Need advice on new HDD

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Overclocker01

176 posts

Master Geek

# 38226 26-Jul-2009 17:34

Hey guys,

I need to replace my seagate barracuda 250gb HDD as it has just died :(. no idea what is wrong with it however every time you try to access the HDD th PC just dies, also when trying to reinstall windows it jsut hangs as soon as it tries to load startup data to HDD.

I am looking at aroung $150 mark and capacity of 640gb - 1tb, ive been looking at:

http://www.playtech.co.nz/product.php?action=showdetail&id=6386

http://www.playtech.co.nz/product.php?action=showdetail&id=4267

http://www.playtech.co.nz/product.php?action=showdetail&id=7134

http://www.playtech.co.nz/product.php?action=showdetail&id=5591

Im after a quick, low noise HDD

Any other reconmendations?

Cheers

boby55

1539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 239119 26-Jul-2009 17:41

1tb drives are so cheap these days I would not even consider anything lower.

I have a Seagate 1tb atm, but I have heard good reviews about the Western Digital Green 1tb Drives.

But really it comes down to personal preference, I prefer seagate as they all come with the 5 year warranty.

JKRNZ

53 posts

Master Geek

# 239148 26-Jul-2009 19:41

I use and recommend Samsungs. Check this out:

http://www.pp.co.nz/products.php?pp_id=AA16563

Ragnor

8035 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 239214 26-Jul-2009 23:42

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB, should be around $125-135ish depending on if you go for the 16MB or 32MB cache. The cache size does not make a significant difference for regular use and the price difference is about -/+ $5.

http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=6614
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=7450

If you're looking at 1TB, can't really go wrong with the Samsung or Western Digital. Samsung is a tiny bit quieter, Western Digital is a tiny bit faster.

http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=5606
http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=7451

The Green drives are noticeably slower imo, so I would avoid those.

phlegmboy

59 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

# 239261 27-Jul-2009 09:32

As far as I am concerned Seagate are still the most reliable drive maker although Samsung have been producing a good product recently.

I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long.

Ragnor

8035 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

# 239525 28-Jul-2009 05:35

I guess you missed the whole firmware bug in the 7200.11 range where the drives would randomly brick themselves during boot. It took Seagate months to acknowledge the problem and begin resolving it, then the 1st version of the Seagate firmware to prevent the problem actually caused more drives to be bricked.

It was a great fiasco.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/21/0052236

Right now there are probably millions of people out there running 7200.11 series drives without the firmware update applied which can fail at any time.

Mark

1492 posts

Uber Geek

# 239576 28-Jul-2009 10:10

My advise for buying a disk .. it doesn't really matter what brand you get, reliability is roughly the same on them all (all the manufacturers have had a bad batch at some stage in their lives, but on the whole they are all good), the length of warranty is something to look for, go for the longest you can find.

As a minimum buy 2 drives and mirror them together, it won't protect you from Windows buggering the filesystem or from a virus but it'll give you a good measure of protection from a physical failure.

It's best to keep your operating system + application separate from your data (data being stuff you cannot replace if your disk corrupts, like digital photos and personal documents), this makes backups simpler .. which you do do yes ? :-)

So maybe buy a smaller fast disk for the operating system, and then 2 bigger drives mirrored for data .. and remember that if you go big you still have to back the sucker up, so think of that when you see the big drives .. 1TB is a llloooooottttttttt of data to lose :-)

Mark

Overclocker01

176 posts

Master Geek

# 239578 28-Jul-2009 10:14

I ended up getting a single WD Cavier black 1tb 32mb HDD, Its cranking along nicely in my system. 5 year warranty $179