SATA drive - Samsung or WD

JIM_BOB7813 · 10 Sep 2006 at 15:34

I currently have an 80GB western digital(IDE) which is getting packed, i am looking at getting a 250GB SATA drive.

I have read that it's best to reinstall windows if you are swapping from PATA->SATA, has anyone got this to work without reinstalling windows? (mobo is MSI K8N Neo platinum). If it's not possible/doesn't work i'll just use the 250 as storage drive.
I am looking at:
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C
OR
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache

Both are 250GB, the WD has 16MB cache instead of 8. And they are almost the same price.

In this review both come out nearly the same, the samsung is quieter, but slower on some tests. http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/250_7.html

Has anyone had experience with both drives? or either.
Can i run SATA along with a PATA drive? Do i just plug it in and go?
If i wanted to have the drive as an external drive, do i just buy an enclosure and plug it in?

gurusan · 10 Sep 2006 at 15:36

I'd go for the WD....or a Seagate....poop on samsung

semi-pro waster · 10 Sep 2006 at 16:09

I'd go for a Seagate 7200.10 as it is faster than both but if that isn't an option I'd probably pick the WD but I doubt there is much in it.

SATA and PATA run fine together, you may need to install drivers for the SATA drive depending on the motherboard manufacturers implementation and remember to set the correct order in the bios.

External enclosures should be more or less plug and play but SATA enclosures are still less common than IDE

Rambaud · 10 Sep 2006 at 16:23

I have got various flavours of SATA drives - Maxtor, WD, Seagate and Samsung. They co-exist fine with PATA drives.

I use Ghost to copy my OS (Windows XP Pro) from PATA to SATA and vice versa.

Cyber-Mav · 10 Sep 2006 at 16:48

sata and pata work fine i have a combo in various machines using that config. i use arconis trueimage software to do all my backups etc.

JIM_BOB7813 · 10 Sep 2006 at 17:34

Thanks for the info guys.
I never even looked at the seagate, people seem to say they are reliable.

Are they quiet? my last seagate drive (30gb) used to grind like crazy, was very loud.

mmmmm £12 for an extra 7GB... :S

Justintime · 10 Sep 2006 at 19:40

gurusan said:
I'd go for the WD....or a Seagate....poop on samsung

Obviously a well educated and experienced opinion there.

For reliability the Samsung is top dog imo, Seagate is the balance of performance and reliability, not far from Samsung and faster and currently the best choice, WD is close but i'd get the Seagate, and its quiet yes.