Which Brand of HDD?

Goksly · 13 Oct 2008 at 00:35

Been ages since I've got a new hdd. A few years ago Hitatchi were the ones to get and thus I have 2 x 160gb of them. This seems to be peanuts now so I'm looking at getting 2 x 500gb... so what are the best for this size (will look up to 750gb too!).

Don't want to buy one 1tb/1.5tb as I duplicate certain files across both drives.

Cheers

jellybeard999 · 13 Oct 2008 at 01:28

Im liking WD, however they are pricy.

Samsungs are the next best thing (very similar speed wise) and the 320/640 are the sizes to get.

2x 640Gb Samsung F1s would do you if that is sufficient size wise, otherwise look at the 1tb F1s for very little more.

bledd · 13 Oct 2008 at 10:51

Samsung or WD

Goksly · 13 Oct 2008 at 13:04

Cheers for the feedback fellas. Think I'm liking the look of the Samsungs after looking at the prices etc. Other than the space, will I notice much performance difference between the 500gb and 750gb Samsung models - the former has 16mb cache, the second has 32mb.

bledd · 13 Oct 2008 at 13:08

640gb is faster than both

Flukester · 13 Oct 2008 at 14:52

I'd stick with WD, last 10 years we use on average 20 HDs a week and WD are the most reliable.

Hitachi can take a hike after the deathstar click-of-death fiasco and every Maxtor 120GB disk we ever sent out (100s) failed within 2yrs.

Seagate have been ok, but had a fair few dead from new... so it's WD all the way for me.

Not tried Samsung, but not gonna risk it... you only find out reliability 2yrs down the line and so far (touch wood) WD have not been failing in any qty over last 10yrs.

WD640AAKS is a nice quick drive with new 320GB platters AFAIK...

bledd · 13 Oct 2008 at 15:04

i'd like to echo what Flukester has said..

we don't use as many drives in my work, but my 'dead drive' pile has 1x wd in it and about 15x maxtors roughly the same amount of drives were bought of both makes

i've only seen one dead samsung personally, i have about 9 of them

Evil-I · 13 Oct 2008 at 15:49

Samsungs very good, very reliable, excpetionally quiet and very good performance wise. I've got the 1Tb F1 and its a stormer! 334 Gb per platter which I think is the highest so far?

Fibre_Optic · 13 Oct 2008 at 18:10

Samsung reliable :confused:

lol
They have one of the worse if not the worse reliability records of all hd manufactures!!

WD
Seagate

Would never buy a sammy drive tbh, restoring 100's of GB's of data aint fun

My faulty HD tally compounds this opinion as faulty Samsung HD's are over 2x as many (38 units) as the next manufacture (IBM/Hitachi) (18 Units)

Goksly · 13 Oct 2008 at 23:16

Ok down to the last two:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD6400AAKS) - £50
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS) - £57

I assume they are the same underlying drive - just one has the extra 16mb cache?

Fibre_Optic · 13 Oct 2008 at 23:21

Get the Black!
The extra 16MB and 2 years warranty is well worth the extra £7 imho.
Great drive choice tbh!

ticktock · 13 Oct 2008 at 23:46

I would say Samsung. Great drives, quiet too!

C64 · 13 Oct 2008 at 23:48

Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD6400AAKS) - £50
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS) - £57

I am not sure which is faster The AAKS has 2x 320gb platters am not sure about the blacks i want to know too was about to buy a 640 gig aaks

AtreuS · 13 Oct 2008 at 23:52

Fibre_Optic said:
Samsung reliable
lol
They have one of the worse if not the worse reliability records of all hd manufactures!!

WD
Seagate

Would never buy a sammy drive tbh, restoring 100's of GB's of data aint fun

My faulty HD tally compounds this opinion as faulty Samsung HD's are over 2x as many (38 units) as the next manufacture (IBM/Hitachi) (18 Units)

Maybe you got a bad batch?

My friend who currently works at a large manchester reseller always tells me that they have less samsung returns than any other, seems hitachi are top of the duffers list with maxtor.

He says samsung/wd/seagate are the most reliable in that order from his experiance in the returns dept.

Personally i have 8 samsung drives in my machines and not had a single problem so far *touch wood*

Then again ive used countless maxtors over the years in my personal machines and never had one die.. maybe im lucky! the only drive ive had die on me was an old IBM deathstar

LEK-89 · 14 Oct 2008 at 12:10

I've got a 320GB Samsung SATA2 drive in my rig & its the bees, Without a doubt the most silent Hard Drive i have ever owned!

Liam

Goksly · 14 Oct 2008 at 12:41

C64 said:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD6400AAKS) - £50
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS) - £57

I am not sure which is faster The AAKS has 2x 320gb platters am not sure about the blacks i want to know too was about to buy a 640 gig aaks

Specifications1 1 TB 750 GB 640 GB 500 GB
Heads/disks 6/3 5/3 4/2 4/2

Not terribly clear, but as long as disks = platters, then the 640GB does have 2 platters

Goksly · 14 Oct 2008 at 12:53

Thanks for everyones help. I've just purchased the Black 640GB. Will see how that goes and if happy will purchase the second one

flyman · 20 Oct 2008 at 22:50

Goksly said:
Thanks for everyones help. I've just purchased the Black 640GB. Will see how that goes and if happy will purchase the second one

I've been looking at getting one of these too but I've not seen a review anywhere!
How have you got on with your new HD? Have you had a chance to give it a test?

fobose · 20 Oct 2008 at 23:04

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12723390&postcount=846

A benchmark of the 640GB Black, and the 640GB blue (although my blue's are in RAID 1, but that should give the black single drive an advantage...).

C64 · 21 Oct 2008 at 07:11

I'd still get for the sake of an extra £7 the blacks for the 5 year warranty and they have tech to make them quieter and use less power which the blue doesn't.