Best HD for under £50?

AndrewPE28 · 3 Sep 2011 at 09:43

My main desktop machine only needs a small fast but reliable HD as all my stuff is stored on my WHS machine.

I'm reluctant to go SSD due to lifespan, however my 2 Seagate 7200.11's have now died and i'm back to an old but reliable WD drive.

My motherboard only supports SATA2 so can't utilise 6Gb drives unless I get a controller which as i'm on a budget i'm reluctant to do.

So my choices as I see it are as follows :

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-364-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-081-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-247-SE&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

Any thoughts on what's best?

darael · 3 Sep 2011 at 09:56

I'd go for the WD drive because it's on offer, and WD make some of the more reliable drives.

stulid · 3 Sep 2011 at 10:01

The F3 is the fastest closely followed by the Seagate.

Ignore the SATAIII interface on a mechanical harddrive as its completely unnecessary, only SSD's need this sort of bandwidth, so you wont be missing any performance just because your board is still SATAII.

AndrewPE28 · 3 Sep 2011 at 10:28

How much is there between the WD blue and F3? My 2 7200.11's are still under warranty so i'm running the seatools long test to check them although they both throw up SMART errors in HD Tune Pro. So although i'll RMA them I don't want them back in a system drive. Might keep them for my WHS box though.

AndrewPE28 · 3 Sep 2011 at 10:36

Great Seatools shows no errors on the long test! WTF?

stulid · 3 Sep 2011 at 10:40

You would need to use benchmark software to see the difference, the real world feel will be barely discernable.

madsin · 3 Sep 2011 at 11:23

Samsung SpinPoint F3 100%.
My best buy in 5 years.
I have 6 and wouldent consider anything else.
Run two 1tb in raid 0 and see how well thay do.
Run 4 in raid 0 and you will never look back.

WD are with out doubt the most over rated hard drives ever produced.
Dont even consider anything with then name raptor in it or 10000 rpm.
It will mean nouthing to you in real terms outher than more power consuption
and much more noise.
WD hd,s only ever show in benchmarks not in real time real world performance.

darael · 3 Sep 2011 at 16:15

Or rather than running multiple drives to achieve your required speed, just buy a decent WD/Hitachi drive in the first place.

<facepalm.jpg>

Surveyor · 3 Sep 2011 at 16:20

darael said:
Or rather than running multiple drives to achieve your required speed, just buy a decent WD/Hitachi drive in the first place.

Or Samsung.

darael said:
<facepalm.jpg>

Fail

AndrewPE28 · 3 Sep 2011 at 16:34

I think i'll try the F3. Never had a samsung drive...

Thanks for the advice

madsin · 3 Sep 2011 at 18:07

You wont be dissapointed m8

kg648 · 3 Sep 2011 at 18:13

madsin said:
You wont be dissapointed m8

^^

JasonM · 3 Sep 2011 at 18:14

madsin said:
WD are with out doubt the most over rated hard drives ever produced.

Western Digital has been forefront of many HDD technologies, plus they make the highly reliable Raid Edition drives. :rolleyes:

Surveyor · 3 Sep 2011 at 19:25

JasonM said:
Western Digital has been forefront of many HDD technologies, plus they make the highly reliable Raid Edition drives.

Well the OP's not buying a RAID Edition drive so what's your point?

JasonM · 3 Sep 2011 at 20:09

Surveyor said:
Well the OP's not buying a RAID Edition drive so what's your point?

Not a response to the OP, but response to this comment re-quoted below.

madsin said:
WD are with out doubt the most over rated hard drives ever produced.

Surveyor · 3 Sep 2011 at 20:32

JasonM said:
Not a response to the OP, but response to this comment re-quoted below.

Fair enough.

I don't think there's any evidence that one manufacturer's drives are more reliable than the other manufacturers.

Davefran · 3 Sep 2011 at 20:41

I have 2 of these
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&tool=3
Best drives I've ever used ;-)

rIcK · 3 Sep 2011 at 21:04

AndrewPE28 said:
I'm reluctant to go SSD due to lifespan

This statement isn't true... id be willing to place a fair amount of money on an SSD lasting longer than you would ever need.

darael · 3 Sep 2011 at 21:58

rIcK said:
This statement isn't true... id be willing to place a fair amount of money on an SSD lasting longer than you would ever need.

Does that bet include OCZ drives?

skyripper · 3 Sep 2011 at 22:21

I'm on my 3rd OCZ, so far none have ever been RMA'd.. vertex 1,2E and 3, so I guess I'm betting money on them.