seagate or WD 320gb?

ringo747 · 28 Jan 2007 at 16:40

looking for a 320Gb disk for my brother for his pc. Have heard that some of the Seagate drives are noisy. Is the Western Digital ones better or are they pretty similar? I don't really have any preference. 5 yr warranty on the Seagates is another + point i guess. A few opinions on this would be good. Cheers

naro · 28 Jan 2007 at 17:12

Dude, check out the WD5000AAKS which are on offer at OcUK. 90 quid for a 500gb which is the best deal you can find right now!!!

ringo747 · 28 Jan 2007 at 17:16

yeah i spotted that offer but he wants to spend around £65 max - same old poor student story!

naro · 28 Jan 2007 at 17:22

but you'll have to look at the cost per gb. it works out to at most 20p per gb. its for the long term.

I'm also a student, i would have bought it if i had not just bought a Seagate 320gb.

ringo747 · 28 Jan 2007 at 17:31

naro said:
but you'll have to look at the cost per gb. it works out to at most 20p per gb. its for the long term.

I'm also a student, i would have bought it if i had not just bought a Seagate 320gb.

very true - guess you have a good point there. Never was one for bigger drives myself. I would always prefer more drives with less capacity. No idea why though! Just keep imaging that if you have a bigger drive you will spend so much longer restoring everything should your disk fail.

naro · 28 Jan 2007 at 17:34

A bigger drive might take more time to restore as there's more data inside.

More drives is not good because more drives will consume more power and increase your electricity bill.

Personally, I look at the cost per gb when buying hdds. The current sweet spot is 250gb and maybe 320gb. But the 500gb offer by OcUK is even better!!!

ringo747 · 28 Jan 2007 at 22:57

managed to talk him into the 500gb one. it really is a bargain when you look at the massive reduction on it. Ordered there now so should be here wednesday!

naro · 28 Jan 2007 at 23:04

haha.. the Master of All Poison has succeeded!!!

ringo747 · 28 Jan 2007 at 23:14

lol, yeah any probs with it and il be straight back on to ya!

naro · 28 Jan 2007 at 23:19

WD should not have any problems unless its Maxtor-ture.

So, no worries.

And if something crops up (touchwood and i don't think it'll happen), you can get back to OcUK. Or you can RMA through Western Digital's website and it should be a breeze.

ringo747 · 28 Jan 2007 at 23:33

cheers for your help. Do these disks include cables? I take it it's just plug and play idea?

naro · 29 Jan 2007 at 00:24

SATA cables come with the motherboard and do not come with the hard disk.

Yup, hard disks are plug and play. But you'll have to initialise the hdd first. You can do it from Control Panel -> Administrative Control -> Disk Management

TheVoice · 29 Jan 2007 at 00:48

naro said:
More drives is not good because more drives will consume more power and increase your electricity bill.

Not by any remotely-noticeable amount; the average desktop drive, while idle, uses just over 8 watts.

At least by having multiple disks, you're spreading the risk of failure a bit more. Not that it should be of great concern either.