Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > 500GB+ - Western Digital vs. Seagate Drive
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sakrueger2   09-07-2007 at 03:29:48 PM

I'm looking to purchase a 500GB+ internal drive for my new build and would like to get everyone's opinion on whether they would go with Western Digital or Seagate. I've heard/read a lot of good things about WD's WD7500AAKS model and their 500GB version also. I know that WD offers a 3 yr vs 5yr warranty for Seagate, but I want to make sure that the drive(s) I purchase is reasonably quiet and VERY reliable. I don't mind paying a little more for a drive that will give me peace-of-mind that my data is safe. the other requirement for the drive is that is be a SATA 3Gb/s drive.
Please give me your opinions/recommendations on which drive mfg/model you'd recommend and what your experiences are with the specific model.
Thanks in advance for your help :D

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utaka95   09-07-2007 at 04:07:44 PM
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I own 2 of the WD SE500's - both are very quiet - one sits on the back of my desk on rubber feet, and you can't hear it.

------------------------------ "How can he possibly resist the maddening urge to eradicate history at the mere push of a single button? The beautiful, shiny button? The jolly, candy-like button? Will he hold out, folks? Can he hold out?"
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aevm   09-07-2007 at 04:50:30 PM
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I own three of the WD5000AAKS. They're quiet and they do the job. I'm sure Seagate is a good choice too, I just went with WD because they happened to be on sale when I got my new rig.

One thing I would recommend is splitting the disk into several partitions if you're going to fill it with lots of small files. Even a very fast disk will respond slowly in Windows Explorer if you have a 500 GB partition filled with half a million files. If you're just filling it with DVD backups it's fine.

I've read some reviews of the 750 GB WD model and liked them. However, it's silly to get a 750 GB for the price of two or three 500 GB disks. Maybe next year. Right now the sweet spot is at 500GB.

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dspear   09-07-2007 at 06:16:54 PM
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The cost per gigabyte is 16% higher for 750GB than 500GB. 500GB is the sweet spot for hard drives right now. The WD7500AAKS costs $190 at Newegg and avg read transfer according to Toms HD charts is 74.8 MB/s. Seagates equivalent ST3750640AS costs $210 and gives a considerably worse 63.0 MB/s. I'd recommend one or two (perhaps in RAID1) WD5000AAKS 500GB at $110 each.

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sakrueger2   09-07-2007 at 09:39:53 PM
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Thanks everyone for your opinions and comments. Has anyone seen a recent SATA 500GB internal drive review lately? I've seen a eSATA review of 500GB drives, but I don't recall a internal drive review. I did see the Tom's Hardware review where the WD transfer rate was quite a bit faster than Seagates.
Any help would of course be greatly appreciated!

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aevm   09-07-2007 at 09:47:19 PM
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These are two decent alternatives for the WD5000AAKS. I still like my WDs more but it's very close.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3031
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3030

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