Seagate or Western Digital

[XxRoCkMaNxNEOxX]

im deciding to go to raid0 in the future but planning on just getting one 80 gig sata drive at the moment. I want a good harddrive that is fast but quiet. which brand would be better?

[|-Goku-|]

im deciding to go to raid0 in the future but planning on just getting one 80 gig sata drive at the moment. I want a good harddrive that is fast but quiet. which brand would be better?


IMHO, I would go with WDD. Just because there good quality and there Replacement service is awsome if it ever goes bad :)


|-Goku-|

[xonik]

Between those two, Seagate is going to be A LOT more quiet.

[pirateface]

I go Western Digital.
Simply because they offer 3 years warranty on all their SATA products, and 5 years for their Raptors.

Wheras with Seagate their a bit picky.
They have listed 1 year for their 80GB SATA drive and 3 years on the other SATA drives.

You can take a look here:
http://www.seagate.com/support/service/psg.html

So go figure. Also I find WD SATA drives to be quieter than the Seagate SATA drives, but that's just me. I do own 2 Raptors and 1 WD 120SATA and the one 120Seagate 120GB I use at work seem to be a bit louder and more annoying than anything I've heard in a while.

Whatever, you can't go wrong with either one, just don't get Maxtors that's for sure.

[dave_graham]

you can check out the article i wrote for HardOCP located under "Reviews" (called "SATA Roundup).

I personally am using several Seagate 7200.7 120gb drives right now and they're incredibly quiet and perfect for gaming.

cheers,

Dave Graham

[dave_graham]

I go Western Digital.
Simply because they offer 3 years warranty on all their SATA products, and 5 years for their Raptors.

Wheras with Seagate their a bit picky.
They have listed 1 year for their 80GB SATA drive and 3 years on the other SATA drives.

You can take a look here:
http://www.seagate.com/support/service/psg.html


Seagate also allows you to update the warranty on any of their drives for 2-3 dollars more than the typical cost of the drive. As a reseller, i've sold this combination quite frequently. That EASILY puts them on par with WD.

So go figure. Also I find WD SATA drives to be quieter than the Seagate SATA drives, but that's just me. I do own 2 Raptors and 1 WD 120SATA and the one 120Seagate 120GB I use at work seem to be a bit louder and more annoying than anything I've heard in a while.

Whatever, you can't go wrong with either one, just don't get Maxtors that's for sure.

interesting observation. For the roundup i did for Kyle last year, the Raptors were incredibly loud and annoying and the Seagate was whisper quiet. The Maxtor drive split the difference. Right now, I'm running the Seagate 80gb and 120gb as primary in my systems and I can't even hear them while their doing full stroke reads...that's incredible.

Also, stay tuned for the Seagate 7200.8 which has Native Command Queuing. It places the Seagate drives on par with the higher performing drives out there. Also remember, Seagate has the ONLY native SATA drives on the market; the other ones utilize ATA-to-SATA bridge chips.

cheers,

Dave Graham

[xonik]

interesting observation. For the roundup i did for Kyle last year, the Raptors were incredibly loud and annoying and the Seagate was whisper quiet.Is that really fair though? I'm by no means a fan of WD noise, but you're comparing the first-generation, 10,000 RPM Raptor to a highly refined 7200.7, 7200 RPM by the way. And you should note that the second-generation Raptor, the WD740GD, is a great deal quieter than its predecessor. Also, stay tuned for the Seagate 7200.8 which has Native Command Queuing.Native command queuing will be nice...It places the Seagate drives on par with the higher performing drives out there. Also remember, Seagate has the ONLY native SATA drives on the market; the other ones utilize ATA-to-SATA bridge chips.Do you have numbers that say the Seagate will perform on par with the higher performing drives? As of now, their performance is pretty mediocre, not that they are bad. Native Serial ATA support is pretty from an engineering standpoint, but I care much more about the end performance...don't you?

[dave_graham]

Is that really fair though? I'm by no means a fan of WD noise, but you're comparing the first-generation, 10,000 RPM Raptor to a highly refined 7200.7, 7200 RPM by the way.

yup, it's fair...not my fault that WD did a sloppy job of noise control on their "1st gen" (though one should really avoid using that as it's just a bridged EIDE drive) SATA drive. :) Scary thing is, Seagate was already on their second true generation of SATA drives by then...

