New HDD which would you choose?

[Volcano]

Im gonna buy a new hdd but im at a loss which to choose.
Should i stick with IDE or is SATA much better?
I have been looking at these 3 models:

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 80GB 8MB Cache - OEM

Western Digital Caviar 80GB Special Edition 8MB Cache - OEM

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 Serial ATA 80GB 8MB Cache - OEM

Out of the IDE drives a lot off peeps seem to be going for the WD drives but why?
Maxtor is like ATA133 and WD only ATA100, wouldnt the maxtor be better/faster one to go for?

id be grateful for any advice

Thx

[joshwa]

WD are noisier than others.

so you may as well go for Maxtor. Or Samsung (which I personally think are tops, v fast, v quiet) as they include 3yr warranty.

ata133 vs ata100 - this doesn't really matter as the hard drives can't provide the speed anywhere near ata100, let alone ata133...

[chrisf6969]

go on price since they are very similar.

I like them both personally. I had a Maxtor in one of my PC's and it "felt" like it was fast, (booting etc.) No Scientific tests, timings or benchmarks. Just seemed faster.

[daniel_owen_uk]

Originally posted by www.josh.org.uk
WD are noisier than others.

so you may as well go for Maxtor. Or Samsung (which I personally think are tops, v fast, v quiet) as they include 3yr warranty.

ata133 vs ata100 - this doesn't really matter as the hard drives can't provide the speed anywhere near ata100, let alone ata133...

Not strictly true m8 as the cache will transfer at 133 speeds

[Austin]

Well the WD tend to be noisier and hotter than Maxtor but the WD 7200-8 always come with a 3 year warranty AFAIK. I think only the Maxtor SATA come with 3 years as 1 year is now the HD's industry standard. SATA has a few benefits but really nothign worth paying extra over a regular (PATA) drive. As mentioned there's no real diff between ATA100 and ATA133 so don't use that as a reason for buying. See what price diffs are like but I would say go with ...

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 80GB 8MB Cache - OEM

[Volcano]

Yeah , i have a Maxtor 40gb ATA133 atm and its decent enuff with 2mb cache.
Just need more space and an 80gb with 9mb cache sounded good.

So you recomend IDE instead of SATA then?

[Volcano]

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 80GB 8MB Cache - OEM

Yeah im more tempted by this one tbh....but the price difference between all 3 isnt very much anyhoo so i just want the fastest most reliable one tbh.

[Austin]

Well SATA is more future-proof and should use less of the CPU, not share their data channel, have smaller cables and probably run a fraction quieter and cooler as well as having a better warranty. So if price diffs are small it would perhaps make mroe sense to get the SATA. However SATA is still in its infancy and many mobos have pretty cludged implimentations, I'm very sure my old Maxtor 7200-8 was faster than my Maxtor SATA (7200-8). I think whatever you choose is fine, splitting hairs really I guess.

[Zak33]

Originally posted by daniel_owen_uk
Not strictly true m8 as the cache will transfer at 133 speeds

Not strictly true there either sadly

The reason WD dont use 133 is cos its not needed...its just hype.

Dont forget EIDE HDD's work in kinda "spurts" of info....they kind of "pulse" data.

Lets put this in context.....I have a 10,000 Cheetah SCSI drive.....I have a 160 controller....thats 160 mb/sec. Its a constant stream of data....


That Cheetah gets NO WHERE NEAR using any of its 166...not even CLOSE.

So a 7200 rpm HDD on an EIDE channel will simply not need a 133 bus. Its only included cos it A: Sells Hardware and B:Is easy to incorporate into the MOBO and BIOS for your PC.

So dont fret about 100 or 133 ATA....no difference......much more important are the spindle speed and quality of hard disk etc.

[SilentDeath]

maxtor warrentys are a bit confusing, and i will be very angry if i find that the information on there site about warrentys is wrong. there site says that all dimond maxtor plus (9?) drives over 120gb WITH 8mb cache will all have 3yr warrentys. it doesnt mention sata and pata. ive got a 40gb and a 120gb pata drives and ive just bought a 160gb sata 8mb dmp9 so austin if you know something about warrentys that there site doesnt, plz share it wih us

would a good reson to get a ata133 drive over ata100 - if you share the channel you then get 133mb/s /2 instead of 100mb/s /2... which can make some difference.
the acctual cost of ata133 chips is exactly the SAME as ata100, the only cost being that of designing the new chips.

wd are niosyer and hotter than other (FDB) drives. i dont kknow what samsung drives are like but i see no reson to get a seagate as they are slower than recent maxtors, and make just as much niose,

[Austin]

Regarding Maxtor's warranties I heard and read (IIRC) that they dropped to a 1 year warranty in line with the rest of the HD manus. WD retained 3 year for its SE HDs (namely their 7200-8). When SATA appeared Maxtor gave 3 years with its HDs, I'm not sure of other SATA HDs from other manu also give 3 year or not. This is AFAIK and policies may have changed since anyway. IIRC somewhere on the Maxtor site (RMA?) you can put in the details written on top of your HD and it will tell you the warranty you have etc. If I get chance (and someone doesn't beat me to it) I'll look into it ... got to go cook now!

[SilentDeath]

hmm interesting.... look on there site it has a page saying all dmp drives igger than 120gb and 8mb cache are 3yr... which was one of the resons i bought mine...

anyway, now i have a prob... FDISK, where has it gone? (i use win2k now...)
also i need to know if theres any apps that can test disk for bad bits properly (like the win9x-cmd line scandisk).
i dont really want to use partition magic etc.. as all i need is to simply make 2 partitions and format.. i might ghost later if i can be arsed enuf...

[Agent]

Originally posted by chrisf6969
I like them both personally. I had a Maxtor in one of my PC's and it "felt" like it was fast, (booting etc.) No Scientific tests, timings or benchmarks. Just seemed faster.

The Maxtor has much higher burst rates, but slightly longer seak times (something like 0.2 ms more)

Originally posted by Zak33
The reason WD dont use 133 is cos its not needed...its just hype.

Its actually because Maxtor own the rights to ATA133, so no one else can use them at present, but like said previously, the difference between 100 and 133 is negligible.

[SilentDeath]

seagate and samsung use ata133 iirc...? and if they dont, then HOW did ata133 get in almost every mobo and all new cables are ata133... doesnt ata133 need 2x more conductors per cable???

[Austin]

AFAIK there are only two types of std IDE (PATA) cable. The classic stuff capable of up to ATA33 and the enhanced ATA66 ones which can go all the way up to ATA133. That's what I thought anyway. It is true that Maxtor own the rights to ATA133 and that's why so few HD manus have adopted it, they need to pay a fee to Maxtor if they use it and SATA150 was right around the corner anyway.

Win2000 & XP use the Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Computer Man -> Disk Man to have control over the HDs. AFAIK, I did feel a little disorientated myself after being so used to FDISK and Win9x. To verify your HD (like 9x Scandisk) you can r.click your drive (eg in 'My Computer') then select 'Properties' -> 'Tools' where you get the option to run Scandisk(ish) or Defrag. Click 'Check Now' and you can select a std check, check for system file errors and check for bad sectors (full surface scan). How you find out what errors were fixed is beyond me as there's no longer a log file in root.

[Jayson]

i now have two of those WD's they are good, and i cant hear them, not about a 7v mod fan.