Which is best - Seagate or Western Digital?

If you really want quiet then I believe that Samsung is the way to go, of the two you have there the Seagate is probably the quickest and if it is anything like mine should be very quiet but it is the newer single platter model which might alter things slightly. :)
 
I can confirm that this Seagate IS QUIET!!! Just put one in a PC i built for the sister in law and i'm very impressed. Apparently its the single platter model which is going to be better than having 2 or more platters spinning.
I had a WD 250Gb a couple of years ago and i had to send it back, very noisey and vibrated the case like hell! The Samsung replacement (not sure of model but 250Gb) was a lot better but not as good as this Seagate.
 
This is my spec of the PC i built 4 months ago - I went with the Seagate as they were the fastest, when I have my headphones on I can not here jack s*it, they are fast but I can there them

System Spec
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 "LGA775 Conroe" 3.00GHz (1333FSB)
Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler
Asus P5N32-E SLi nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
OCZ 2GB (4 x 1GB) PC2-8500 1066MHz Reaper HPC Edition Dual Channel DDR2
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS SATA-II 16MB Cache RAID 0
Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case
Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor
Razer Tarantula Advanced Gaming Keyboard
Razer Diamondback
Vista Ultimate 64bit
2 x Noctua NF-S12 800RPM 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pin
3 x Antec 120mm Silent case Fans
Netgear DG834N 270Mbps RangeMax NEXT Wireless ADSL2+ Modem/Router
Netgear GS605 5-Port Gigabit Desktop Switch
Synology Disk Station DS107+ Plus 1 Bay SATA NAS Server
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS SATA-II 16MB Cache (Fitted to the NAS)
 
I have had a lot of great useage out of seagate drives. been good to me, fast and reliable and well, just been good to me.

WD on the other hand have been nothing but a pain in the behind, Ive had failures, lost data, and overall, Id rather do without.
 
Easy the Seagate because its single platter (That particular one not others), which makes it better (quieter, faster, cooler, lower power consumption and its smaller)

EDIT:
These drives are no the same as the other 7200.10 drives, there more of a 7200.11
 
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Seagates are renowned for being quiet, reliable drives. I've been using them since the old days before UDMA even came out.
 
semi-pro waster said:
If you really want quiet then I believe that Samsung is the way to go, of the two you have there the Seagate is probably the quickest and if it is anything like mine should be very quiet but it is the newer single platter model which might alter things slightly. :)
Click to expand...
Yup I agree, my Spinpoint 500GB is inaudible :)
 
I must add here, that I have at this time, got 7 HDs in my PC :-

A 36GB Raptor, A couple of WD Drives ( Silent ), a couple of Seagates ( Silent ), and a couple of Hitachi Drives ( Again, silent )..

I can on occasion ( Middle of the night ) hear the Raptor click now and then under heavy load ( XP64 ) and when I have a toy about with Vista ( Just done that again a couple of hours ago ) its clicking like a nutter ( Only just stopped about 1am )

Now the only time I hear my HDs is in the middle of the night when sound is abnormally loud anyway.... During the day and even with the side panel off, I hear nothing... Im extremely proud to say that even on Air, this case is quieter than my DangerDen Water cooled system.
 
HDs are a funny breed.

People say they avoid this brand while other would touch nothing else.

I hate WD but looking at my Main PC, Im using a Raptor and a pair of 250GB's, so WTF am I talking about when I say I hate them?

Maxtor for me are a funny breed... I will explain why :-

I have had a handful of the 40GB ( Thin ones ) and I have found them very fast for a small drive and very useful. My first one, I used for downloads / torrents etc and for 2 years, thats all that drive did... 24/7 and this told me it was a good drive. I got another 4 as they are nippy and I did some RAID tests. Love them, and I still have all 5 and they are still going strong.
I have however had other bigger Maxtors and they have all died in various ways.
Another thing I have found with all maxtors is that none of them will work through my SATA Adapters, also if I connect a maxtor to my ITE8212 thast in my DS3, the PC will not go into the BIOS ( ok with any other drive but not maxtor ) and if I connect a Maxtor to my SIL0680, the PC will not see the card at all... Again, any other HD is fine.

So, maxtor drives are definitely NOT normal.

But, as I said, the 40GB ones are just spanky

Funnily enough, does anyone have a Maxtor External HD?
If you open it up, you will find a Seagate HD in there!

What even more funny, is if you put a Maxtor HD into the case instead of the Seagate, what happens?

I have had 3 Maxtor external Drives and I have had 3 things happen.

Firstly, because they are Seagate Drives, I took them out and used them in my other PCs, and I put brand new 80GB Maxtors in, the first was fine, the second didnt work, and the 3rd blew up!

Marvellous.

So, even maxtor would not use Maxtor drives in their own external cases eh? - I see why now!

LOL
 
FatRakoon said:
So, even maxtor would not use Maxtor drives in their own external cases eh? - I see why now!

LOL
Click to expand...

As I'm sure you know though Seagate own Maxtor but at the moment it is helpful to still have two discrete brands because most of the public won't either know or care about the fact that they are slowly becoming one.

For whatever it is worth I've got 3x 200gb SATA Maxtors that have been running for about 4 years now so I could say they are fantastic drives in my experience but so many people have had problems that I can't quite bring myself to recommend them unhesitatingly.

I do agree with you that it mainly comes down to personal experience, what works for one person may not always work for another, it doesn't mean a lot in the grand scheme of things.
 
talking of weird problems, I had a fiddle with the drive i'm in the process of RMA'ing, it seems to have come ok now that i've jumper limited it to SATA150

It was freezing constantly, was quoting 200k/sec transfer rate in Vista drag and drop.. now seems to be copying fine when limited?! weird..

I'm still gonna send it back tho.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Some editting... Ok, a lot!
Click to expand...

Yes, Seagate bought Maxtor a while back now, and at this time, they are still seperate entities...

But I mean, that some Maxtor branded drives ( Only some mind you ) STILL have an issue with being used some IDE cards or Serillel adapters or whatever.

-

However... In saying this... I am going to call myself a bloody liar right now...

I have a few El-Cheapo SATA Adapters, they only cost me a fiver a pop and they work just fine on Maxtor HDs... On my Atari Backup PC, I am using

C: = Maxtor 40GB
D: = Maxtor 120GB
E: = Maxtor 400GB ( Only joking, its one of the seagates I mentioned )
F: = Maxtor 200GB

And all 4 of these drives are IDE and are, at this time, running through a set of Billy-Lal Sata Adapters and they are plonking along just peachy.

Annoyingly enough however, They dont like running as IDE through the SIL0680 , the SIL 3112 or 3114, nor the ITE 8212 cards I have, whether I use a good SATA Adapter on the SATA Cards or not ... I know what Im tryign to say.
 
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