High Speed SATA Drive Recommendations?

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xxaaqq

[H]ard|Gawd
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Dec 14, 2003
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I've been reading some reviews, and it looks like the Seagate 7200.7 drives are a great choice for fast SATA drives. Unfortunately, NewEgg only has 120GB and larger versions of these drives, but I think they are still my pick. I want to put two of them in a Raid 0 array. I know the Raptors are faster, but they are a ton more expensive, and I'd rather not worry about the heat they produce, or the noise. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!

EDIT: I am mistaken. I found the 80GB versions on NewEgg.
 
Hitachi Deskstar 7K250 is probably the best 7200 RPM drive by almost any definition. There are cheaper drives, and there is probably one quieter drive (Samsung SpinPoint P80), but nothing else tops it in terms of performance and quietness. Like most other drives with 8 MB caches, it also carries a three year manufacturer's warranty.
 
I did read one post saying that the Hitachis were completely different from the IBM hard drives, but after losing 2 for 2 with IBM, and seeing the similarities between the IBM drives and Hitachi (fastest and priciest...), I'm still quite leary. Of course, lately, I've seen a few WD Special Editions drop like flies, and I'm starting to be a little worried about that line of drives, too. That's why I'm leaning towards either Maxtor or Seagate. I'm just hoping to hear some more personal experiences with the latest SATA drives.
 
Too bad the search is down. There have been many, many positive comments on this drive and others from IBM/Hitachi. If it comforts you any, the drives that originally had problems were fixable by a simple firmware flash. And really, if you think about it, all drives are relatively prone to failure regardless of the manufacturer, because they are mechanical devices. As long as you keep good backups of your important data, and as long as the drive you purchase has a three year warranty, I think that's the best you can do.
 
xonik, I do agree with you... I hear a lot of people swear by a brand because those other brands keep failing... but everyone has a different story about a different brand. I just feel most strongly about the Deskstars because I had one fail after 7 or 8 months, and another failed after only one month. And with so many stories online about failures, and the fact that at the time I couldn't afford a mirrored Raid solution, I was afraid that if I kept replacing Deskstars with Deskstars, I'd eventually lose a drive and lose data along with it that isn't backed up. That being said, it is good to hear that the Hitachi line isn't keeping the bad reputation that IBM gave the Deskstars. Perhaps I will consider them...
 
I've had my Hitachi SATA drive since November, and I haven't had a single problem with it, runs nice and fast.
 
stupid question but its my first time building a PC from scratch...As far as I understand SATA are somewhat faster and they use a different connector opposed to the IDE hd's. Am i correct in this?

Im getting a WD 7200 160 gig HD(7200) along with a intel 865 board. It says it has 2x serial ATA, this is compatible correct?
 
Originally posted by Headbust
stupid question but its my first time building a PC from scratch...As far as I understand SATA are somewhat faster and they use a different connector opposed to the IDE hd's. Am i correct in this?

Im getting a WD 7200 160 gig HD(7200) along with a intel 865 board. It says it has 2x serial ATA, this is compatible correct?
Click to expand...

SATA drives aren't inherently faster, they just allow for potentially faster drives. They do use a different connector, a 7 pin cable instead of a 40 pin cable, so you can plug them in while the system is running (hotswapping.)

Yes, your intel 865 board will have 2 SATA ports, allowing you to connect 2 serial ata drives. Each port connects only 1 drive, as opposed to regular PATA, which allows master + slave on one port.
 
Originally posted by Headbust
stupid question but its my first time building a PC from scratch...As far as I understand SATA are somewhat faster and they use a different connector opposed to the IDE hd's. Am i correct in this?

Im getting a WD 7200 160 gig HD(7200) along with a intel 865 board. It says it has 2x serial ATA, this is compatible correct?
Click to expand...

Do yourself a favor and get the Seagate 7200.7 160GB instead of the one youre getting. It's quieter, and uses native serial ATA, and Seagate has a great reputation for its HDDs.
 
I went with 2x80GB Seagate 7200.7 drives myself. I believe they arrive today, so I plan to post my subjective opinions.
 
I recently [late december] bought 2x WD 160GB SE drives. Since they both came with ATA controllers (BestBuy was selling SE and non-SE 160gb drives for $90), I plugged one into the mobo and one into the PCI ATA controller. I got about 35MBps [240mbps] consistent write speed. I'm sure that the burst speeds are much faster. Both are still functioning wonderfully (although I moved one out into a different computer).

[Note: The speeds are from memory. I remember burning CD-ROM images from .bin to .nrg with Nero 6 ((800mb images)) in about 20 or so seconds, with the source on one drive and the destination on the other drive]

Note: These are not SATA drives. I'm sure that SATA versions of these drives exist. Or, you could go on NewEgg or a similar site and just buy the ABIT Serrilel converter (they should work on any mobo, right?).
 
I personally LOVE my 120 Gig Seagate SATA drive. It's absolutely magnificent for holding all my music and movies.

I would reccomend it to ANYONE and I plan to put a pair of them in the HTPC I'm gonna build soon.
 
My system is up and running. See updated signature below.

Yesterday (and this morning) was exhausting, swapping out a 200GB drive from my server, and putting 2x80GB drives, adding a Raid card, duplication, then putting the 2 new 80GB SATA drives in my main computer, and having to rebuild the 120GB Raid array (again, duplication... so slow).

But I'm not ready to post my subject review of the Seagates :) For one thing, the fans in my computer are too loud, and I can't hear any of my hard drives. I hope to work on making my computer quieter in the near future...
 
All right... with the side of my case off, I can hear hard drive clicks (reads/writes... whatever causes the noise) which is a disappointment. I thought we left those kinds of obnoxious hard drives noises behind with the 20th century. Otherwise, the drives are pretty nice. Will be installing some programs and games and seeing what else they have to offer, though I don't expect much of a difference from my previous 2 x 80gb 8mb Raid 0 setup...
 
I've read in different places that the newer seagates, although still quiet compared to all competition, are not AS quiet as some older seagates... I can also hear the clicking in my seagate 160 (IDE).


Which model did you get? I know seagate makes two different 80gb s-ata drives, one is native s-ata (ST380023AS) and the other is a p-ata bridged interface (ST380013AS)... but the bridged drive has 80gb/platter discs (1 disc/2 heads) with slightly faster average seeks, where the native s-ata drive has 60gb/platter (2 discs/3 heads) :(

By the way, the latter native s-ata supposedly DOES perform better based off a review/shootout I saw somewhere, if I remember correctly? So even with it's 60gb platters, it would be my choice of the two.
 
After trying some recent Seagate drives in computers I build for friends and family, the 7200.7s just aren't as quiet as previous generations. Seagate had to drop one of its crucial noise-reducing technologies due to an intellectual property lawsuit.* Now I have no problem ranking the Samsung SpinPoint P80 series as the quietest current-generation hard drive family, with the Hitachi Deskstars close behind (along with the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7s).

* Source: http://www.convolve.com/pr2000-7-12a.html
 
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