Reliability: WD or Seagate?

[Dax]

I'm trying to decide between 2 HDs, Western Digital WD800BB or Seagate ST380011A. Both are: 80GB, 7200 rpm, 2MB cache, OEM, and come with 1 year warranty. The WD one is $70 while the Seagate one is only $5 more. What attracts me to the Seagate model is that at idle the specs say it only makes 25dB of noise, while the WD makes 35dB. Quieter is better of course, but I'm wondering about the reliability of each of the brands. Can anyone comment?

 

[Dax]

Or perhaps I should just get the Western Digital WD600JB, it's only 60GB instead of 80GB, but the warranty is 3 years, and the cache is 8MB, but the price is $80 (same noise - 35dB at idle). Worth it?

 

[smitbret]

I used Seagates for quite a few years and as far as noise and reliability, I don't think they have an equal. Never had a bad Seagate. That being said, my current system is running with three WD JB drives. I had to exchange one, because it was working erratically and kept turning itself off, but there are bad units in any lineup. I bought the 1st one just to see what the big whoopee was about, and I just can't go back. The JB drives are FAST and not as noisy as people would have you believe. The 3 year warranty is nice, too. If noise and total reliability are a big factor go with the Seagate. If performance is your goal, there's no question the JB is better at barely higher sound.
-Brett

 

[nach]

Along time ago I would have said the WD, but now I would go for Seagate.

 

[Scotty35]

I have 6 WD drives one of them is almost 5 years old and all have worked flawlessly:
4 x WD 120GB JB's
1 x WD 40GB JB
1 x WD 30GB AB.

I also have a Seagate 20Gb drive chugging away quietly as well but I personally would recomend Western Digital and go for the JB series with the 3 year warranty.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by scotty35 on 07/11/03 12:11 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[10GHZ]

i agree with nach, couple of years back, i would never touch a seagate drive, but now, i believe they are fast and reliable.
i've had to low level format my girlfriends WD 40g drive twice within 6 month, the 1st time being for the system registry kept corrupting, the 2nd time the boot sector had somehow corrupted. i dont know how long this drive is going to last, it just ran out of warrenty.

 

[soulprovider]

I think the reliability issue is best served with a longer warranty. Every drive has the potential to fail and it's just annoying when they do that just after their warrant has expired.

<b>Vorsprung durch Dontwerk</b>.....<i>as they say at VIA</i>