And you should note that the second-generation Raptor, the WD740GD, is a great deal quieter than its predecessor.Native command queuing will be nice

yes, it is...at a price premium that's 3x's that of an 80gb Seagate. :) Seriously, the 74gb's are nice drives...

...Do you have numbers that say the Seagate will perform on par with the higher performing drives? As of now, their performance is pretty mediocre, not that they are bad. Native Serial ATA support is pretty from an engineering standpoint, but I care much more about the end performance...don't you?

Whitepapers are coming (seagate announced them yesterday or so) as well as reviews...stay tuned to Storagereview.com. As far as performance, do you REALLY think you'll notice a millisecond of difference? barely. For what it's worth, I run my 120gb Seagate as my "Games" drive and its on a non-pci bus bound SATA channel. It's a beautiful thing...games load fast, i can do what I want when i want to...

cheers,

Dave Graham

[leukotriene]

Native command queuing will be nice...

Now we just have to wait for controllers that actually support it.

[dave_graham]

yup...

I'm pretty sure that the Silicon Image 3114 supports it already, but i could be wrong.

cheers,

Dave Graham

[leukotriene]

I'm pretty sure you are wrong ;)

The SI 3112 and 3114 do not support NCQ to my knowledge. All SATA-2 controllers should, when they arrive.

[dave_graham]

oy....let me dig up the hardware...

anyhow, here's an article (http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116076,g,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp) @ PC World which talks about the performance increase due to NCQ.

EDIT: the 3114 DOES support Native Command Queuing: see here (http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040123/wd740-01.html). Granted, the source is Tom's but, it's a start.

cheers,

Dave Graham

[xonik]

yup, it's fair...not my fault that WD did a sloppy job of noise control on their "1st gen" (though one should really avoid using that as it's just a bridged EIDE drive) SATA drive. :) Scary thing is, Seagate was already on their second true generation of SATA drives by then...



yes, it is...at a price premium that's 3x's that of an 80gb Seagate. :) Seriously, the 74gb's are nice drives...It's not fair because that evaluation is obsolete now. Western Digital has 80 GB Serial ATA 7200 RPM drives right now. That is what you should be comparing to.Whitepapers are coming (seagate announced them yesterday or so) as well as reviews...stay tuned to Storagereview.com. As far as performance, do you REALLY think you'll notice a millisecond of difference? barely. For what it's worth, I run my 120gb Seagate as my "Games" drive and its on a non-pci bus bound SATA channel. It's a beautiful thing...games load fast, i can do what I want when i want to...Okay, I can buy that...then why did you bother to say that the new Seagates were going to be "on par with the higher performing drives"? That's such a vague statement; you could say that much about the 7200.7 if you wanted to. It just doesn't sound that compelling. I don't know...maybe it's just me.

[leukotriene]

EDIT: the 3114 DOES support Native Command Queuing: see here. Granted, the source is Tom's but, it's a start.

I asked MS at lostcircuits about that in particular when it came out and he claimed Tom's is full of it. I believe him. :p

[dave_graham]

It's not fair because that evaluation is obsolete now. Western Digital has 80 GB Serial ATA 7200 RPM drives right now. That is what you should be comparing to.

One could reasonably expect the WD SATA drive to perform on par with Maxtor's offering of the same.

Okay, I can buy that...then why did you bother to say that the new Seagates were going to be "on par with the higher performing drives"? That's such a vague statement; you could say that much about the 7200.7 if you wanted to. It just doesn't sound that compelling. I don't know...maybe it's just me.

because, when it comes down to it, you're evaluating synthetic processes and metrics against "real world" application. When it plays out in the end, you're not going to actually notice too much of a difference. For example, a U320 SCSI drive is super for all the bandwidth that it can figuratively support (and testing can prove this) but if it can't process over 300 IOPs per second, it's total trash in an enterprise environment. the same argument can be held at the consumer level: an EIDE drive performs no worse than a comparable SATA drive (in most cases). The 1 second load time difference (for example) is negligible at best; it only becomes uber-important when you statistically analyse it.

does this make sense or am I just being stupid?

cheers,

Dave Graham

[dave_graham]

I asked MS at lostcircuits about that in particular when it came out and he claimed Tom's is full of it. I believe him. :p

Lol...never liked tom's anyway, but it offered what I was looking for...Let me contact Silicon Image and see what I can come up with. I'll also get ahold of 3ware and see what their plans are.

