500 Gb WD 5000AAKS Caviar SE16 or 500 Gb Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 7200.10

[Craig321]

I'm trying to decide between these two drives:

500 Gb Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar SE16, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms

500 Gb Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 7200.10, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ

I've been told the WD is faster and quieter & that the Seagate can differ quite a bit with quietness.

Which one is faster!?

Thanks,
Craig.

[StaffsKieran]

The two drives are very close in terms of speed but the WD is quieter and more reliable than the seagate.

[Templar87]

never used either drive, but i've always thought seagates to run cooler than wds - no idea if this is still the case.

TomsHardware HDD charts might be able to inform you performance-wise

[Agrippa]

Depends who you listen to, but I like X-bit Labs' HD reviews for their thoroughness and variety of tests. According to them, the KS and YS series from WD are the overall fastest drives on the market right now. Another thing to take into account though, is Seagate's 5 year warranty on (I believe) all their drives.

In any case, if you're "just" an average user you'll notice no real-life difference whatsoever between the two.

[amjedm]

I'd go for the quieter drive - the WD

[Craig321]

I'd go for the quieter drive - the WD

Yes, I think that's what I'll do.

Depends who you listen to, but I like X-bit Labs' HD reviews for their thoroughness and variety of tests. According to them, the KS and YS series from WD are the overall fastest drives on the market right now. Another thing to take into account though, is Seagate's 5 year warranty on (I believe) all their drives.

In any case, if you're "just" an average user you'll notice no real-life difference whatsoever between the two.

I wouldn't really be disappointed with either. Currently I have a 200GB SATA150 drive, so the Seagate & WD above will beat my current HDD by far

I think I'll go for WD then, thanks guys

I'm a bit disappointed with the warranty on the WD drives though

never used either drive, but i've always thought seagates to run cooler than wds - no idea if this is still the case.

TomsHardware HDD charts might be able to inform you performance-wise

Nice little chart there, thank you

[Agrippa]

I wouldn't really be disappointed with either. Currently I have a 200GB SATA150 drive, so the Seagate & WD above will beat my current HDD by far

Actually no current drives are exceeding the SATA150 specs, so you'll likely experience no difference at all. The only difference between a SATA drive and a SATA II drive is generally the interface, as several drives come in both flavours.

[Craig321]

Actually no current drives are exceeding the SATA150 specs, so you'll likely experience no difference at all. The only difference between a SATA drive and a SATA II drive is generally the interface, as several drives come in both flavours.

I thought SATA300 was quite a bit faster.

My current Maxtor gets and average of 52mb/s, current WD drives get almost 70mb/s average.

[Agrippa]

By all means, there are differences between different drives, but that's not due to the interface they use. SATA II is newer than SATA(150), so manufacturers naturally switch over to the most recent standard. In terms of speed though, no current drive is capable of exceeding the older SATA standard. In other words, if a SATA II drive is faster than a SATA drive, then it's faster because it's newer and better, not because of the interface. The interface is only "bolted onto" the drive and has no direct bearing on the drive's performance.

[Toobad]

The number of platters and platter density is where the performance fight is taking place. The latest mainstream drives achieve 166Gb per platter. The less platters you have, the less power is required to spin them and hence less heat is generated. The greater the platter density, the quicker the access time.

Seagate have just cracked 250Gb per platter with their perpendicular recording technology so new 7200.10 drives will be appearing shortly along with a 4-platter 1Tb drive which will probably be dubbed a 7200.11

If you are buying right now you could also look at WD's Enterprise range for the server market. They have a 1.2 million hour MTBF and come with a 5-year guarantee yet only cost a few quid more than the Caviar series.

[Queelis]

You might as well consider Samsung's HD501LJ, which is said to be quiet.

[Zak33]

The number of platters and platter density is where the performance fight is taking place. The latest mainstream drives achieve 166Gb per platter. The less platters you have, the less power is required to spin them and hence less heat is generated. The greater the platter density, the quicker the access time.

agreed...the 160 per platter makes the Seagte 160 drives very light, fast, cool and quick. Have used two, both were nice

Seagate have just cracked 250Gb per platter with their perpendicular recording technology so new 7200.10 drives will be appearing shortly along with a 4-platter 1Tb drive which will probably be dubbed a 7200.11

Perpendicular is also very good. I have not used a 250 gig drive, and am interested tofind just WHERE on the manufacturers websites does it state platter count. Cos I cant find it!

If you are buying right now you could also look at WD's Enterprise range for the server market. They have a 1.2 million hour MTBF and come with a 5-year guarantee yet only cost a few quid more than the Caviar series.

True again, though I have recently found that the Caviar SE range was quicker, model for model than the Enterpise version. However, Enterprise drives have my beloved Molex power plug, the Caviar SE has just the new SATA power plug which I find wobbly

Lastly...for interests sake, Western DIgital's much vaunted Raptors ALWAYS use 2 platers. No matter what size, they use 2 platters, to enable the perfect balance of intertia but also to allow plenty of data to be stored on the outter edges, ie at the maximum ditance from the spindle, to make them faster.

[Lourdes]

Don't bother considering the 7200.10, it's slower and loud. I've a couple from Maxtor warranty replacements and I relegated them to the PC's of friends and relatives.
The WD5000AAKS is an excellent drive (I have half a dozen), but I personally prefer the Samsung HD501LJ because it's quieter at the cost of being ever so slightly slower.

[Craig321]

By all means, there are differences between different drives, but that's not due to the interface they use. SATA II is newer than SATA(150), so manufacturers naturally switch over to the most recent standard. In terms of speed though, no current drive is capable of exceeding the older SATA standard. In other words, if a SATA II drive is faster than a SATA drive, then it's faster because it's newer and better, not because of the interface. The interface is only "bolted onto" the drive and has no direct bearing on the drive's performance.

I see what you're saying Agrippa

Hopefully I'll still see quite a difference though between the drive in my up and coming PC and the drive in my current PC purely because the technology is more advanced.

I think I shall be going with the WD, thanks everyone!

Oh, also, what's the loudness like of the spinning and reading?

Thanks,
Craig.

[kungpo]

On a side note, have you considered RAID0 with two 250GB disks? Whilst a little more expensive than a single 500GB, performance (using hardware RAID - ie intel Matrix) will be way better. Especially with newer (ie faster) drives.

I have 2x 250GB WD Caviar SE in a RAID0 and way out performs the same disk in a single disk configuration.

Don't know about the 500GB disks, but my 250s are dead quiet, although do get a little hot.

[Craig321]

Yeah, I have considered RAID 0 very much. 250GBx2 in RAID 0 as main disk(s) and then a 500GB single for backups (unless of course it is possible to do RAID 0 twice in the same machine?).

My problem with RAID 0 is the fact that you increase your chance of loosing your data if/when your drive breaks due to there being 2 disks instead of one.

I could sort the above by doing an exact mirror of everything on the RAID0 onto a single 500GB.

Is RAID 0 possible twice in a machine? I wouldn't mind 2x250gb main and mirror that onto 2x250gb backup, then if or when I messed up windows or the drive(s) gave up I could just set the second RAID to master and be back up and running nice and quick.

Thanks,
Craig.