who makes the best SATA hard drives?
- Thread starter TheNeck
- Start date
Having zero SATA drives, I can't say with any authority. Personally however, I'd say Seagate. Mostly because AFAIK theirs are the only ones that are actually SATA, and not bridged IDE drives. The new Raptors may be true SATA, and of course, since I mentioned I have no SATA drives and I could be behind the times here, it may be all manufacturers are now ramping up production and releasing "true" SATA drives.
\Dan
\Dan
Lots of threads on this topic. Do a search to see other comments. Storage Review likes Hitachi best for overall performance, but they cost a little more. For pure speed, none are faster than the WD Raptor 10k rpm, but it's the most expensive per GB. Seagate and Maxtor sort of a toss up - Maxtor is faster but a bit louder, Seagate is the only native SATA drive and a bit quieter, but slower. None are substantially heads and shoulders above the others -- just comes down to subtle differences, personal preference for the manufacturer, customer service, warranty, and price.
I have 2 x 120Gb with 8Mb cache Seagate Barracuda SATA drives...these are so silent...they use liquid beering technology 
)
)I have 2 x 120Gb with 8Mb cache Seagate Barracuda SATA drives...these are so silent...they use liquid beering technology )
)If noise is definately an issue, Seagate.
If you don't mind slightly louder but slightly faster, Maxtor.
WDs I don't like because most aren't fluid-bearing... yet.
Hitachi is be the fastest, but I still don't 100% trust them yet (because of the whole IBM deal...).
You can't go wrong with either one though. If I threw any of them at you, you probably couldn't really tell which was which by using it.
I'm going to put the WD Raptor on it's own as it doesn't really compare with the others...
If you don't mind slightly louder but slightly faster, Maxtor.
WDs I don't like because most aren't fluid-bearing... yet.
Hitachi is be the fastest, but I still don't 100% trust them yet (because of the whole IBM deal...).
You can't go wrong with either one though. If I threw any of them at you, you probably couldn't really tell which was which by using it.
I'm going to put the WD Raptor on it's own as it doesn't really compare with the others...
best performance and the most reliable. noise is not an issue for me. if the drive is noisy, thats ok, as long as its not a high pitched noise.
best performance and the most reliable. noise is not an issue for me. if the drive is noisy, thats ok, as long as its not a high pitched noise.
nitromullet
Diamond Member
- Jan 7, 2004
- 9,031
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The WD Raptor is the drive you are looking for. This was originally designed as an enterprise solution to compete against SCSI. They are the fastest SATA HD on the market right now and they come with a 5 yr warrantee. They aren't cheap though...
--
Nitromullet
Here's real world example for you -- My rig with a 2.2ghz Barton and 2x Raptor's in RAID0 has complete boot into windows desktop, ready for action, from pushing the button to using it -- takes 20 seconds. Its extremely fast.
I have two 200gb 8mb WD SE drives as well and the raptors are much faster overall for most day to day OS operations. lower lantency and fast access....
dew.
I have two 200gb 8mb WD SE drives as well and the raptors are much faster overall for most day to day OS operations. lower lantency and fast access....
dew.
Some reviewer said "who cares if the drive uses a IDE-to-SATA bridge? (In reference to the Raptor) It performs better then the competition that uses native SATA anyway."
And I have to say that I agree with him on that. Just because it may use bridges doesn't mean it's worse.
-Por
Not to be a negative Nellie, but this example doesn't strike me as a very good one. My 2.08GHz Barton with a single Maxtor 120GB IDE drive, 8MB cache also goes from a cold boot to a usable desktop in 20 seconds... Time to boot comes down to way more than just hard drive subsystem...
I think my reply has confused you. It was not an indictment of bridged drives. It was (I thought) the best answer to the question. The OP asked who makes the best SATA drives, and I answered literally, if Seagate makes the only "true" SATA drives, theirs are, by default, the best. I use brigded drives myself in one system. Rather than buy an SATA drive, I simply bought adapters to use my less expensive (because I had perfectly good drives already and wasn't buying new ones) on the SATA ports (I like the thin cables). I am actually a proponent that current SATA is good for one thing only; the cables. The speed of drives, like the Raptor, is acheived by the spindle speed, and not the interface. Even the new Raptor, which was tested at Maximum PC to be "the fastest hard drive" only reached sustained speeds of ~60MB/s. That's well under the current ATA speeds, and less than half the speed SATA can provide. I agree, that bridged or not doesn't matter, as it is the hard drive and how fast it spins that (with current technological limits) determines hard drive speed. Not the bus.
\Dan
There's nothing wrong with WD. The -BBs and -JBs models, which are the most common aren't fluid bearing, which means they're louder and develop a whine over time. The -PD model is what you should look for, if available.
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