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Which 1TB Drive?

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C

ctbrown

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The Caviar has been shown to be the (not "one of the", "the") quietest HD available, if that matters. If I were going for any sort of performance, the Samsung F1s. If not, I'd go with the Caviar GP.
 
#2 looks good vs #1. Seagate IMO is a better brand than WD, the model you picked has twice the cache as the WD and about half the access latency (lower = better), although it is $10 more that is not bad for the performance boost.
 
Zerix01 said:
#2 looks good vs #1. Seagate IMO is a better brand than WD, the model you picked has twice the cache as the WD and about half the access latency (lower = better), although it is $10 more that is not bad for the performance boost.
Click to expand...

You shouldn't just say 'more cache = better' and assume it translates in to performance. Reviews indicate Seagate's drives are decent but mainly emphasize STR-oriented tasks like copying large files. They aren't generally the best for all-around performance. The 5 year warranty is nice though.
 
I went with the Seagates in my unRAID server just for that warranty. They've performed very well for me too.
 
I'm going to be using the drive for storage of DVD and DIVX. So it does n't have to be lightning fast. Heat, noise and reliability are more important to me.
 
The WD clearly wins in heat/noise. Reliability is very difficult to measure, since no one keeps track, except anecdotally (except the manufactors and Google - but they don't release numbers and/or names). In that sense, call that equal (since we have no proof one way or the other) - except that Seagate has a 5 vs 3 year warrenty.
 
Newegg seagate FTW. The cheaper microcenter one has a way different serial number than the originial ST31000340AS. Obviously Seagate modded the drive down a little bit, in performance, or what not, mass produced it, and sold it to microcenter. I saw this drive at bestbuy for 189.99 a few weeks ago. And yet again, some odd serial number, obviously telling you that something has been changed from the original. Thats how it seems to work now-a-days.

Got 3 of these 1TB newegg drives coming in tomorrow. Their the best of the best, dont get me wrong. Worth 229.99, by far.

Many stories of WD's lasting a few months after its 3 year waranty, and Seagates still lasting years after its 5 year waranty. I think we have a clear winner.
 
Kai_Force said:
Newegg seagate FTW. The cheaper microcenter one has a way different serial number than the originial ST31000340AS. Obviously Seagate modded the drive down a little bit, in performance, or what not, mass produced it, and sold it to microcenter. I saw this drive at bestbuy for 189.99 a few weeks ago. And yet again, some odd serial number, obviously telling you that something has been changed from the original. Thats how it seems to work now-a-days.
Click to expand...

I think I found the answer. The difference in S/N is just the retail vs OEM version and according to the link below, the S/N on the drive itself (not the box) is the same as the OEM.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245241-32-seagate-st310005n1a1as-st31000340as

So I'll probably go with the 1TB Barracuda from Microcenter since its only a 10min drive from where I work.
 
MadMan007 said:
You shouldn't just say 'more cache = better' and assume it translates in to performance. Reviews indicate Seagate's drives are decent but mainly emphasize STR-oriented tasks like copying large files. They aren't generally the best for all-around performance. The 5 year warranty is nice though.
Click to expand...

Well I was saying that the latencies are listed on those links. The WD lists an 8.9ms latency while the Seagate lists a 4.16ms latency. Part of that may be caused by the added cache but what ever it's caused by it is listed as faster. And the extra cache couldn't hurt for the price.

I did notice that the WD has a variable spindle that can run at 5400 - 7200 rpm. I'm sure that would give some delay when you need to start a large write as the drive would need to spin up to full speed. But this could also produce less heat as it would not be spinning full speed all the time.
 
That particular WD actually is 5400rpm.
As I stated before, if heat, noise and reliability are your criteria, then WD is probably the better choice, as there is no contest for heat/noise, and reliability is pretty much unmeasurable (except for the warrenty).
 
Zerix01 said:
Well I was saying that the latencies are listed on those links. The WD lists an 8.9ms latency while the Seagate lists a 4.16ms latency. Part of that may be caused by the added cache but what ever it's caused by it is listed as faster. And the extra cache couldn't hurt for the price.

I did notice that the WD has a variable spindle that can run at 5400 - 7200 rpm. I'm sure that would give some delay when you need to start a large write as the drive would need to spin up to full speed. But this could also produce less heat as it would not be spinning full speed all the time.
Click to expand...

First off you quoted seek time for one and latency for the other, definitely not the same thing. Latency is a function of rotational speed, seek time as spec'd by the drive makers is not particularly meaningful because measured random access time does not usually match it: http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/14380/13
 
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