Hard drive recommendations?

[Hicks12]

Well im looking to get a new harddrive, needs to be quiet and im looking for a price of around £40(possibly£50) but less is better. Storage size doesnt need to be huge, i saw some 640gb and thats the biggest id ever need(currently have a 250gb), i hear samsung f1's are good and cheap but are there any others to look for?. Also, fast drive is what im looking for so single platter prefered.


Thanks.

[Webby]

Western Digital 6400AAKS 640GB (£50) quiet fast and uses 320GB platters so only 2 of them required I don't thing single platter drives exist at this size and certainly not at this price point.

[Hicks12]

When i mentioned single platter i was aiming at 320gb or what ever uses them . Will look at the WD drives, currently have the 250AAKS and its good but its not as quiet as i hoped. Thanks for the suggestion

Will have a good search when i get back.

[Mithrandir]

There are 320gb single platters around but the models available are not as clear cut as the 640gb versions. I think WD and Seadate offer them but I'll try and have a closer look. Still the WD 640gb is a good buy and Scan sometimes have the Samsung 500gb F1s for £38-£40 (I got one with a HDD cooler for £38 )

[peterb]

I use Samsungs - as much for the noise issue as anything - and they are very quiet.

[looney]

if you want 320gb single platters, get the seaget 7200.11 13AS, best one there is, much of performance is upto velociraptor performance bar access speeds

[Hicks12]

So seagate are good? i just never heard them recommended alot but so far ive seen these as options:
1) 320gb WD AAKS £37.70 on today only http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=20026
2)360GB Seagate ST3360320AS £32.31
3)500GB Samsung HD502IJ Spinpoint F1 £40.54
4)500 GB Seagate ST3500320AS Barracuda 7200.11 £41.71
5)500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS £44.64, there is a AACS for £1 more, whats the difference?
6) 640gb WD AAKS Caviar blue for £50.51, probably going a bit to high now as this isnt a needed upgrade.

Didnt Samsung do a 640gb F1? cant find it on scan

Out of them whats the best in terms of value for money and performance? i guess the 360gb seagate? i would prefer one that isnt to loud and isnt to slow along with reliability like my WD, does it fit the bill?.

[LordWard]

Stay away from Western Digital in my honest opinion. I've had more WD hard drives go down then any other brand.

Maxtor all the way!

LW

[Hicks12]

I guess it just depends on luck because ive had a few maxtor drives die on me and yet no WD drives have. I always remembered Maxtor for being the cheap brand that breaks soon, maxtor seem to have a slower access speed of 11ms compared to seagates 8.5 and samsung/WD 8.9. So far the seagate looks good as it has 5 year warranty, are they quiet though?

[peterb]

Maxtotr didn't have the best of reputations - they are part of Seagate now, and I think quality may have improved.

TBh I doubt you'lll see much visible performance difference between Samsung, WD, Seagate or Hitachi. The first three probably have the best reputation - and for many the choice of hard drive is almost a matter of religious fervour. Samsungs used to be the best value for money in terms of cost per byte, and I haven't had one fail on me (yet - but I will one day - its a mechanical device). The new WDs are supposed to be fairly quiet, but I haven't used one for comparison, so it is hearsay. As I said earlier, I use Samsungs, to the extent that if I need a replacement drive, I just go for it anyway. Others will say they do the same for Seagate or WD. (I used to use Hitachi/IBM but they went through a bad patch, and I switched, and never switched back)

Check the mfrs specs, look at the price/Gbyte, and choose on that basis. The three or four I mentioned are all good drives.

[Hicks12]

Well i just noticed the seagate 360gb has only 8mb cache, would i see a performance decrease from this?, if so then ill ignore this one.
Just found the samsung 320gb and its £35, http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...source=froogle it says Maximum 334GB formatted capacity each in 3 disks, would i be right in thinking its not single platter(more like 111gb?). Been trying to look for platter sizes of thw WD 500AAKS and the samsung 500gb but found nothing, i guess they use 2x250gb? samsung website says the same as the 320gb which is Max. 334GB Formatted Capacity per Disk. The samsung drive is only £5 more(AAKS is £1 more) than the 320gb so woudl it be worth it?

edit: just found that the samsung 500gb uses 2x334gb platters and one of them is part empty or something so it totals to 500gb, cant find anything on the AAKS though but should i go with the samsung?.

[NovaSphere]

Stay away from Western Digital in my honest opinion. I've had more WD hard drives go down then any other brand.

Maxtor all the way!

LW

What you do to your Hard drives? Drop them of a skyscraper?

I'm pretty sure most of HEXUS would agree on the fact that Western Digital creates the best Hard drives out there, together with Samsung and maybe Seagate.

[andrewuk]

I am using a Samsung 320GB F1 here - very fast drive, even beats out the 150GB 10K Raptor that it replaced on everything (besides random access) by a considerable margin. It is also exceedingly quiet and very cool running (never seen it higher than 34 degrees C and it's in a shuttle toaster PC!).

I believe WD also make a single platter 320GB drive too but I have no experience of that, but generally WD drives are among the best you can get so I'm sure it's pretty comparable to the Samsung F1.

[Hicks12]

Well i think ill got with the 500gb samsung F1 just to confirm there is nothing wrong with this one right? http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?ProductId=24801 .

Now this is off topic but is this headset ok? http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=803792

Thanks guys.

[looney]

So seagate are good? i just never heard them recommended alot but so far ive seen these as options:
1) 320gb WD AAKS £37.70 on today only http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=20026
2)360GB Seagate ST3360320AS £32.31
3)500GB Samsung HD502IJ Spinpoint F1 £40.54
4)500 GB Seagate ST3500320AS Barracuda 7200.11 £41.71
5)500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS £44.64, there is a AACS for £1 more, whats the difference?
6) 640gb WD AAKS Caviar blue for £50.51, probably going a bit to high now as this isnt a needed upgrade.

Didnt Samsung do a 640gb F1? cant find it on scan

Out of them whats the best in terms of value for money and performance? i guess the 360gb seagate? i would prefer one that isnt to loud and isnt to slow along with reliability like my WD, does it fit the bill?.

of course there good! I still have a 9 year old seagate which i still use, and my current drive is seagate too, there one of the biggest and reputable hd makers out there. But like anything there not perfect and you'll of course find cases where they have failed.

That 360gb isnt all that, as i said go for the 7200.11 13AS, i have one and can vouch for it, its quiet and the performance is excellent, heres a group test of it: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/603

You can buy from here: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142569

Dont go for the 20AS model as they are old gen.

I also have an old maxtor diamondback9 which still runs superbly, not even any bad sectors and these days maxtor drives are just rebranded seagates.

If your gonna go for a 320gb go for the segate, if 500gb, then go instead for the WD 640gb aaks drive, the one thats double platter.

[Hicks12]

Well for the same price of the 320gb seagate i can get the samsung 500gb, i would go for the WD but its like £50 and the samsung has the second most out of the lot and a pretty good price. Not that im saying the seagate are bad its just that value for money is with the samsung, they are dual platter as far as google says as one is a full 320gb(or 334gb to be exact) and the other is the same but only put on the outside so it should perform just as good as a 320gb(so google says ).
Thanks for your help.

Now can anyone recommend a very cheap enclosure for a 3.5" Sata drive?(perhaps ide to) thats around £10 , needs to be usb.

Thanks again.