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Which hard drive would you get?

S

suszterpatt

Senior member
Thinking about ditching my two 40GB HD's and getting a single large one to cut down on the noise and improve airflow somewhat. Noise matters, so I decided to go with Samsung (I heard they make rather silent HD'S). From my budget I could either get a 200GB SATA drive or a 250GB IDE drive. Which would be the better choice for a gaming rig?
 
I've noticed that my Seagate 300gb is damn near silent. My 120gb Western Digital is really loud. My Hitachi is pretty silent, but it makes this weird clicking calibration noise every once in a while.

If you're looking for silence, make sure the drive uses Fluid Dynamic Bearings. Most newer drives do, but not all.

There isn't much of a difference between the IDE and SATA performance and noise level, but I would go with SATA just for your "more airflow" reason. You will probably have to pay a bit more for a comparable IDE drive in SATA form though. Keep that in mind.
 
Originally posted by: V00D00
I've noticed that my Seagate 300gb is damn near silent. My 120gb Western Digital is really loud. My Hitachi is pretty silent, but it makes this weird clicking calibration noise every once in a while.

If you're looking for silence, make sure the drive uses Fluid Dynamic Bearings. Most newer drives do, but not all.

There isn't much of a difference between the IDE and SATA performance and noise level, but I would go with SATA just for your "more airflow" reason. You will probably have to pay a bit more for a comparable IDE drive in SATA form though. Keep that in mind.
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Thanks.


Btw, something I've read on Wikipedia about SATA suggests that with my nf3 chipset I'll be stuck with 1.2GB of bandwith instead of 2.4GB... is that right? Are there any ways nf3 could bite me in the arse if I go with SATA?
 
There is no real advantage of SATA over IDE in terms of speed for today's disks. Only thing you get is better looking smaller cables.
 
I just think with the cost near neglible why get the older echnology. I also like having both of my oprical drives on their own IDE channel and my 2 SATA drives on their own. It makes for a faster IO system...
 
SATA- 150 MB/sec
IDE ATA133 - 133MB/sec
(These are PEAK transfer rates, NOT constant)

No matter what, drives are physically limited in speed by the drive itself, not the bus that attaches it to the rest of the computer.

Even though SATA has a bandwidth of 150MB/sec (1st Generation) or 300MB/sec (2nd Generation) the throughput of the drive will be NOWHERE NEAR THAT!

One of the advantages of SATA is that some (not all) drives support NCQ, or Native Command Queing. This arranges the commands to the hard drive in an order that makes the hard drive's head have to move the least amount, resulting in improved responce times and overall throughput. But not all drives have this, and it doesn't boost performance a whole lot.

I will get a SATA drive when the ones that support NCQ are less expensive.

It doesn't make much sense to get one now, when PATA drives are so so so cheap! You have to look at the overall per gigabyte cost.
 
SATA is not really faster, and NCQ doesn't do an awful lot in real-world terms, so I've heard. NCQ is basically old SCSI technology and was one of the reasons why SCSI used to be preferred (still is preferred, really) for database server solutions and so on, where there's a lot of disk I/O work. But a desktop computer does not fit that role.

However, SATA cabling is much easier to route and blocks case airflow a lot less.

Good hard drive brands depend on your goals. For silence, Samsung comes first (at least with the Nidec motors - JVC-branded motors are reputably noisier), then Seagate. For performance I've heard Hitachi wins out, at least apart from WD's Raptor which is literally in a class of its own. However, between 7200rpm drives I doubt anybody could identify the "faster" drive in a double-blind test. I personally bought a Nidec-motored SATA Samsung 200GB for silence and ease of routing (I'm a cabling neat freak).
 
I see, thanks. Could you perchance tell me a model or series number for Nidec-motored Samsung drives? Can't seem to find that sort of info on their site.
 
Seagate for $5x AR in Hot Deals -- it has a 5 year warranty. I'd skip SATA until it actually has more than a theoretical performance increase when running a single consumer drive that probably doesn't even support native SATA.
 
Well, if you don't need the extra 50 gigs, then the SATA. If you need as much space as possible, the IDE one. Performance difference is non-existant as people already mentioned. Ihe only difference is airflow.
 
It's really pot luck whether you get a Nidec motor or a JVC one. Try buying one locally that you can see (they stamp the motor casing with the manufacturer) or find an online retailer that will find one of the specific kind for you. You're unlikely to find one in the fs/t forums.

It's not that the JVC motor is loud, it isn't. It's just not as quiet as the Nidec. Unless you're a silence-obsessive it's unlikely to make a difference. You can try suspending the drive too, that makes it way quieter (Antec uses rubber grommets for hard drive mounting in their better cases, which is similar in principle although not quite as effective).
 
I'm kinda bummed I tried saving $10 by going with a Shuttle AN35N-Ultra instead of a more feature-filled Nforce 2 board a little over a year ago, thus I have no SATA support. So when it came time to pick up a 250GB Seagate from Monarch a couple of months ago, I had to go with PATA. And I fvcking hate dealing with those gd 80pin ribbon cables... I really should've spent $10 more at the time of mobo purchase and another $10 at the hdd purchase JUST to have smaller cables.
 
Wow, the price difference is that big?! I thought a PATA drive was only supposed to be like ~$5 cheaper than a SATA... Anyways, if you really need the extra 50GB, get the PATA. However, if you want thinner cables and less power consumption, get the SATA drive. Personaly, I'd choose the SATA drive, because 200GB is more than enough for me, and the cables are so sexy.
 
"my WD1200JB is silent. a pulled out a maxtor 60gig and it crunches. anything but maxtor."

Sorry must disagree there. You won't know how loud your WD120 is until you get something quieter. I have that drive and it's currently the loudest in my system next to a Hitachi 250gb, Seagate 200gb, Seagate 300gb, and Western Digital 250gb.
 
Originally posted by: suszterpatt
Well, I don't think I'll run short on space even if I get the 200GB any time soon... so SATA it is. Thanks guys.
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HA! Thats what we all said at one point. "I'll never need more than XXX GBs". Well, I am up to 1.6 TBs now. Get the largest you can afford.
 
Originally posted by: Oyeve
Originally posted by: suszterpatt
Well, I don't think I'll run short on space even if I get the 200GB any time soon... so SATA it is. Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

HA! Thats what we all said at one point. "I'll never need more than XXX GBs". Well, I am up to 1.6 TBs now. Get the largest you can afford.
Click to expand...
Note the wording... "any time soon". 😉



Btw, I was told that I'll need to reinstall everything (including Windows). Is there anything I can do to make that easier? I'm thinking something along the lines of backing up the registry and reloading it once the OS is up (new drive's gonna have the same number of partitions and the same letters as the old ones have now).
 
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