New HD...WD or Seagate

[Timber Jockey]

Western Digital has an 80GB drive with an 8mb cache, Seagate's has a 2mb cache. Is a 8mb cache is noticeably faster than a 2 mb cache? Are Seagates more reliable, given their 5 yr warranty, or is that just marketing? My criteria in order of importance are:
1. Quietness
2. Speed
3. Reliability

:scratch: :help:

[joeMan]

I have not used the Seagate 2MB cache version. I use WD Raptors. 10K RPM and 8MB cache. They are very fast (especially in RAID0), and quiet too.

I do have a Seagate 120GB, Barracuda 7200.7 SATA. It is also very fast and quiet, but I think it is an 8MB cache, so I'm not much help I'm afraid.

Both brands rock the house though, I can say that from experience. Never had a failure yet for me or a client.

The only drives that ever gave me heck were IBM Deskstar - made loud cliking/knocking noises and then corrupted. They were the first ever that I used when I was a newb. Now I know why they were on sale!

[pointreyes]

I would not purchase a 2Mb cache HDD. I'm not a fan of Whining Digital - prefer Seagate.

[RubberDuck]

I prefer Western Digital over Seagate. WD has a great RMA and are Reliability & Quite. I had a seagate had it 3 weeks & it died RMA'd it and it died a month later. Since then it as Western Digital or nothing:thumbs: Hope this helps

[Killer Munkey]

Always go for the drives with more cache, they are noticabley faster.

As to which brand to go for, i've only had a chance to use Western Digitals, and two drives i had of theirs are still going after 6 years of service. (20gig and 40gig)

[joeWI]

And if you want big storage, Maxtor has large SATA drives with 16mb caches.

[LarryOz]

I agree that the Raptors are great drives. A heads up on their (WD's) current RMA times though. I RMAed one of my 74 Raptors on 11/11/05 and still have not received a replacement (almost two months). I have called 4 times and they keep telling me that they do not yet have any replacements to ship. Just so you know.

[Dave3d]

WD just anounced a 150gb version of the Raptor also. Dont know when it will be available, but WOW.

[DrPino]

Western Digital has an 80GB drive with an 8mb cache, Seagate's has a 2mb cache. Is a 8mb cache is noticeably faster than a 2 mb cache? Are Seagates more reliable, given their 5 yr warranty, or is that just marketing? My criteria in order of importance are:
1. Quietness
2. Speed
3. Reliability

:scratch: :help:

i currently have in daily use 7 WD HDDs (2x36 Raptor, 2x74 Raptor, 1x250 Caviar, 1x250 RAID edition and 1x80GB Caviar), 1 Seagate 120GB PATA (7200.7 i think), 1 Maxtor external (300GB 16MB cache) and 1 old 25GB IBM...

time of use ranges from 5yrs+ to ~6mos...

Raptors are fast and reliable...have both sets in RAID-0 as boot drives with constant general use and high bitrate video I/O work...never had a problem with either set...simply put, they're loud but fast and reliable...

both of my 250GB WDs have failed (1 after 1.5yrs and the other after a very short time) and i did advance RMAs to WD with great ease and very fast turnaround (within 5 biz days i believe)...

my 80GB WD PATA has been rock solid for almost 5 yrs now (got it when the 8mb SEs first came out)...quiet, fast and reliable...

my Seagate died (PCB issue i believe) after only a few months of heavy use...RMAed directly and received replacement within 2 wks...haven't had time to put it back in one of my rigs yet...quiet, not the fastest but sufficient for nearly everything but intensive I/O tasks, and based on 1 sample not the "most reliable"...

maxtors have a bad reputation, but based on my very limited experiences undeservedly so...sure the warranty on retail externals is only a year (same with Seagate on retail exts) but i've had this puppy running nearly 24/7 for at least 6mos with constant use without a hiccup (gets a little hot but the aluminum enclosure sits atop my LL PC-V1000 Al case which helps dissipate the heat)...300GB + 16MB cache + Firewire400 interface = large, very fast for an external and so far very reliable...

my 25GB IBM has stood the test of 3 different PCs and still runs fairly smoothly...it doesn't get nearly the use of any of my other drives but still serves as one of my MP3 caches...it's very loud and not the fastest (though i believe it has 8MB of cache) but any assessment is sort-of moot since IBM no longer mfgrs HDDs but passed the product line on to Hitachi (who, btw, builds a very good HDD - see storagereview.com)...

now, to sum up my verbosity... here's what i would do based on your abovementioned requirements as prioritized...

1. Quietness - Seagate or Samsung (but expect middle-of-the-road performance)
2. Speed - WD Raptors, Hitachi (T)7K-series
3. Reliability - toss-up btw all drive mfgrs IMHO...way too many variables in ppls HW configs to determine what really causes failures (PSUs, airflow/temps, movement of case, etc.)...5yr Seagate warranty is nice but 3yrs is more than acceptable for me...

i'm looking to buy another HDD pretty soon and since i probably won't be able to afford one of the new Raptors (nor will the space suffice for my intended usage)...i'm looking into the Hitachis (7K400 or 500) and the newest WDs (320,400,etc SE16s and RE2s)...