Which is the best 320GB/250GB hard drive?

I wanna get a new hard drive but i noticed that although some hard drives have better specs than others, they are cheaper!!


For example :

The HITACHI DESKSTAR T7K500 320GB 7200RPM SATA/300 16MB
has one of the best specs from the bellow hard drives and is the cheaper of them all.
Excluding the WESTERN DIGITAL CAVIAR SE16 320GB SATA/300 16MB which has the same price and a tiny bit worse specs.

• MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX 21 320GB 7200RPM SATA/300 8MB (Most expensive, less specs?)
• SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM SATA/300
• SEAGATE BARRACUDA ES 250GB SATA/300 16MB
• SAMSUNG SPINPOINT 320GB SATA/300 7200RPM 16MB
• WESTERN DIGITAL RE 250GB SATA/300 16MB (Same price range, less space?)
• HITACHI DESKSTAR T7K500 320GB 7200RPM SATA/300 16MB

I am confused

So what do you think, which is the best and why?

BTW, typically you want to select the generation of drive that's the newest (has the highest data density). In a nutshell a 320G with 2 platters is almost always a newer gen drive than a 320G with 3 platters.

Just look for the phrase perpendicular recording, on the 320gb drives they will be the lowest number of platters per drive.
I have a couple of the Seagate 320gb drives, and have had no trouble with them.
I think that all the drive makers have had bad drive series over the last few years.
What old timer here can't recall the IBM pre Hitachi Deskstar click of death.
I will echo the Maxtor warning, I have one Maxtor drive that has been sent back twice for replacement, once before they were bought by Seagate and once after.
But with the five year warranty I just stay with Seagate.

Another lost soul. Tomshardware has all the answers, man. Look at the hard drive charts and you will know what the best hard drive is. Hint: Western Digital AAKS series.

Also, about a month ago, there was an article on building a high-end PC:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] page7.html

As you can see AAKS series beats the famous Raptor 10000RPM.

That's all you need to know about the hard drives out there on the market today. Also, you shouldn't consider anything less than a 500GB. They cost a little bit more, but you get much more space. In other words, 500GB hard drives tend to have the best price per GB ratio.

I was in the same situation you are, needed a new hard drive, did some research on TOM's, and got a Western Digital 5000AAKS for $90. Amazing speed, been happy with it ever since.

nickr336 thanks for the info and especially the link! (I now think of migrating to Intel)

Stay the hell away from maxtor, I dont care what anyone says or tells you. From my 286 till today those hard drives have always failed were slower then same spec IBM or WD drives that i have had and IMO are just plain garbage.


Anyways i agree witht he guy who was talking about 500gigs had to pick up two my self but then again im a media finatic i store tons of tv shows and movies in my computer i guess you really have to figure out if thats you or not.

If your just looking for a new drive to just install stuff on just get one big enough im sure any one of them would be fast enough.

you got 4 years? lucky.

I have a 60gb maxtor in my machine thats at the start of its 6th year. It used to be paired with another one in raid 0 and served as my primary partition, but I replaced that setup with a raptor about 2.5 years later and just used it for extra storage, a purpose it still serves today.