Samsung Vs. Western Digital Vs. Hitachi 160gb

[stingeragent]

Well, I've decided to upgrade from my ancient 13gb hard drive and get a 160. Can't decide on which brand though. I've always used western digital and had no problems, and don't have much experience with those other 2 manufacturers. From what I've read lately though, many people have problems with the newer (aka bigger HD's then I've had) drives from WD. I have read that most people don't have complaints on Hitachi and some people have either have soley good experiences or bad ones with samsung. The exact models in question are as follows.

Western Digital WD1600JB 160gb 7200rpm 8mb buffer
Hitachi HDS722516VLAT80 160gb 7200rpm 8mb buffer
Samsung SP1614N 160gb 7200rpm 8mb buffer

The specs are obviously pretty much the same, and the price for all three hovers around 95.00 shipped. So from here is it just a matter of eeny-meeny-miny-mo or is one clearly better than the other two? Thanks.

 

[stingeragent]

Forgot to mention, that all three are the EIDE versions.

 

[Mik3y]

why not seagate? they're one of the best drive makers with the drives being faster and quieter then competition. of the 3 you listed, hitachi would have to be my choice. IMO, seagate>hitachi>samsung> maxtor>western digital.

 

[Texun]

Seagates have received great reviews but my luck with them has been absolutely horrible. Three out of four have done dead with the longest running one lasting 7 months. I've used Maxtor and only had 1 out of 9 fail within 3 years. However, current reviews aren't as good as they one were so I decided to skip them when replacing my last Seagate

I went with the Samsung you have listed above. It's too new to know how well it will hold up, but regarding the noise and performance you asked about, I can tell you that it runs great and I haven't heard a sound from it in the 2 weeks that I have had it installed. It's super quiet. Can't comment about Hitachi though.

 

[CplusE]

Overall performance (access speed, heat, stability) of Samsung HD is inferior to other competitors' products. Hitachi, former IBM, is just so so.
WD is fine, and Seagate is also worth buying.

 

[Texun]

Originally posted by: CplusE
Overall performance (access speed, heat, stability) of Samsung HD is inferior to other competitors' products. Hitachi, former IBM, is just so so.
WD is fine, and Seagate is also worth buying.

Based on what? Is this a benchmark or something you can feel? I can't feel any difference between the Samsung over the Seagate.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I say seagate. They will be reliable, quiet, and decently fast. They also have a VERY nice 5 year warranty.

 

[jpthomas]

I have the SATA version of the Hitachi you listed. No problems so far, the drive is fast and quiet.

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: CplusE
Overall performance (access speed, heat, stability) of Samsung HD is inferior to other competitors' products. Hitachi, former IBM, is just so so.
WD is fine, and Seagate is also worth buying.

the only two recent EIDE drives i had were samsung and seagate. the samsung crapped out on me, got a replacement and now its running like a champ. cant comment much on speed, they are both sufficiently fast and cant tell the difference. samsung is noticeably quiter tho. if you check the benchmarks, seagates are always the worst performers. i just got the drive cuz it was cheap and known to be quiet, thinking performance difference isnt anything to write hope about for everyday use ( and it turned out i was right about it)

 

[Arcanedeath]

Performance wise the IBM/HGST drive is the best, followed by the Samsung or possibly the WD depending on what type of platters it uses (eg 2 80 or 3 of something else, the 3 platter performing worse) both the samsung and IBM/HGST drives have fluid bearings the WD may not although if it's a newer drive it should. They all should have a 3 year warrenty if you get them OEM, the Samsung makes the least noise if that is important to you. In this case I'd go w/ the IBM for performance or the Samsung for noise, they all perform very similarly. Hope this helps...

 

[Yanagi]

I would og for the HItatchi one. I h ave 2 IBM drives in my current rig. they work flawlessy and i have never had any problems with them.

Just wondering since you have a 13gb harddrive. Whats your system specs? You will need a fairly new comp to take advantage of the whole storage room there without an PCI addon card.. Just to give you a heads up..

 

[IQJUMPuw]

Our of those 3 you've listed, I would definitely go with Samsung. I've just about had enough with WD... I will never EVER buy another WD HDD from now on. Also look into Seagate and Maxtor. One very interesting thing is Seagate is known to be the quietest drive you can buy, but believe it or not, Samsung is even quieter. I don't know how they did it, but Samsung's new HDD's are pretty impressive. Samsung's old HDD's used to suck.

 

[konakona]

spinpoint80 :thumbsup:
spinpoint40 and earlier models :thumbsdown::thumbsdown:
i dont even like samsung as a manufacturer, but gotta admit their newer drives are nothing short of amazing.

 

[stingeragent]

Ok cool, thanks for the help. I think I've narrowed down my choice now to either the Hitachi or Samsung. I haven't really checked into seagate much and its the more expensive of the 3, so I think I'll steer away from it on this purchase. As for my system specs, they fairly good as compared to my HD. Its about the only thing I haven't upgraded. Athlon Xp 3200+, 512mb ram, GF3Ti 200

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: BurnItDwn
I say seagate. They will be reliable, quiet, and decently fast. They also have a VERY nice 5 year warranty.

Agreed

Or if you really don't want seagate for some reason the Hitachi. Though still I would go seagate.

 

[Zepper]

There is a comparison of current drives on http://www.storagereview.com - just browse down the home page and you'll find it . There also is a stand-alone review of the Samsung 160. Apparently the WD has a pretty poor reliability record per that review. But that isn't compensated for the well-known fact that the dissatisfied will take action (such as posting to the SR reliability survey) where the satisfied will just sit back fat and happy... I would probably go with Hitachi, Samsung or Seagate and expect the Samsung to perform slightly worse than the others except re. noise where the Samsung is positively spooky.
. WD has slipstreamed FD bearings into the latest production per the same review.
..bh.

 

[Varun]

I have a Spinpoint P80, and it's a very fast drive (8MB Cache model) and it's dead silent. I have to vote for the Samsung as I spent a lot of time doing the same research you are doing right now.

 

[beatle]

I won't buy another Hitachi drive until they speed up their RMA process. 1 month turnaround for a failed drive is pretty pathetic.