General Opinion on Seagate?

[Adango]

The only Seagate drives I've used in the past are the ones that were included in customers machines that I built, and one in my TiVo device. So I don't have too much experience with them, I've only used Western Digital in the past.

I'm thinking about either buying the 80gb or 120gb 7200.7 versions for my new machine.

I know that they are very quiet, but I was wondering how reliable they are...

Also, one of them is going to be sitting in an aluminum external enclosure with no fan, so how hot do they get?

Are they as quiet as everyone makes them out to be too?

So, basically, what's the general consensus?

[NoXPert]

I've got my 60 GB Seagate Barracuda IV still going strong after 2.5 years of near 24/7 service. I would definitely get another Seagate if I needed to. My .02, FWIW. And, yes, it is as quiet as everyone says.

[CrimandEvil]

The 7200.7 series is very good

[Adango]

How hot do they run though?

Would it be alright for a Bytecc External Aluminum enclosure?

[CrimandEvil]

Not very hot.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=74&page=1
http://www.storagereview.com/

[Adango]

Well, as long as they are reliable, it looks like is might be the drive for me.

[tdg]

Seagates are my preferred drive. They're arguably about the most reliable drives made, which is why the prices are usually a little higher that the others. I've still got two 10 year old 550MB Seagates running strong after all the years (knock on wood), and never had a Seagate fail myself, whereas most of my Maxtors, Quantums, and WD's tended to last about 4-5 years before dying or loosing sectors.

My 60 & 120 gig 'Cuda's both run at about 32C, which is usually right around the ambient case temp so they run pretty cool. And they are basically dead silent, I can only hear mine when they first spin up for a second and after that, no sound. The 7200.7 is the better one to get now, it's nice and quiet and the performace is a bit higher than the Barracuda's. The SATA version of it now has a native SATA controller so you'll get benefits of things like command queing, etc that SATA now offers if you go that route.

[MontyAC]

I've owned Seagate, Maxtor, WD, Quantum, IBM. The only drive that didn't die on me was the Seagate.

[Adango]

Well, looks like I'm going for dual 120gig SATAs 7200.7 in RAID 1.

I will also be sticking an 80gig IDE 7200.7 in the external enclosure.

[stub]

Originally posted by tdg
Seagates are my preferred drive. They're arguably about the most reliable drives made, which is why the prices are usually a little higher that the others. I've still got two 10 year old 550MB Seagates running strong after all the years (knock on wood), and never had a Seagate fail myself, whereas most of my Maxtors, Quantums, and WD's tended to last about 4-5 years before dying or loosing sectors.

My 60 & 120 gig 'Cuda's both run at about 32C, which is usually right around the ambient case temp so they run pretty cool. And they are basically dead silent, I can only hear mine when they first spin up for a second and after that, no sound. The 7200.7 is the better one to get now, it's nice and quiet and the performace is a bit higher than the Barracuda's. The SATA version of it now has a native SATA controller so you'll get benefits of things like command queing, etc that SATA now offers if you go that route.

Current SATA controllers don't support command queuing-- although newer generations of them will.

[kovermours]

I've had too many dead Seagate drives, so I use only WD now. They have a 3 year warranty too.