Maxtor Diamondmax 10 / 11 vs Seagate 7200.9

[steviep]

Alright... I don't want any reliability stories, and "which company is better" crap... I just want to know. Which DRIVE is better? Quieter? Faster?

I am planning on getting a 250-300GB drive w/NCQ and 16mb cache on the SATA2 interface... so I would like to know which direction I should be looking. I am leaning toward the Diamondmax 10, since I've had good personal experience with them... and they are quite cheap now and the newest revision of them have all the features I'm looking for above, but since I'm not looking for personal experience, I just want the better drive :p Opinions? I don't even know much about the DM11 or what they've changed...

[Dark Ember]

Either maxtor drive should be faster than the Seagate drive. The DM11, actually, will blow ANY other drive out of the water in any kind of vibe type situations.

Like I said in the other thread, the DM11 is VERY VERY different from the DM10. Most everything has been changed, and there are a LOT of features and such present on the DM11 that are not on the DM10.

That said, the Seagate drive will probably be cooler and quieter than either of the Maxtor drives.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/154.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&id=154)

[steviep]

Thank you for the response, as always... question, though. I see that the 500gb (EXPENSIVE!) DM11 will be available soon from a few of my local retailers... but when will the lower priced 200-300gb models be readily available? I don't want to be spending more than a couple hundred bucks on a fast storage drive... especially since it's going to cost me an arm and a leg for the 150gb raptor for the OS/apps drive.

The only reason I was even considering the DM10 was that it's available now, and it's priced extremely well.

[banGerprawN]

I agree with just about everything that Dark Ember said. Seagate quieter and cooler, Maxtor DM11 faster.
As another suggestion, perhaps a Western Digital WD4000YR? Excellent performance, cool, fairly quiet, and cheaper than the other two (in Oz at least).