Hard drive considerations

[BillLeeLee]

I'm in the market for a hard drive for storing photographs and media. I currently have a WD1600JB and Seagate 7200.7 120 GB (both are PATA drives), so I see two different approaches to my buying choices. I want a drive of at least 250GB capacity.

1.) Get a 16 MB cache drive and use this as my primary OS and applications drive, and designate the other two for storage. I want a SATA drive since all my PATA ports are used up, but my current mobo is only SATA/150 so I really wouldn't mind if I get a SATA/150 drive.

For this purpose I've been looking at the WD2500KS. Good performance, supposed to be quieter than older WDs.

The other drives I've been looking at for this are the Maxtor MaxlineIII 250/300 GB SATA 16 MB cache drives. For around $130, the 300 GB MaxlineIII is an appealing drive.

2.) Stick with my current configuration (Windows runs off a partition on the WD1600JB, a Linux install runs off the Seagate) and get a SATA drive with smaller buffer to act as storage. Of course, the problem is that most SATA drives in the 250 GB range are already at the same level of cost as the 16 MB Maxtors and Western Digitals, so I think it'd be wisest to put my money into those drives.

Any input on this?

Cliff notes:
- Want a drive mainly for storage (or a drive with good performance and then I'll use my other drives as storage for media)
- SATA interface preferred
- Looking at WD2500KS and Maxtor MaxlineIII
- Budget: < $150 preferred
- Desired size: 250GB+

I'm not looking at the 400+ GB range though, I'm not in that desparate need of space.

And also, since I want SATA, would it be wise to shield my SATA cables? I have been reading Ice Czar's SATA cautions thread, but there is no definitive answer to whether or not SATA cables should be shielded (or I missed it).

Thanks.

 

[unhappy_mage]

I like the maxtors I have. I would be interested in seeing what people suggest in terms of shielding, though - I haven't covered mine yet. Aluminum foil+wide clear tape?

 

[BillLeeLee]

From Ice Czar's SATA cautions thread, someone wrapped theirs in foil with a copper grounding wire. I really don't know if I would have to, since many people run theirs without shielding. I'll probably have to test it myself to see if it's needed or not.

unhappy_mage, what kind of Maxtors do you have? The Maxline IIIs? Or the DiamondMax 10 series?

I'm considering the Maxline III 7L300S0 (with ROHS compliance, oooo) as one of my options. Has 5 year warranty and I hear really good things about it. StorageReview's review of them is pretty good too.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100719-6

 

[unhappy_mage]

I have 3 300gb maxline 3's. Enough 3s for you?

I'd be really interested to see your results with shielding your cables. I should probably buy better ones to replace the bargain-basement ones I got one of these days, but there are higher-priority items on that list right now...