Hard Drives (1 Viewer)

[Sh4nn0w]

Hiya,

Just looking for some quick advice; i'm looking to buy a 500GB harddrive, and i'm not sure which would be best; got 2 in mind currently:

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB (£90) or
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB (£95)

Its to go in my file server, which is fairly quiet currently. I already have 2 200GB Samsungs which have been great, fairly quiet, stay pretty cool.

I've not had a WD hard drive before; just Seagate (abandoned them as my last one - 250Gb is noisy and hot) & Samsungs; any views on reliability etc?

 

[flokel]

Hi,

I''ve been using a hd501lj in my storage server for quite some time now.
Really like that drive:

- low idle&load noise
- pretty powersaving for a 500GB hd -> less heat and costs in 24/7 use
- pretty cheap

 

[onkl]

I own 2 SE16 500's. I decided after the reviews on silentpcreview.com (great site anyway) and they performed as expected after reading that.

 

[Efros]

Got A couple of 250Gb spinpoints myself and are nice, recently picked up a couple of 500 Gb Seagates that came with 2 250 Gb seagates free from Newegg. They're performing well.

 

[Spragleknas]

Also worth mentioning is that Samsung supports AAM - not sure about WD, but Seagate does not (legal issues).

 

[flokel]

in contrast to new seagate drives, wd drives have aam

Sh4nnOw this should help you:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article657-page3.html

 

[Spragleknas]

And for controlling AAM, use SilentDrive
http://www.rt-sw.de/en/freeware/freeware.html

 

[Sh4nn0w]

Thanks for all the tips, giving that Silent Drive a go on my Samsung's I already have (they have aam)

Works good on my laptop, that drive was quite noisy seeking before, AAM is now set according to DTemp)

Went with the WD 5000AAKS (supposedly newer revision with only 3 platters as opposed to 4); as the postage was stupid on the place I found the Samsung cheap. Plus I was able to get a another £10 off the WD.

I'll let you know what I think when it turns up.

 

[thkogel]

Have now a Samsung HD401LJ 400GB (little Brother of the 500GB). Very quiet HDD. I use a Seagate 7200.7 to and this is quiet. But the Samsung is very very quiet. In access the Samsung is very quiet by comparison the Seagate.
Reason; Seagate (Barracuda 7 and 8 series) do not support AAM. Samsung use automatic AAM. Great HDD and pretty cheap!

 

[Sh4nn0w]

Samsung use automatic AAM. Great HDD and pretty cheap!

I found mine don't have it turned on; do you know of anyway of other than the Samsung floppy disk DOS utility to turn it on (Silent Drive linked above only does IDE).

I'm just trying to avoid having to install my floppy drive just to turn it!