Which should I buy

Vakas

Vakas

Vakas

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I am looking to buy a new hard disk between 1-2TB.

I am really looking at a Western Digital model, but I wanted to know if there is a lot of difference in the blue and black models. As a blue version is on offer this week for a great price.

I also see that Seagate drives a very good value but I hear they are very noisy and not as reliable, is this right.

Here are the links for the WD drives I am looking at.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-336-WD&groupid=1657&catid=1660&subcat=1665

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-366-WD&groupid=1657&catid=1660&subcat=1665
 
My advice would be to go for one of the Western Digital drives.

Both of the ones you have listed are very good and offer good performance the Black version does come with a 5 year warranty as opposed to the 2 year warranty offered with the Blue, which for me would be enough to justify the extra £18.

My I ask what you will be using the drive for?
 
Vakas said:
Going to install Windows on it and store some data
Click to expand...

Have you considered an SSD drive, you would get an insanely faster system?

I would recommend both of these with the OS and applications stored on the SSD and your media stored on the HDD:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £83.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £49.99
Total : £143.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
I wanted to get an SSD but didn't think it though this time. I have another 500gb hard drive so I mightjjustgget a 128gb or 250gb SSD as I won't need all the space
 
I cannot recommend an SSD enough.

One of the best upgrades to any PC in the last decade.

The Samsung drives that I linked to above are pretty much the market leader.
 
I don't know if I should post this here but I was thinking of upgrading from Windows 7 to 8 at the same time.

Are boot times and general performance really much better on windows 8?
 
I use Windows 7 and it runs flawlessly with pretty much everything.

The reason I havent made the switch is because I have read about issues people have with it running certain games.

That's not to say those problems havent been ironed out now though.

With regard to boot times, there is very little in it, from the power on switch I am on the Google home page in within 16 seconds.
 
That's a pretty fast boot up.

Do you not have any USB devices connected i.e. Printer, Scanner Webcam?

I find that these slow down the boot time as I have a lot of USB devices
 
Vakas said:
That's a pretty fast boot up.

Do you not have any USB devices connected i.e. Printer, Scanner Webcam?

I find that these slow down the boot time as I have a lot of USB devices
Click to expand...

No Printer or Scanner.

I have:

Webcam
Mouse
Keyboard
Monitor USB Passthrough
Apple Cable

If I am honest I may not be able to offer the best advice on Windows 8 as I have never owned it on one of my systems but from what I can gather a lot of people on here have stuck with 7. Although I here Windows 8.1 is supposed to be better.

I am using SATA 3, although this does'nt make a huge difference it will make things a little faster.
 
Thanks for the info,

I also heard windows 8.1 will be a lot better and they are bringing the start button back as well. I am in no rush so will wait and see what it brings.
 
Vakas said:
Thanks for the info,

I also heard windows 8.1 will be a lot better and they are bringing the start button back as well. I am in no rush so will wait and see what it brings.
Click to expand...

No problem at all.

Yeah that is true and it really should have been in from the start.

In all honesty you could try either operating system, as a complete reinstall on an SSD only takes 10-15 minutes so its not really that taxing.
 
demon8991 said:
In all honesty you could try either operating system, as a complete reinstall on an SSD only takes 10-15 minutes so its not really that taxing.
Click to expand...

The basic install of Windows 7 onto an SSD typically takes 10 - 15 minutes.

Updates, drivers and basic apps can quite easily take another couple of hours. I don't think a PC is "ready" until these things are done.
 
Dervious said:
The basic install of Windows 7 onto an SSD typically takes 10 - 15 minutes.

Updates, drivers and basic apps can quite easily take another couple of hours. I don't think a PC is "ready" until these things are done.
Click to expand...

Either way I don't think it's a huge burden to reinstall an operating system. Used to be a day long job.

I would say its easy to do in less than 2 hours.
 
I find that it usually takes a bit more than 2 hours, and often a fair bit longer if you are transfering files from your "old system".

Mind you, I am a bit "OCD" when it comes to making sure I install the latest drivers and all Windows updates. And I always spend a bit longer on producing an image of the SSD once the updates and drivers are installed. This can save time if ever a fresh install needs to be acrried out again.

One thing that I recently did which does save time is that I created a Windows 7 install disc with about 150 updates included. That saves an hour or two of waiting for updates to download then install.
 
I can take a long while installing updates but you can let them install in the background whilst doing something else
 
Vakas said:
I can take a long while installing updates but you can let them install in the background whilst doing something else
Click to expand...

True.

As I carry out a fair few W7 installations on various PC and laptops for customers, I prefer to get them done and out of the way before the customer takes delivery. I also like to get a "clean" image of the drive after all of the updates are done.
 
Anyone know which is the best 3.5 to 2.5 adapter to use with my case.

What will be the best way of putting it into my case
 
I just wanted to know if you install apps and games on the SSD as well as the operating system will they run faster or is it the same as a normal SATA hard disk once the game or what ever it is has loaded
 
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