for $72 each.
 
I don't know how much they'll cost over there in the UK, but the WD 400JBs are the fastest 40GB hard drives you can buy, and they still come with a 3 year warranty. Those are the Special Editions with the 8MB cache, just in case you're not familiar with them. They have only one platter with 40GB on it.
 
Thanks for all your posts!

I think I'm going to go for the Western Digital. The 3 year warranty has sold it. I never expected problems with my IBMs when they came out new, but after reading all those threads on AnandTech about 75GXPs I was not surprised when my 2 drives packed up.

I can only find the WD400BB models here in the UK. Anyone know where I can buy a WD400JB in the UK????


 
Right choice. My Maxtor 40G (made by Quantum) died with the click of death after 13 months. I lost all my precious data.

I don't trust Quantum(Now Maxtor) anymore.
 
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