Seagate/Western Digital/Maxtor SATA 160 GB, which one?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:10 pm

Unfortunately, I have to get a new drive, as my 4 years old good Seagate has died. Which of these three trademarks would you choose and why? Thanks for your comments:

Seagate Barracuda SATA 160GB
Western Digital Caviar SATA 160GB
Maxtor Diamond Max 10 SATA 160GB

Post by **garyb** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:13 pm

i'm all about wd these days. they're the only one with 3year warranties...

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:16 pm

Not here, in Chile everything is between 6 months to 1 year, nothing else. So for me this difference makes no value.

Now, away from guaranties, which one would you chose at my place Gary?

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:58 pm

No brainer for me brother man Nestor. Raptor WD740Gs. GS3 Orchestra gets 40 more voices of polyphony over 7200rpm drives. This is not an app. that everyone uses though. I've had Raptors running 16hrs. a day for 6 months with no incident. My GS3 friends have had Raptors for app. 3yrs. now w/o trouble. They are actually overkill unless you are in the studio alot.But GS3 really works over HDDs' more than any app.I know of.

Star Of Stage And Screen,

Jimmy V.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: scope4live on 2005-12-28 17:59 ]</font>

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 6:03 pm

Ok, I'll check if they have WD Raptor. The choise is a bit limited anyway, everything comes "later" to South America, remember

I'll get to the reviews, cheers

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 6:05 pm

It seems they only have SATA Caviar here, what do you think about them so?

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:01 pm

Yeah, I'd like to know about Raptor's and Caviar's noise outputs. My Seagates aren't audible through my noiseless AcoustiCase but I have to think of the future and Caviar's 320G capacity is interesting.

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:13 pm

Go to Storagereview.com. They have extensive testing of drives, including heat dissapation, and db level testing. Also audio benchmarks using Soundforge 7.0.

Please Stay Seated,

Jimmy V.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 9:21 pm

One more question, in case you have experienced anything about this:

Are there any differencies in reliability from a 160GB to a 200GB drive? In other words, is less secure a bigger drive than a smaller one?

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 4:32 am

Mmmm, I see... So the closer the date the better, should be.

I've seen there are 300 and even 500 GB, but I can't even thing about them, the price is rather high.

Cheers

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:57 am

There is little difference between the Caviar line and Baracuda line of Seagate. The Raptors are 3-5db louder due to 10k rpm spindle speed.But if you want a quiet box, you must check out Phillip Rees new Pentium M box. If I need to build another box, and ditch the Supermicro P4SCT+II box, I'll use the Intel Yonah dual core this spring with the 16MB cache Seagates, inside the Zalmann fanless case. That depends how many gigs I can line up in the daytime in the Jingle houses here in town.Right now I only have a years worth of cheeze contracts in showrooms. But I'll be playing shit I like to play. For studio work, silence and low power equal more stability,easier mixing placement, and Yonah (Dual core Pentium M )looks like the way to go,especially if you're using an in the box sequencer w/ GS3,Halion,and DSP cards.

Silence Is Golden,

Jimmy V.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:16 am

This is the one I have got:

Wish me luck!!!

Western Digital Caviar 160GB SATA

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 10:18 am

BTW: only three years guaranty, yes, drink it...

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:04 am

I heard the quality of western digital isn't what it used to be.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:22 am

I am not surprised it is one of the fastest available drives in SATA flavour, look a the plater:

As you can see, there only ONE plater to the whole 160GB, so the read and write must be faster.

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:30 pm

I read 5 years on one site...

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 2:17 pm

No, in fact, this drive has 3 years, and Seagate Barracuda 500GB has 5. But in Chile, it doesn't matter which one you buy, your guaranty is 6 months... Anyway, I am readying some reviews about this drive and it seems to be one of the best in its class. Cheers

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:22 pm

yeah, it's probably faster as bits are more squeezed, but more important is that there's only half of the air friction inside - it will stay much cooler.

cheers, tom

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 4:43 pm

Wow! It’s a very quiet drive indeed; it is the quietest I ever had so far. VERY fast against the Seagate Sata I that broke down. 160GB of storage is not a joke either, I find myself with much more space suddenly used to have only 80GB for my samples and music. I can imagine how grateful must be to get a 500GB one!

I've tasted it with a number of special softwares for this purpose and it truly is fast, I'm quite happy to say the least.

Yes Astro, it's the coolest drive on the market, as you guessed

Hey Paul, highly recomended, get one of those, but as big as you can.

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:28 pm

Does that particular model have 16MB cache? If so do you notice a difference when your streaming audio?