HD Selection?

[vegettoxp]

Hye Guys, now that the power supply is out of the way, next month I am planning on which hard drives to get. I have been a BIG fan of Maxtor, but now it is under Seagate. Below is the quick Specs of what I plan to do with these drives.

One HD will be The WD Raptor X 150GB (Main HD)

Atleast 3 to 4 HD for storage and the size will be 500GB Each.

Now the question I have is which brand is good to get. I want a HD that doesn't get TOO HOT, Quiet and Good in Performance. I know there are only few brands out there, but I just wanted to know which would you guys recommend.

Western Digital HD

Maxtor/Seagate HD

Samsung

Plus whatever else you guys recommend.Thx for all the help!

P.S. Fusion

[Zxian]

If you've been a big fan of Maxtor, you've been VERY lucky with their hard drives, or you've got rid of them before they died. Maxtor drives are generally the bottom of the barrel, although they might have improved now that they're owned by Seagate.

My personal preference goes with Western Digital. The WD5000AAKS drives are very quiet, draw less power than "the rest", and have a reputation behind them to boot (ok people - forget about the JB series drives - they sucked).

[vegettoxp]

I do like WD Hard Drives and that why I was planning to get the Raptor X. In the past I had Big problems with WD HD's. They were getting HOT and use to make a lot of noise. I have heard a lot of good this about WD HD's these days. I will look in your choice. THX!

[puntoMX]

Raptor... hum... ...

Take a look at the Seagate 7200.11 series, that’s there last series. They have high sustained tranfer rates and are quiet. Some models even come with 32MB cache . Plus as a bonus, 5 years warranty...

[ripken204]

Raptor... hum... ...

Take a look at the Seagate 7200.11 series, that’s there last series. They have high sustained tranfer rates and are quiet. Some models even come with 32MB cache . Plus as a bonus, 5 years warranty...

i just talked to seagate support and they said that those drives are coming out the first week of september

[SmaugyGrrr]

I always use Seagate. I use a ST3300622AS (7200.9 series) as my main HD, and have 3 of the same as cloned backups (I rotate weekly) and a further three ST3300831AS (7200.8 series) as backups in case any of the others fail or I ever need a drive for another PC. They have a 5 year warranty.

A guy on usenet who repairs drives for a living (he's called Odie Ferrous if you want to google-groups him) *used to* rate Seagate drives as the among the most reliable. He used to use Seagates himself - dunno if he still does. His opinions change.

Below are quotes, in ascending date order, from usenet. I've bolded the main bits if you want to skim-read.

From a post in October 2004:

However, in the past 10 days or so I have had about 20 drives in for

recovery.

11 of those have been a mixture of Hitachi and IBM. (I still think of

them - for safety reasons only, you understand - of being one and the

same.)

Of those 11, 2 have been fixed. I will probably manage to fix all bar

about 3 of them. They are pigs to work with.

The other drives have been a mixture of Quantum, Maxtor (a lot - also

best avoided) Western Digital (nice drives to work with - they do as you

say) and an old Seagate.

Sure, there are a number of factors that throw a heavy bias against my

findings - but from what I see come in the door, and from actually

examining and working with the drives, I would NEVER consider purchasing

Maxtor or Hitachi. At the moment. Samsung also.

Granted the roles may well be reversed in a year or two - Hitachis

manufactured from Monday onwards may prove to be the most reliable

drives ever made. But for my money, I know what to avoid.

From 16 December 2004:

I get a lot of drives through here.

The following is based on drives I receive for data recovery, and my own

perception of the storage market.

I am finding that of the current crop of drives, the Seagate ST series

is the best - I get very few in for recovery. They are my first choice

- by a long, long margin.

The worst are Deskstars. Again, by a long margin. Not only are they

falling over all the time, but they are absolute pigs to recover. This

goes for all their current models up to and including the 123.5GB (I

don't have sufficient data on larger drives to begin including them) as

well as their drives up to 3 years old. Avoid like the plague.

Maxtor are also terrible. I believe (from hearsay and from my own

experience - I do not have official figures for this) that Maxtor are

probably out-selling all other drives on the market. They seem to be

the standard choice for external drive housings, which is madness, as

they appear to be the most susceptible to heat-related failure. They

are also **** awkward to work with. Their overall percentage of failure

rate my not be as bad as that - but I don't know how many drives they

are shifting. I'm only guessing that they are the biggest sellers.

A few months ago I would have listed Western Digital as reliable.

However, I am suddenly seeing huge amounts of BB drives in. (WD800BB,

1200BB and 2000BB.) I see very few JB-configured drives in.

I know that a great deal of regulars on this newsgroup will disagree

with me. Before you start flaming, remember that these are all my own

opinions based on my own experiences and my own perception of the drive

market.

From 27 January this year:

At the moment I am receiving primarily Maxtor and Western Digital drives

for recovery, as well as Seagate drives - but only those manufactured in

China. (Only talking about 3.5" drives here.)

Although I absolutely detest Maxtor drives, if they are placed in a

decent housing (which is not generally available from the major

suppliers - you have to go generic) they can perform fairly well. But

if the cooling should fail, the drive most likely will go as well. They

are incredibly susceptible to overheating.

