What Harddrive

[Trippledence]

Time has come to get some more storage, i'm looking for a largesh drive for around £80 which puts me in the 250 - 300gb arear more or less. The main thing to me is reliability, speed and noise come second really, as this is only going to be a data drive.

The Contenders So Far:
1
Disk :
250Gb Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16 (7200rpm,16Mb) - SATA II Lead (Pb) free
Price :
£82
Link :
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=256891

2
Disk:
300Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 (7200rpm,16MB) SATA NCQ - Lead (Pb) Free
Price:
£87
Link:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=204878
(( Whats the magor difrence between that and this http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=126601)

3
Disk:
250Gb Maxtor Maxline III 24x7 Reliability (7200rpm,16MB) SATA II Features NCQ - Lead (Pb) Free
Price:
£75
Link:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=202600

( Or the 300gb Version of this drive for £97)

Now for the recomendation part, do you think one of these would be best, or can you remend one. I've suck a poll in to make it easyer, but please give me a link if you select other.

Any coments on the following features would be apritiated/

• 16mb Buffer, woth it?
• Sata 2 is it really that much better?

Thanks for reading.

[GFiSH]

I've always been a Maxtor man, I've got 2 300GB DiamondMax 10 SATA (non lead free) striped in my server, and I'm impressed, they're definitely quick, and fairly quiet (I've got the side off the case to keep the temp down at the mo).

[mike_w]

I've always liked Seagates personally. As for SATA2, the extra bandwidth wouldn't be used - the benefit could only come from having NCQ.

[Nox]

T7K250, fastest 250GB drive on the market.

Nox

[chrestomanci]

Second vote for segate. They are very quiet, and the only company who trust their stuff enough to offer a 5 year waranty.

[Trippledence]

Both the Hitachy and seagates i looked at. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=226863 and http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=165649 respectivly are only 8mb cashe, surly the likes of the Maxline would be faster?

[TheAnimus]

I prefer seagate, in terms of reliability i've found them to far supass maxtor and WD.

Indeed what scared me most about WD was the number of raptor's that died.... They were marketing that as an ENTERPRISE class drive....... enterprise gear shouldn't fail. Look at ebuyer, or any major retailer and see the feedback. As such I find it hard to trust them. Maxtor, i've not forgiven for the fact they didn't care when a 400meg HDD blew up for no apparent reason quite a few years back now! Then componded matters taking two weeks to RMA a 15k RPM SCSI drive.... Bad!

[Trippledence]

God, this is a real nightmare. I've started thinking too much about it now as you do, it seems for every good comment there is a bad one, for almost all makes Bar Seagate, and there drive is only 200gb.

I quite like the look of this Samsung, http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=247245. But will not haveing the 16mb cash make much difrence?

[zulander]

A Maxtor with 16mb cache, option 3 would be the way i would go.

[peterb]

Look at performance and warranty - and keep backups. If it is mission critical, consider RAID. Otherwise (as you have found) it is personal preference. For me, Hitachi Deskstar or Travelstar.

[[DW]Cougho]

hitachi or seagate, maxtor and WD imo are not particularly great.

I love my hitachi plus the new ones are the fastest 250's (as mentioned already).

[amjedm]

Another vote for Seagate as I prefer them over the other makes.

Have used Maxtor, Hitachi and WD. The WD I had, had the loudest whine I've ever heard from a HD. It was eventually swapped under warranty.

[andyjhill]

I would never have a maxtor again my 160gb one failed one month out of warranty only 13 months old thats terrible for sata drive i think go for the seagate also Ive just bought a samsung spinpoint 250gb sats II drive one of the best 250gb hard disks out at the moment

[NightshadowUK]

I've had two Maxtors die on me, I find them to be noisy and unstable.

The Samsung SpinPoint P120S is liked by many for being quiet and fast - Custom PC even approve it.

[D-BEAR]

2 seagates....running well for over a year now.

[spiral out]

I would say the the samsung spinpoint p120s too as i use one of these drives in my new computer.