Spec a quiet 160/250Gb SATA-II hard disk?

pflynn · 29 Jan 2006 at 20:15

Hi,

My old IDE WD 80Gb disk is full.

My machine (and motherboard are quite old) but wanted to get a SATA-II disk as I'm planning on upgrading this year to a new dual core mobo/cpu.

I've got a SATA capable A7N8X-Deluxe Rev 2.0. It's only SATA-150 not SATA-300 but I know it's backwards compatible. I also know that the NCQ won't work on SATA-150 but it would be nice for when I upgraded.

Whats a good quiet 160-250Gb SATA-2 disk? I noticed a lot only get 8Mb cache. Do you see much difference between the 8 and 16 Mb cached drives?

I want it to be nice and quiet. I've had some hitachi and WD disks in the past that have been quite loud.

Do I have to do anything special to get it to work on Windows XP SP2? My motherboard BIOS should see all 250Gb shouldn't it??

Dunky · 29 Jan 2006 at 20:32

NCQ is supported by some SATA150 drives / controllers, but NCQ may bring limited increase in performance to your system so although it's nice to have, don't let it be the overriding factor in buying a drive. 8MB/16MB - I've both kinds in my system and haven't noticed much of a difference (real life or benchmarks).

I'd recommend either Seagate 7200.9 250GB (5 yr Warranty) or Samsung Spinpoint 250GB (Samsung aren't the fastest of drives but are generally the quietest ones). Both have 8MB cache, SATA-II and have NCQ.

Most modern BIOS will be able to see the whole of the 250GB, also XP SP2 won't have any problems. Any issues with the 131GB limit were in pre SP1 version of XP.

pflynn · 29 Jan 2006 at 23:28

I've been leaning towards the Spinpoint drives. I'll pick on of those up.

Thanks for the advice.

deadeyedic30 · 30 Jan 2006 at 20:31

Go Samsung for quiet.

pflynn · 30 Jan 2006 at 22:12

Hi,

Well - I've picked up a 200Gb Samsung Spinpoint. Should arrive tommorrow.

Peter

noxidjkram@hotm · 31 Jan 2006 at 15:26

pflynn said:
Hi,

Well - I've picked up a 200Gb Samsung Spinpoint. Should arrive tommorrow.

Peter

Good choice.

I run the 250Gb P120 SP2504C. Its superb.

M

pflynn · 1 Feb 2006 at 08:32

Right it's arrived. I noticed a jumper on it to set it to Serial ATA 150. I only have Serial ATA 1/150 on my motherboard for now (not Serial ATA 2/300). My newer motherboard will have SATA 2.

Do I need to set this jumper to use this disk with my current motherboard?

Slackworth · 1 Feb 2006 at 08:46

It may work. Motherboards tend to vary. If it won't work the drive just won't be accessible.

noxidjkram@hotm · 1 Feb 2006 at 09:04

Set the jumper anyway - that way it will definitely work.

M

peetee · 1 Feb 2006 at 16:36

i bought 2 250gb WD 16mb sata2 drives, fairly cheap, VERY quiet, have cool&quiet technology or something, there real beautys, and im only running them at SATA speeds

Admiral Huddy · 2 Feb 2006 at 14:11

deadeyedic30 said:
Go Samsung for quiet.

I have found the spinpoint quiet whilst system is idle but as soon noisy when it's reading/writting heavy volumes. Like a horrible grinding noise and I know i'm not the only one to complain about this.. or maybe it's because it's notiable because the rest of the system is quieter than it's ever been.

:confused: