I need a new hard drive

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MrBojangels

Gawd
Joined
Jul 8, 2006
Messages
763
Well I've been living with 80GB for the past 3 years and I can finally say I'm sick of having to delete everything when I want to download another large file. I have been looking at 500-750gb external and internal drives but I'm turned off with the fact that USB2.0 is much slower than ATA or SATA.

My PC has ATA133 and SATA150, which type of hard drive should I buy? I have been looking at the Seagate drives and waiting for a sale on the 750GB for under $200 but I don't know which interface to go with.
 
SATA ......the prices on HDD should dropp soon when the Hitachi 1TB is everywhere available.;)
 
While there isn't a performance benefit from going with a SATA over an PATA drive, I really do not see any reason to purchase a PATA anymore. The hot-plug ability is what sells me on SATA drives.
 
Which model should I go with? I read reviews on 7200.10s and majority of the people complained about noisy drives which I do not want because my Western Digital Caviar SD is inaudible.
 
MrBojangels said:
Which model should I go with? I read reviews on 7200.10s and majority of the people complained about noisy drives which I do not want because my Western Digital Caviar SD is inaudible.
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It's a good drive and since everyone's mounting them in so many different cases, I wouldn't rely on those reviews. I'd consider the Hitachi T7K500 series drives as they are proven good performers as well.
 
For me it was between the Western Digital Caviar SE16 series of drives and the Seagate 7200.10 drives. I read tons of reviews of them and the performance comparisons from numerous different sites. I couldn't decide because each site had different results; one site would have the WD as the clear winner and overall best (xbitlabs), the other had the Seagate coming out on top in nearly every performance category (tomshardware). I think anandtech was the other site I looked at which compared the 320GB models of both hard drives, and they came to the conclusion that the Seagate was a little faster, though a little louder, but they were nearly identical overall. I couldn't find both drives listed on the storagereview performance charts so I didn't use them much. In the end I went with the Seagate 500GB 7200.10 RPM due to the 5 year warranty that it comes with. Both tomshardware and storagereview showed that the Hitachi t7k500 series drives are a little faster, as well as the Western Digital RE2 series drives, but I didn't want to spend that much, so I went with the others for my comparison.

I haven't gotten the Seagates yet, so I can't tell you how I feel about the noise, but that's what I got from all my research. I'm inclined to say that you really won't notice a difference between the different models, as the performances are so close that outside of benchmarks neither one really is better than the other; which is why I just went with the longer warranty.
 
Well tomorrow the Seagate 500gb goes on sale for $130 shipped at newegg, the Hitachi 500gb is $135 shipped.

I want a 750gb drive but I can't seem to drag myself to pay nearly twice as much, any idea when 1TB drives will be out and hopefully make things cheaper? Also do you need to do anything special when installing SATA drives?
 
drizzt81 said:
While there isn't a performance benefit from going with a SATA over an PATA drive, I really do not see any reason to purchase a PATA anymore. The hot-plug ability is what sells me on SATA drives.
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QFT. I like the fact that SATA cables are smaller than IDE which makes them easier to route and hide.
 
MrBojangels said:
Any more opinions on Hitachi vs Seagate? people keep telling me to go with Seagate.
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Do they give you a good reason or are they just parroting what everyone else says? The Hitachi is the better desktop application performaner if that's your primary use for the drive. If you're worried about warranty, then the Seagate's is longer.
 
tuskenraider said:
Do they give you a good reason or are they just parroting what everyone else says? The Hitachi is the better desktop application performaner if that's your primary use for the drive. If you're worried about warranty, then the Seagate's is longer.
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They say Seagate will be much more reliable.
 
MrBojangels said:
They say Seagate will be much more reliable.
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Well if they can point you to one long term drive study the proves this, then believe it. The way I see it is all the hard drive manufacturers are pretty equal as far as reliability goes, which is why you won't find scientific proof of the superiority of one brand. And just because one drive has a better warranty than another, doesn't prove anything. You have just as much of a chance of getting a bad drive right off the shelf from WD as you do Hitachi. So take performance, price and warranty all in consideration and make the best choice that will make you happy.
 
tuskenraider said:
Well if they can point you to one long term drive study the proves this, then believe it. The way I see it is all the hard drive manufacturers are pretty equal as far as reliability goes, which is why you won't find scientific proof of the superiority of one brand. And just because one drive has a better warranty than another, doesn't prove anything. You have just as much of a chance of getting a bad drive right off the shelf from WD as you do Hitachi. So take performance, price and warranty all in consideration and make the best choice that will make you happy.
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I can't even interpret those tests outside of transfer rates, the drive is basically going to be holding an assload of HD media and my torrents.
 
MrBojangels said:
I can't even interpret those tests outside of transfer rates, the drive is basically going to be holding an assload of HD media and my torrents.
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Well in that case, maybe the Seagate's very small advantage in STR(sustained transer rate) and longer warranty will make it a good choice for you.
 
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