Page 1 of Hard Disk manufacturer recommendations...

As per the title. I`m looking to buy a new HDD this week, nothing special, just wondered if there are any good, bad or ugly to look out for.
I`m not tempted by Maxtor, no problems personally, but some friends have had very bad experiences with them, so looking at Seagate or possibly Samsung, oh and it`ll be a SATA drive, about 250Gb.

Thanks in advance.

LB2

i`ve had several seagates, very reliable drives, but the sata ones seem noisier than the ide ones. Going to plump for western digital next as their sata are often reviewed as silent.

Had maxtor but died after 12months and 1 week( out of warranty by then) so don`t touch them now.

I`ve used a mixture of WD and Seagate over the years in the 40-50 or so PC`s I have built for friends and family. I Just buy whichever is better value at the time.

So far none have failed, crosses fingers, so can recommend both.

All the best

Gerald.

I bought a Samsung a while ago to replace a broken Maxtor, at the time they had good reviews for reliability and noise levels. Seems good so far.

WD as Seagate as mentioned seem to have a good reputation.

Al

Samsung, Seagate or WD.

Seagate - Used lots of their drives over the years, with zero problems. They currently offer excellent VFM. Not as quiet or fast as the Samsungs.

Samsung - For the last two years I have mainy used Samsungs. They have been getting outstanding reviews for both performance and noise. I think they are generally the quietest around. No real long-term experience, but no problems yet. You have to source carefully as many retailers sell them at relatively high prices. I tend to buy when Scan have a deal-of-the-day.

WD - Good drives but but most reviews mark them down on performance, and they tend to carry a price premium that I don`t believe is justified. The Raptors are excellent drives, but noisy!

HitachiGST - Formerly IBM. They used to make the best drives at the keenest prices, then they made two series of drives which were the most unreliable in history. I saw plenty of those die so I just can`t trust them.

Maxtor - Ugh. I just hope they now start selling Seagates, I would hate to think that Maxtors are going to be branded as Seagate. (Seagate recently acquired Maxtor)

This item was edited on Wednesday, 16th May 2007, 09:59

I read a while ago that Seagate were going to keep the Maxtor brand as well.
Maxtor would be kept as a budget alternative to Seagate.

And agree about IBM/Hitachi Deathstars. I bought one years ago, must have been one of the last batches of good ones, `cos now when we have a HD die at work, before taking the lid off, you know it will be a IBM/Hitachi inside :(

Funnily enough my(well work`s)Maxtor external is playing up. Was ok on my home pc last night. plugged it in my work laptop here this morning, and it says it needs formatting! tried Knoppix boot disc, that doesn`t like it, but an Ubuntu one does! :(

Al

This item was edited on Wednesday, 16th May 2007, 10:52

cos now when we have a HD die at work, before taking the lid off, you know it will be a IBM/Hitachi inside

Interesting to know that it is still happening, I thought I was being narrow-minded.

Also recommend Seagate, and WD Raptors are nice if you can justify the extra cost (not sure I can really, so mostly buy Seagate now).

Also would never buy an IBM/Hitachi following the number of Deathstars I had die on me. One went all the way around the world and back under warranty, and yes it STILL clicked all the sodding time when it returned.


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Thanks for the replies everyone. :)
I've just collected a Samsung 250Gb SATA SP2504C.
As was said, Samsungs seem to be getting positive reviews these days, even when compared to Seagates and WDs, as did this specific model. Add to that it was the cheapest of the bunch I'd thought that I'd give it a go.
I'd forgotten about the Deathstars, it was lodged so deep into my memory, I forgot why I wouldn't even consider a Hitachi drive! :o
Now all I have to do is to slave it into my PC, clone the master and then make it the new master. This could be fun! I remember a not so old thread that went through this and gave details of some free software that could be used to do it, so I'll have a dig around for it!

Thanks again

LB2