Which 500GB should I buy??

zaim · Jun 21, 2007, 09:47 PM

All are 500GB 16mb cache

Western Digital Caviar SE16 (WD5000AAKS) (3 Year Warranty)

Samsung 500GB 'HD501LJ' HDD - SATA II 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, NoiseGuard, SilentSeek (3-year warranty)

Seagate 500GB 'ST3500630AS' SATA II 3Gb/s NCQ HDD - 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 5-year warranty

Now, this is for my HTPC. I have seem to have ran out of space in my 250GB samsung drive. Apparently HD Movies take up a lot of space :P

The 250GB I have in it, has a 'NoiseGuard' bullshit which is total crap. It is so loud writing files! Very dissapointed... but I wonder if they made it different in the 500GB edition..

Anyone got personaly experience with ANY of these drives?

I'm running a 750GB Seagate in my main pc, and I'm very pleased with it... and I've been happy with my other WD drives... so I'm in a kefuffle!

LHC · Jun 21, 2007, 10:08 PM

Honestly, if I needed to get a 500 GB drive, I'd go for this puppy..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152052

16 meg cache, SATAII, 7200 RPM, 3 year warranty, free shipping, for $120. Only if you're in the US, that is..

The ONLY complaint about it that is somewhat reocurring is that it is noisey when writing files (which I see was a gripe of yours, but IMO for that price, it's just something to think about..)

zaim · Jun 21, 2007, 10:13 PM

yeah was thinking about the samsung too....

the reviews i've read, people havent had any hiccups yet.. and had one guy saying he'd notice slightly faster speeds than the other drivers. and thats what i need when hd movies are being accessed and fast-forwaded n stuff

Tipstaff · Jun 22, 2007, 12:32 AM

Seagate all the way. Just remember: if it's there, remove the little grey jumper that is forcing the drive to run at 1.5GBs so that it will work at 3GBs.

Personally I would step up the drive, and pickup their ST3500630NS Barracuda ES Enterprise drive instead. Reason being is that they are more reliable.. up to 2x the amount of hours versus the AS, and don't run as hot.

Dyre Straits · Jun 22, 2007, 01:34 AM

In the rig I'm using right now, I have Four HDDs:

One Western Digital Caviar SE SATA I just got recently. It's the newest of the bunch and is the System drive.

Two Samsung 160 GB SATA drives I've had now for probably at least a year and a half...if not more.

Then, I have one Seagate IDE/PATA 80 GB drive I've had for some time. Seagate bought out Connor DiskStor some years ago and I've actually always like them.

BUT, temperature-wise, the Seagate drive is by far the hottest one in my system. Hopefully, the newer ones do run cooler as Tipstaff has stated. I can't say so from my own experience.

But, of all four of the drives I have, the Samsungs run the coolest.

Here's a piccy using PC Wizard 2007:

Tipstaff · Jun 22, 2007, 03:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyre Straits

BUT, temperature-wise, the Seagate drive is by far the hottest one in my system. Hopefully, the newer ones do run cooler as Tipstaff has stated. I can't say so from my own experience.

I should clairify: the Enterprise drive (NS) runs a bit cooler than the standard consumer model (AS), however both still run hot. Hotter than I'd like. What's really odd is that the IDE version, the ST3500630A, is even hotter.

BlueMak · Jun 22, 2007, 03:46 AM

43C is not that hot. Under 60C you should be ok.
I have 4 HDDs, 2 Seagate and 2 Maxtor (right before they became Seagate too). The Seagates run at 43C to 45C while the Maxtors 2-4C less.

I have heard good things about the Samsungs in terms of noise and temperature. Still, if you are going to use the drive for nothing very important and just to play movies, then I would just get the cheaper one. Though I wouldn't buy the WD for personal preference.

Tipstaff · Jun 22, 2007, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueMak

43C is not that hot. Under 60C you should be ok.
I have 4 HDDs, 2 Seagate and 2 Maxtor (right before they became Seagate too). The Seagates run at 43C to 45C while the Maxtors 2-4C less.

I have heard good things about the Samsungs in terms of noise and temperature. Still, if you are going to use the drive for nothing very important and just to play movies, then I would just get the cheaper one. Though I wouldn't buy the WD for personal preference.

Out of prefence.. I wouldn't buy Samsung. Yes, they're quiet, and yes they are cooler, but every Samsung drive I've sold, and every computer I've worked on that has had a Samsung drive in it has always had problems with maintaining paritions. Damn wierd, actually, but true. The drive will be physically fine.. no damaged sectors or anything like that.. just that the paritions will up and disappear. Just this last week I was working on an HP MCE machine, and the main partition just.. disappeared, while the recovery partition was intact... which was really bloody wierd.

As I've said, I've run into this problem a lot with Samsung drives, so out of preference, no thanks, Samsung. You can keep your drives.

**kris23** · Jun 22, 2007, 11:01 AM

I vote for seagate, never went wrong with them, they don't run that hot to me as long as a small amount of circulation is around.

besides, there's no point in getting a "cooler" drive if it breaks down for no reason vs a "hotter" that can tolerate the added heat and run reliably.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Jul 4, 2007, 02:18 PM

Seagate hands down. 5 year warranty is the biggie, PRT, not at all loud, best performers I've seen in the 7200RPM SATA2 market.

zaim · Jul 4, 2007, 08:07 PM

I ended up purchasing the Samsung.

it's actually a different looking drive to the 250... much, much quieter =)

**kris23** · Jul 5, 2007, 12:20 PM

hey if it works for you, it works for you! if its quiet then ur other one may have been a defect.....

at least i know what to buy if i want an HTPC or quiet system....