My choice, based on recoveries I have received in recent months, are:

Seagate 7200.9 (but not any manufactured in China, and not 250GB

regardless of provenance) (There have been some reported problems with

the 7200.10, none of which I have been able to confirm or validate.)

Hitachi (recent / new models 400GB and larger - extremely good

performance)

Samsung (I get very few of these in for recovery - perhaps because they

simply don't have the market penetration of the above.)

Avoid Maxtor and Western Digital with a barge pole. If you are given

one, bin it.

Also avoid anything that has LaCie or Formac or OneTouch written on it.

I would also go so far as to include MyBook, Belkin and anything by a

major.

Best bet is to purchase a retail hard drive and a generic (no-name is

fine, so long as it has cooling - specialtech.co.uk have one that I

approve of, despite its plasticity - but it has an 80mm fan that blows

directly onto the circuitry of the driven and keeps the most susceptible

parts cool.)

From 23 March this year:

I feel that all drives these days (high capacity - 300GB and larger)

apart from:

Seagate - Chinese manufacture

Maxtor - across the board

Western Digital - across the board....

...are reliable.

I received a Samsung 500GB SATA drive the other day - very, very nice.

Quiet, and the quickest single drive I have benchmarked to date.

In my mind, at least, Seagate are losing the edge of being the ultimate

choice of drive. I would quite happily use Hitachi or Samsung.

I've had a few Seagate drives in for recovery (300GB and 500GB) whereas

not one single Hitachi or Samsung in recent months.

From 5 April this year:

WD are right up there with Maxtor as being the most popular drives

through my doors, accounting on their own for about 75% of all my

business.

If I were you, I'd destroy the drive and spit out the £50. Why replace

a crap drive with another crap drive?

Get yourself a Samsung or Hitachi or non-Chinese-manufactured Seagate

instead.

Infinitely more reliable than Western Digital.

Just my (informed) 2p.

From 25 April this year:

Is that Seagate drive manufactured in China by any chance?

I have to say that over the past month, my choice of drive has moved

over slightly more in favour of Samsung and Hitachi - 400GB and larger.

I have a feeling Seagate are going through a bad patch. Must have put

some of the Maxtor staff in charge of manufacturing...

From 8 June this year:

Avoid Maxtor and Western Digital like the plague.

I used to wax lyrical about Seagate drives, but am now seeing quite a

few of these in for recovery, so avoid also.

Best choice Samsung or recent Hitachi. Only 400GB and above - smaller

capacities still sketchy.

[Zxian]

Just a note - Seagate drives are NOT quiet. They started to get worse with the 7200.9 series, and the 7200.10 are just horrible. Ask anyone over at the SilentPCReview.com forums about the quietest drives. They'll say Samsung first, then WD, and Seagate somewhere down at the bottom. The big problem is their seeks noise, which in some cases is on par with Raptors.

I just don't trust Samsung drives yet - they might be great initially, but they don't have enough time on the market to prove their reliability yet.

Oh - another thing - don't get the Raptor X. Just get the plain Raptor. You don't spend hours looking at your hard drive, so what's the point in a window?

[ripken204]

ya my seagate is pretty loud during seek but it is still fast, about 63MB/s transfer rate.

[Zxian]

I get those kinds of speeds on my WD2500KS drive.

That's on a non-perpendicular, low-density platter drive. Nothing really to write home about...

[nmX.Memnoch]

Take a look at the Seagate 7200.11 series, that’s there last series. They have high sustained tranfer rates and are quiet. Some models even come with 32MB cache . Plus as a bonus, 5 years warranty...

They claim high sustained transfer rates. There have been any reviews yet to prove the claims. Honestly, I'd like to see them pull off what they claim...it'll put every other drive maker on notice, that's for sure.

[puntoMX]

Even if they can make 80% of the claimed speed, it’s still going to be one of the fastest drives ever based on SATA .

[ripken204]

I get those kinds of speeds on my WD2500KS drive.

That's on a non-perpendicular, low-density platter drive. Nothing really to write home about...

9MB/s difference

[jcarle]

Seagates are loud, whirring, clunky drives. Nothing really impressive about them. Seagate has very little innovation as well. Western Digital are ahead of the pack in a lot of respects. They were amongst the first to introduce NCQ, TLER. You'll also find StableTrac, IntelliSeek and IntelliPark on the new Western Digital hard drives. That alone, puts them ahead of the league.

[ripken204]

Seagates are loud, whirring, clunky drives. Nothing really impressive about them. Seagate has very little innovation as well. Western Digital are ahead of the pack in a lot of respects. They were amongst the first to introduce NCQ, TLER. You'll also find StableTrac, IntelliSeek and IntelliPark on the new Western Digital hard drives. That alone, puts them ahead of the league.

http://www.wdc.com/en/company/releases/Pre...60EF1AF650FB%7D

is that only for the 750GB drives tho or for the others also? sounds like some good technology.

[vegettoxp]

Man guys, I am learning a lot from you guys. I guess it looking more like either Seagate or WD.

Also I wanted to know if someone know the model number for the Raptor X, the one without the clear panel. I looked around and I couldn't find it. Why spend extra if I dont' even plan to look at the HD once it's inside. So if someone knows the model number, please let me know. Thx!