Cheers,

Dave Graham

[leukotriene]

I believe the 3124 supports (http://www.lostcircuits.com/discus/messages/21/2038.html?1077554178) NCQ Dave :)

Maybe a firmware update could make the 3112/3114 do it? :confused:

[dave_graham]

I believe the 3124 supports (http://www.lostcircuits.com/discus/messages/21/2038.html?1077554178) NCQ Dave :)

Maybe a firmware update could make the 3112/3114 do it? :confused:

looks like the Sil3512 (http://www.siimage.com/press/02_18_03_2.asp) does (2nd link (http://www.siliconimage.com/products/sii3512.asp)) .

cheers,

dave

[xonik]

One could reasonably expect the WD SATA drive to perform on par with Maxtor's offering of the same.That's not the point. The point is that when you compare 7200 RPM drives, you can throw that Raptor's noise comparison out the window, because it doesn't apply to the WD800JD 7200 RPM drive.because, when it comes down to it, you're evaluating synthetic processes and metrics against "real world" application.

[...]

does this make sense or am I just being stupid?No, all I'm saying is that you say that NCQ is going to put the 7200.8 in the running with the top 7200 RPM drives. What does that really say about its real-life performance though? Nothing. All of the 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache drives perform roughly the same in real life. All I'm asking is, knowing your philosophy on this, why bother singing the technological praises of the new Seagate when it's probably not going to make a bit of difference in real life?

[pirateface]

I guess it depends on how each person determines what is loud and what is annoying to them.

I personally can't stand the sound that the Seagate 120SATA makes, whereas I'm perfectly happy with the sound that my Raptors and WD 120SATA drive makes. I just find it more quiet for some reason. Heh, I guess maybe it's the enviornment, at work it's quiet so I guess it makes the drive scream whereas at home I either have the TV or my Speakers on. But still... I perfer the sounds of my WDs over the Seagates

Edit: I also like how WD offers the 4pin Molex power connection as well as the new method, whereas with Seagate they force you to use the new method, which requires the stupid SATA power adaptor which causes more cables in the case and what not which I dislike.

[leukotriene]

All of the 7200 RPM, 8 MB cache drives perform roughly the same in real life.

Check out the benchmarks for the 200GB 7200.7 plus.

Whether Seagate can maintain a platter density and transfer rate advantage over the next generation of WD and MaXtor models remains to be seen, but they are the only manufacturer with a 100GB platter on the market today, which gives me confidence in their ability to produce 133GB platters.]

I believe NCQ is not going to be obvious from most standard "single user" benchmarks; it's when you get to the "multiuser" benchmarks that NCQ will provide an advantage.

[dave_graham]

btw, seagate has a 400gb drive coming out within the next quarter.

that should be fun...

cheers,

dave graham

[xonik]

btw, seagate has a 400gb drive coming out within the next quarter.While the 400 GB capacity is no longer remarkable, the fact that it's accomplished with platters of an unprecedented 133 GB is quite remarkable.

[XxRoCkMaNxNEOxX]

so i guess from looking at the replies it seems that the 7200rpm 80 gig on both drives are about equal.

[dave_graham]

essentially...it then comes down to price....

cheers,

Dave Graham

[XxRoCkMaNxNEOxX]

the price is pretty close. off by a couple of dollars.

[xonik]

I still maintain that the Seagate is going to be a lot quieter. You seemed to value this trait...

Still, make sure that whatever drive you buy gets a three year warranty.

[dave_graham]

yeah, the upgrade to a 3 year warranty on the seagate drive should be roughly 3 dollars above the basic cost of the drive. I can check on the pricing for you (if you want) since I sell them.

cheers,

dave