Best single platter HDD?

[narz]

Hey just looking for advice and direction. Process of upgrading my C:\ to a faster single platter HDD, for...

• Reliability (Assuming Single platters are considered more reliable, less platters .. less to go wrong?)
• Speed

SSDs out of my price range £40-£50.

Capacity for me is only a bonus, so i have been looking at any HD sizes. My research so far has thrown up a few HDDs to fit this criteria, them being:


Samsung Spin Point F3 500GB 16Mb (HD502HJ) -£39 Single platter



Samsung Spin Point F1 SATAII 320GB 16Mb (HD322HJ) - £35 single platter



Seagate Barracuda 500Gb 7200.12 16Mb (ST3500418AS) - £36 Single Platter

[shaithis]

From the HD Tune results alone, I would go with the F3.

[narz]

Your right, it does seem like the best out the bunch, just wondering if there is any superior single platters then the F3 listed.

Got another HDTune graph, just to ensure that one wasn't an oddity!

[shaithis]

Well, even without the graphs I would have guessed it would be between the F3 and the 7200.12 as they are the "new" tech 500GB platter drives.

Not that I trust the CPU usage info on HD Tach fully but that alone would probably have swayed me, all else being relatively the same. I would really love to know how the Seagates uses twice the CPU power of the Sammies.......seems odd.

[watercooled]

Yeah AFAIK they are the only 2 single platter 500GB drives available and from those graphs the F3 looks faster.

[Bane]

Western Digital Blue 320GB is single platter.

There was a lot of confusion as WD kept the same model name when they reduced from two platters to a single.

Don't know if WD now have a larger capacity single platter model.

[narz]

looks like its the F3 - £38.63 @ Scan

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500Gb...-Cache-8ms-OEM

Thanks all.

[Methanoid]

I was VERY impressed with Samsung 500gb... very quiet and very cool running. Could hardly tell it was on!!!