Seagate or Maxtor hard drive?

[TnT]

Which is better Seagate's Barracudas or Maxtor's Quiet Drives?

[az]

I've only heard good things about the Barracuda IVs (the newer onew, with the newer firmware). Barracuda V is on the way though, with 60 GB platters, and it's going to be as quiet as B IV. Don't know when they are available though

AZ

[Dr Mordrid]

OTOH I have several of the new Maxtor D740X drives here and they are working great. Got 'em in RAID0, RAID5 and as boot & storage drives.

No complaints. Quiet, fast and cool running so far.

Dr. Mordrid

[dZeus]

I've been using a Barracuda ATA IV for some time now, and it's nice and quiet. It certainly isn't the fastest IDE drive around, and it also certainly isn't inaudible during seeks (though very quiet in comparison with other drives). If you want a quiet drive, this is the one to get.

[Tempest]

I just ordered two 40 Gig Maxtors. At StorageReview forums, what I have gathered is this:

-The Seagate is more silent than the Maxtor.
-If you're out of luck, in RAID the Maxtor may have the sawtooth problem (the transfer rate goes, up, then down, and up again)...
-If you're out of luck, the Seagates may be very slow in RAID (this is, as far as I gather, a firmware problem that is probably solved by now).

[dZeus]

afaik you'll have to send Barracuda IVs to Seagate if you want to run in RAID striping mode (they'll send in new drives with RAID-striping-optimized firmware, and you have a certain amount of time to return the original drives to Seagate).

Though maybe they have a firmware on the default drives nowadays which has good RAID performance by default.

[mikeul]

Why not Western Digital?
The Caviar range is excellent.

[Sasq]

Yeah, i have a 6 month old Caviar that just went wheels up with 60 gig of data, and I know others in the same boat

[Fred H]

Just installed a Maxtor 80GB.
Se the HD Tach result here:

http://www.geocities.com/greenpointse/bilder/HD_Tach.jpg

Fred H

[Evildead666]

He he, check out the Sig!

->Dr Mordrid: Getting close to your storage level...

I have 2*D740X 80Gb drives very quiet and very fast,
an older Maxtor 5400rpm 80Gb ATA-100, also fast but only on transfer.
I have probs when opening a folder on the drive, it takes ~1-2secs to access the folder. slow rpm....i suppose.

I don't have the need for RAID at the moment, and it makes it easier to shift my drives around.
Seagate is good too, just a little slower than Maxtor i think, and maybe a little hotter (IV's). If my Barracuda 7200rpm scsi is anything to go by, VERY loud, and very HOT. Its a boot drive on a spare system, but too noisy for boot really, kills your ears.

[dZeus]

Originally posted by Evildead666
He he, check out the Sig!

->Dr Mordrid: Getting close to your storage level...

I have 2*D740X 80Gb drives very quiet and very fast,
an older Maxtor 5400rpm 80Gb ATA-100, also fast but only on transfer.
I have probs when opening a folder on the drive, it takes ~1-2secs to access the folder. slow rpm....i suppose.

I don't have the need for RAID at the moment, and it makes it easier to shift my drives around.
Seagate is good too, just a little slower than Maxtor i think, and maybe a little hotter (IV's). If my Barracuda 7200rpm scsi is anything to go by, VERY loud, and very HOT. Its a boot drive on a spare system, but too noisy for boot really, kills your ears.

It's not. The latest SCSI Barracuda series (model series 36ES2), use the same kind of design as their ATA IV counterparts. Though the SCSI model is said to be even quieter than the ATA IV by a margin, and cooler as well. I've ordered a 18 GB model from a distributor, though it seems to be very difficult for them to get their hands on it

[Evildead666]

Balls.

I omitted to mention its a Barracuda 9.1Gb, old and VERY noisy, and VERY HOT.
It gets painful to touch. i think it was one of the first tries at 7200rpm...40Mb/s transfer...the newer ones (i really hope) are much better.... sorry for confusion.

Also, arn't the 18Gb scsi drives the Cheetahs? or are they just the 10k-15krpm ones?

[dZeus]

Seagate sells almost all the SCSI models in 18 and 36 GB versions.

[Fenrir(AVA)]

SeaGate by far is the best. Just look at storagereview.com I have the SeaGate Cheetahs 15k U160 SCSI 1, 17Gig and 2, 36Gig and I love them. One warning if you are getting these drives, ventalation!!! They get hot and quick if under heavy use. There Baracuda IDE drivers are great to, 7,500RPM version are almost silent, a little hot under heavy use, but most are. SeaGate has always been my favorite, and in my view the best.

[EvilTypeGuy]

I've had excellent luck with my Maxtor 7200 RPM 40GB and 20GB drives. My past experience with Western Digital was *far less* than pleasant.