Help me chose Hard Drive

izzugotomizzugotom Member
edited March 2005 in Hardware
Which of the following 8mb/7200/120Gb hard drives is the best quality.

Seagate

Maxtor

Western Digital

Comments

  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    This is usually more a matter of opinion, but I (and at least a few of my friends) have consistent problems with Maxtor hard drives. Every maxtor drive I've ever bought has failed on me, and usually within 2-3 months of purchase. All my Western Digitals are still holding up just fine, including one that has literally been on and spun up for more than a year. I've also heard that seagate drives are generally fairly reliable these days.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    The old maxtors use to be horribly bad and cheap drives. However the new ones (last 5 years basically) they've been good reliable drives for me. Seagate I've had no end of troubles with they seem to die horrible deaths if left on continuously. Western Digital I've also had generally good luck with. So I'd say maxtor or western it's a toss up at that point. For me I buy equally between the two brands for home and work just depends on which ones my local computer shop has instock at the time or any pricing deals.
  • edited November 2004
    I have two Sata 80' gig WD's- I Have had them for over a year now and they run perfect. Before I had these I had a Seagate 120 gig- never worked at all! Cant say Ive ever had a problem with Maxtor cause I had one of those as well, just in ordinary IDE. But all around WD is the way to go.
  • yaggayagga Havn't you heard? ... New
    edited November 2004
    All the drives I have used in the last 3 years from ALL of the 3 companies have been great! The deciding factor for me is the sound level, so that knocks western digital out as they are the only company not using FDB motors. Western Digital drives should be the absolute loudest component in your PC even if other fans are loud ones. So, after clearing up the accoustic levels, I choose based on which I can get cheapest, so whatever is advertised at the store. I 100% recommend looking at your local stores than online! They are MUCH cheaper and are retail boxed, not OEM. They are often times on instant, mail-in, or instand + mail-in rebates. You can easily get drives for $30, even 160GB ones. I have found 250GB drives for around $70. Also, most of the Maxtor deals I have seen are instant rebates, like maybe $100 off or something, where the other brands have tended to have both types of rebates. Seagates might be better for sata as they are native.

    ...just my experience here. I am not saying any drive is better than than the other, but if Western Digital used FDB motors I would probably look more for one of those, maybe.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    im running a 120g WD 8mb/7200/ata100 drive now and have been quite happy with it.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    kryyst wrote:
    The old maxtors use to be horribly bad and cheap drives. However the new ones (last 5 years basically) they've been good reliable drives for me.

    I don't agree. I had not one, but two Maxtor 120GB SATA 8MB drives die, with different error codes from powermax that could be consistently reproduced, 3 months after I bought them. I sold my RMA drives and got a 200GB SATA WD drive, which is still happy. I've also, like I said, got a 180GB IDE 8MB WD drive which I've had for more than a year and a half now and has a power-on count of more than a year continuous running, in perfect shape. As for noise, I don't see what you're getting at - I found my Maxtor drives were noisier than my two WDs.
  • HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
    edited November 2004
    I've got Maxtors, Western Digitals, Seagates, & IBM's Deskstar. Been pretty satisfied with all. Older Maxtors were noisiest of all, as said. Two 36G Sata WD's are in my main pc now. Did lose some sectors on an old 8meg Maxtor. Had a program that partitioned the bad sectors and it's still running in the inlaws pc after about 7yrs, without problems.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    Whatever just personal experience. I haven't had any problems with Maxtor's or WD's in the last 5 years.

    As for the noise thing I don't know what Yagga is talking about I've never noticed WD's to be any louder then any other drive. Just depends on the case and fans and whatever else you've got running at the time I suppose.
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    It probably does... I've got a friend who has two maxtor drives, and their the noisiest thing in his system, but that's because he has a silent PSU and he runs with his side panels off... My system has 4 non-silent but not excessively noisy case fans and a PSU with switchable fan speeds, and I never hear my hard drives. My server, on the other hand, tends to make quite a bit of HD noise, but that's because it has three Ultra2 SCSI HDs.
  • yaggayagga Havn't you heard? ... New
    edited November 2004
    Well I am considering the noise of both a 30gb and a 40gb WD with 2mb cache, maybe they have changed them now?

    On second look, I recommend going to www.ebay.com and searching for a "new Maxtor 250gb hard drive" and buying one from there. ;)

    EDIT/ THIS IS THE FRAUD ITEM SOME CANADIAN STOLE FROM ME!
  • edited March 2005
    izzugotom wrote:
    Which of the following 8mb/7200/120Gb hard drives is the best quality.

    Seagate

    Maxtor

    Western Digital

    Western Digital are the best they are reliable.
    Seagates are good.
    I had a Maxtor and i had trouble with them losing data.
    I have a WD that is 13 years old and still going strong
    I have four WD's installed on my machine...
  • ZuntarZuntar North Carolina Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    Most of the older drives from all the manufacturers are noisy. I can't hear either one of my WD drives in my main rig. I have a WD and a Seagate in the wifey's, no probs. used maxtors before with no issues.

    AKA, it is hit and miss w/ all the manufacturers. I personaly lean towards the WD tho.
  • verselloversello New
    edited March 2005
    Zuntar wrote:
    Most of the older drives from all the manufacturers are noisy. I can't hear either one of my WD drives in my main rig. I have a WD and a Seagate in the wifey's, no probs. used maxtors before with no issues.

    AKA, it is hit and miss w/ all the manufacturers. I personaly lean towards the WD tho.

    I have a 13 gig WD that's been running great since '98. Seagates are my top picks though, followed by WD. Seagate drives are just so damn quiet.

    I've never liked Maxtor much. From my past experience, their drives died within a few years.
  • GnomeWizarddGnomeWizardd Member 4 Life Akron, PA Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    wahoo reviving threads!
  • yaggayagga Havn't you heard? ... New
    edited March 2005
    My priorities have changed, I would probably pick as new:

    1. Seagate
    2. Western Digital
    3. ?
    4. ?
    5. ?
    ?=Maxtor, Samsung, Deskstar (new ones), etc.
  • edited March 2005
    I've got 2 Hirachi 80gig SATA's hung off of an NF7S in a raid-0 and they're fast, quiet, and haven't hiccupped yet in 2 years. Bus is seriously oc'd too. I was nervous after the deathstars, but they're great so far.
  • bobbycanadabobbycanada Sea Cliff, N.Y.
    edited March 2005
    That's like asking what the best car is. Ford, Chevy or Fiat....lol

    They are all good with faults.. For a few bucks more I'd up the capacity to 60 or 80 gig.
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