Hard Drives - brands and SATA

[CostarPie]

Heya,

considering getting a new HD, for more storage and had a few things to consider:

1) SATA or PATA

ok no major performance diff between them but i was wondering when SATA II comes out will it be backward compatible? so if i bought a SATA drive now, and SATA II is release can i take advantage of the benefits or would I have to buy a SATA II compliant drive?

since if its not backward compatible i would rather save the dosh and get a PATA.


2) Brands

Narrowed down to either WD or seagate. looking at 160GB and 8mb cache

preferably as silent as possible since my computer is usually on 24/7

heard the seagate 7200.7 160 GB is actual very noisy when seeking but only silent when idle

WD 160gb special edition JB dont think i heard any major problems with this one

opinions?

thanx in advance

[ST|FFY]

you should read the newegg reviews, they're pretty good in unbiased results

[Ice Czar]

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=699246


SATA, I wll never buy another PATA again
for data integrity if nothing else
(especially see last 2 links)

[kaw]

I am running the WD 120GB SATA drive and it is very quite even when in use.

[ajm786]

The best drive is the Samsung Spinpoint SP1614C. It is SATA, 7200 RPM, and 160GB. It is extremely quiet and, IMO, much faster overall than my old WD800JB that it replaced.