Advice on choosing new hard drive - Club CDFreaks

LegolasUK · 11-10-2003

I want to replace my 3 exisiting hard drives with one 120GB drive and wanted to know which would be a good one to buy. At the moment i'm thinking of getting one of the following:

- Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 120Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133

- Seagate ST3120026A 120gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus

- Western Digital Caviar SE 120Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache EIDE

- IBM / Hitachi Deskstar 180GXP 120gb ATA 7200rpm 8mb Cache

what do u think?

Tyro · 12-10-2003

The cheapest among all of them is the IBM one. Like the rest, it also has a 3 year warranty. So unless there is some other tradeoff between the brands, go for the IBM one.

*Lvsitano* · 12-10-2003

I strongly advise you NOT to buy a IBM HDD. They're failing all the time. Go for the WD Caviar. Best performance at an affordable price. If you want a more silent drive you can go for the Maxtor with FDB motors.

**AZImmortal** · 12-10-2003

yeah, they don't call them the IBM Deathstars for nothing, heh.

**OC-Freak** · 12-10-2003

I'll say stay away from the maxtor: they have an annoying whining sound in use.

If reliability and nois is important: Seagate! I've yet to have a failing seagate and they are just sooooo quiet. But they normally costs more.

Else, pick up the cheapest of the WD or the IBM - they're about the same quality in my opinion, had quite a few of both those brands failing during the years.....

*BoSkin* · 12-10-2003

Quote:

Originally posted by OC-Freak

I'll say stay away from the maxtor: they have an annoying whining sound in use.

Mine ( 120GB 8MB cache ) is as loud as a butterfly

LegolasUK · 12-10-2003

hmmm well out of the 4 drives the IBM is the cheapest and i've read some good reviews for that particular drive. The Seagate and Maxtor drives are about the same price and the WD Caviar is the most expensive of the 4 but only slighty more. I've heard people having problems with the IBM 120GXP drives before but wasnt sure if the 180GXP drives were just as bad or not.

*BoSkin* · 12-10-2003

Quote:

The DiamondMax Plus 9 leaves the rest of the field behind in two of the benchmark disciplines in particular, namely application performance and the minimal data transfer rate when reading and writing. In practical terms, this makes it ideally suited for all types of sequential data retrieval/ storage, such as video editing, due to the high minimal transfer rates. It also means that you can work on your computer with no delays resulting from today's high performance applications (WinBench 99 2.0).

Reaching well over 100 MB/s, even the burst transfer rate attains a new all-time best for individual hard drives. Until now, achieving such a maximum bandwidth required at least two hard drives in one RAID system.

The DiamondMax Plus 9 also achieves a rating in the top third with regard to CPU load and access time measurement.

This good set of results is marred, however, by the excessively short warranty period of just one year (even though two-year warranty periods have been obligatory in the EU since 2002). Ultimately, someone has to vouch for this warranty, and in many cases, this is the dealer.

Particularly with a product for which reliability and/ or data security count more than anything else, short warranty periods do not necessarily inspire confidence.

Benchmark Results

**OC-Freak** · 12-10-2003

Quote:

Subjectively speaking, the drive emitted an ever-so-slight low-pitched hum. The sound reminded us of a platter that was slightly misaligned and thus wobbling minutely along its rotation axis

That is how www.storgereview.com described the maxtor disk.

Storage review is definitively the number 1 place to check for harddrive reviews.

My Maxtor 160gig do also make such an annoying sound....not noticeable when listening to music though....but annoying while not playing any music. All other maxtors I've owned have also made this sound.

*Bhairav* · 12-10-2003

The newer IBM Deskstar 180GXP seems to be a very good drive. It has some SCSI command support built in, which enables Tag and Seek, which has been explained well in the Storage Review.com review of the drive.
Oh, and disregard the Deathstar jibe in my sig

LegolasUK · 12-10-2003

If the IBM 180GXP is reliable enough then i'll get that otherwise I think I might go for the WD Caviar SE....i think

*BoSkin* · 12-10-2003

Quote:

Originally posted by Bhairav

Oh, and disregard the Deathstar jibe in my sig

Mine ( the same as yours in sig ) is STILL alive and kicking.

**Dee-ehn** · 13-10-2003

Quote:

Originally posted by BoSkin
Mine ( 120GB 8MB cache ) is as loud as a butterfly

Same here.. got two of them, working together in a RAID-0 array...

I can hardly hear them... maybe that's due to my 13 fans?

Anyhow, I'm pretty satisfied with the Maxtor drives.

11-10-2003	#1 (permalink)
LegolasUK New on Forum Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 29	Advice on choosing new hard drive I want to replace my 3 exisiting hard drives with one 120GB drive and wanted to know which would be a good one to buy. At the moment i'm thinking of getting one of the following: - Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9 120Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133 - Seagate ST3120026A 120gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - Western Digital Caviar SE 120Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache EIDE - IBM / Hitachi Deskstar 180GXP 120gb ATA 7200rpm 8mb Cache what do u think?

12-10-2003	#3 (permalink)
Lvsitano Alcohol 120% Translator Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Portugal Posts: 975	I strongly advise you NOT to buy a IBM HDD. They're failing all the time. Go for the WD Caviar. Best performance at an affordable price. If you want a more silent drive you can go for the Maxtor with FDB motors. __________________ Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3 motherboard 4GB DDR2 PC6400 Pioneer DVR-216D DVDRW drive Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7203S DVDRW drive WD 640GB HDD

12-10-2003	#4 (permalink)
AZImmortal Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2,943	yeah, they don't call them the IBM Deathstars for nothing, heh. __________________ Vob Blanker \| DvdReMake (Pro) I don't respond to questions through PM that should be asked in the forum

12-10-2003	#5 (permalink)
OC-Freak Senior Admin Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Cdfreaks review lab - Norway Posts: 5,663	I'll say stay away from the maxtor: they have an annoying whining sound in use. If reliability and nois is important: Seagate! I've yet to have a failing seagate and they are just sooooo quiet. But they normally costs more. Else, pick up the cheapest of the WD or the IBM - they're about the same quality in my opinion, had quite a few of both those brands failing during the years..... __________________ I'm a real freak in many aspects!

12-10-2003	#10 (permalink)
Bhairav CDFreaks Resident Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Bombay,India Posts: 1,297	The newer IBM Deskstar 180GXP seems to be a very good drive. It has some SCSI command support built in, which enables Tag and Seek, which has been explained well in the Storage Review.com review of the drive. Oh, and disregard the Deathstar jibe in my sig __________________ Q6600@3GHz\|Gigabyte 8800GT/Zalman Cooler Asus P5Q-E \| 4GB Powerchip DDR2-800 3TB HDD Pio DVR212 Benq 1655 \| Pio 111L Viewsonic vx2025wm

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12-10-2003	#2 (permalink)
Tyro CD Freaks Member Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 198	The cheapest among all of them is the IBM one. Like the rest, it also has a 3 year warranty. So unless there is some other tradeoff between the brands, go for the IBM one.

12-10-2003	#7 (permalink)
LegolasUK New on Forum Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 29	hmmm well out of the 4 drives the IBM is the cheapest and i've read some good reviews for that particular drive. The Seagate and Maxtor drives are about the same price and the WD Caviar is the most expensive of the 4 but only slighty more. I've heard people having problems with the IBM 120GXP drives before but wasnt sure if the 180GXP drives were just as bad or not.

12-10-2003	#11 (permalink)
LegolasUK New on Forum Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 29	If the IBM 180GXP is reliable enough then i'll get that otherwise I think I might go for the WD Caviar SE....i think

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