Desktop Hard Drives

[magicrichard]

OK, I'm after a bit of advice/knowledge. I've done a fair bit of research on his, and I'm still looking for the perfect new harddrive for my desktop computer. It will primarily be a boot drive, so doesn't need to be that large. My budget is about £70.

I've understoof that spindle speed is important so only drives that maintain 7200rpm are being considered, not any of the new "green" drives.

I think that a 32MB buffer seems to provide the best performance, but that GB per platter is also important.

I think I've narrowed it down to a Samsung SpinPoint F1 drive, probably in 750GB size.

But that seems like a huge drive to have as a boot drive, much larger than necessary, or should I just accept that as a norm these days? My other considerations are that the drive manufacturer have a reputation for reliability and relatively quiet operation. Am i fussy?!

I've just had a Western Digital 800JB Caviar drive give the warning that it's on its way out, and i've put a stop gap in for the moment - my last drive gave me 11 years of service, i'd love to get the same again!

Any input would be very welcome.

[format]

OK, I'm after a bit of advice/knowledge. I've done a fair bit of research on his, and I'm still looking for the perfect new harddrive for my desktop computer. It will primarily be a boot drive, so doesn't need to be that large. My budget is about £70.

I've understoof that spindle speed is important so only drives that maintain 7200rpm are being considered, not any of the new "green" drives.

I think that a 32MB buffer seems to provide the best performance, but that GB per platter is also important.

I think I've narrowed it down to a Samsung SpinPoint F1 drive, probably in 750GB size.

But that seems like a huge drive to have as a boot drive, much larger than necessary, or should I just accept that as a norm these days? My other considerations are that the drive manufacturer have a reputation for reliability and relatively quiet operation. Am i fussy?!

I've just had a Western Digital 800JB Caviar drive give the warning that it's on its way out, and i've put a stop gap in for the moment - my last drive gave me 11 years of service, i'd love to get the same again!

Any input would be very welcome.

I've got that exact 750GB Samsung F1, its a great drive, runs cooler than my WD 500GB AAKS too.

Having a 750GB drive for booting is fine, although if I were you I'd partition it so that your OS is on a seperate partition from your important files.

[peterb]

11 years is good for a drive. But the Samsungs, Western Digital and Seagates are all good drives - I use Samsungs myself - though not the one you describe.

Sub partitioning the drive is a good idea - although you loose a little bit of space (a fraction of a percent) the benefits are worth it. I use at least three, one for the operating system, one for applications, and one for data. It makes backing up simpler (just the data) and if you need to reload the OS, you can do so without reformatting (and losing your data. (You can just do as the previous poster said, two partions, one for OS and apps, the other for data - I just like things separated)

[magicrichard]

Hey,

Good to hear that drive is decent.. and thanks for reminding me you can partition drives. I guess it would make sense to set up a partition that's roughly the same size as my back-up device to make things completely easy.

I've always bought Western Digital for myself and for toher people so I was a little nervous about how good Samsung wouold actually be.. but they seem to be pretty hot right now

[kalniel]

Yeah I've just gone through the same process and ended up with a 1TB Samsung F1 for £68 (334GB/platter and faster than the 750GB model). They are cracking value at the moment because the next generation of drives is just coming out (F2) with 500GB per platter.

As above, I consider Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung the top 3 choices.

[Singh400]

I've got the Samsung F1 750GB great drive. I love it. Personally, I'm not into partitioning my hdds mainly because all my data is stored on the server. Only reason I partition is to multi-boot.

@Kalniel: Didn't know Samsung was bringing out F2's! So cheers for that.

[Vimeous]

Yeah I've just gone through the same process and ended up with a 1TB Samsung F1 for £68 (334GB/platter and faster than the 750GB model). They are cracking value at the moment because the next generation of drives is just coming out (F2) with 500GB per platter.

As above, I consider Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung the top 3 choices.

I've a pair of F1 750's in RAID1 for my boot partitioned suitably. Certainly fast and have been running well so far

Interestingly I also read the 1Tb was faster in CustomPC however I also read PCPro who tested the 750Gb as the faster drive!
Basically they're both fine drives and great value.

Not seen any F2 tests yet but Scan have them at good prices so worth a look.

Finally I was a lifelong Maxtor supporter. I only had issues with their drives after they'd been taken over by Seagate. At work I find myself replacing Seagates much more often then Western Digital despite a similar install base.
My experience leads me to recommend Western Digital and Samsung of the modern hard drive manufacturers. I avoid Seagate.

[kalniel]

I've a pair of F1 750's in RAID1 for my boot partitioned suitably. Certainly fast and have been running well so far

Interestingly I also read the 1Tb was faster in CustomPC however I also read PCPro who tested the 750Gb as the faster drive!
Basically they're both fine drives and great value.

Yep - it very much depends on workload. The 1TB seems highly optimised for running as a single drive, mostly reads, with only a queue depth of 1. It doesn't do very well at multi-tasking.

Oh and it's on Today Only, so worth grabbing quick! (As is the F2, but it's the ecoGreen version, which is a lot slower.)

[how1]

Why not get a Samsung 160g for the windows etc etc and the 750g for all your important stuff? That way keeping thigs separate and safe, ish.

[arthurleung]

You'll just have to wait for the 7200RPM version of F2 to come out.

Spinpoint F1 is on par with Ecogreen F2 in terms of sequencial read/write speed due to the significantly higher platter density. The access time / random read write is terrible though.

Either way, both drives will be 2-3 times faster than the 80GB WD.

If you really don't need that kind of space, I would suggest you either spend 20 quids more:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/30GB-...id-State-Drive
Or just wait for another month or two then the price of these will have came down.

You can always pair it with an external harddrive for more storage.

You could also consider a 2.5" 7200RPM drive which will be more quiet than any of the desktop drives.