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Seagate Barracuda IV or Maxtor D740X? or ... gasp... 120gxp?

W

w9design

Golden Member
I need a cheap 7200 RPM hard drive -- I'd get a 20GB if they weren't $10-15 cheaper than a 40.

120GXP performs far better than the others, but reliability is questionable, to say the least.

The Seagate is a bit cheaper, and quite a bit quieter, but it has the RAID issue. Then again, I'm not running RAID so it doesn't affect me.

So I guess the real question is: Is the Maxtor D740X noticeably faster than the Seagate? Is it noticeably louder? Which would you say would be the most reliable?

Performance is key, but reliability is pretty high up on my list too.

I know no one will agree on the best drive, but I'm listening to opinions.

I'm doing primarily light photoshop and web development -- I've got a mac for video editing & the like.
I had two 30GB 75GXPs fail in a row -- the second one a day old from an RMA, so I got a 40GB 60GXP as a return. Should I keep this drive and hope it doesn't die?

tia

 
I have a 60GB D740X-6L .. it's definitely very quick, and it's completely silent.. yes, completeley... i don't hear a freaking thing... it's a killer hdd... i've used Maxtors alone now for a while and never had a problem... needless to say, i definitely cast my vote on the D740.. I love mine.
 
w9design, I recently installed a Barracuda IV and a D740X FDB drive, both on Abit BH6 boards. I can't do a direct comparison as the BIV went on the BH6 controller, w/ an iPIII-650, while the D740X went on a Promise ATA Ultra133 controller, w/ an iPII-450. However, I was a bit disappointed by the relative noise levels of the drives. I thought the D740X would have been quieter. It wasn't noisy by any means, but it was audible, versus the BIV which is stone quiet.

Visually (isn't that a great benchmark!) I don't see any performance differences between the drives. In a word they're both very good drives. I had what I thought was an issue w/ the BIV I put in my machine and Seagate support was very quick to respond to my emails. Other than a brian f_art by the drive I can't explain what transpired w/ the BIV, but the SeaTools utility gave it a clean bill of health, and it's running fine.
 
Thanks for the input -- I need to get the drive soon, and newegg is sold out of the liquid bearing maxtor -- and from my understanding that only affects idle noise, not the seek noise, which is the loudest.

Is the barracuda IV noticeably slower than the Maxtor?
 


<< Is the barracuda IV noticeably slower than the Maxtor? >>



I think most of the 7200rpm are very close when it comes to benchmarks and how fast they are. You are not going to see a significant difference between Maxtor vs. Seagate vs. IBM vs. WD, with exception of the WD 8mb cache drives. You can't go wrong with either Maxtor or Seagate. I personally have WD, and they run fine. I have a few IBM drives as well, and the only I can tell you is better have a very well ventilated and cooled system. Heat is an issue, and cause some of the problems IBM drives have been having.
 


<< Is the barracuda IV noticeably slower than the Maxtor? >>



If you're not going to be doing any HD intensive applications, then you shouldn't notice it. I have the Seagate Barracuda and I didn't really notice any speed difference until I did some benchmarks. My drive was slow compared to the WD drives. 🙁 Hope this helps.
 
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