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High-End, High-Capacity SATA-150 Roundup

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the do-they-still-make-that-awful-noise dept.

Maxtorn writes This review is published to cover a "300GB Maxtor drive, but provides a roundup covering a few high end, high capacity drives from Maxtor, Seagate, and Hitachi. Synthetic / real world performance, thermal results, and noise output are all covered on drives ranging from 200-500GB in capacity and with 8-16MB of cache memory. A solid reference for those shopping for a new drive."

2 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. A look at the review summary by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    A look at the evaluation (from my humble pointy head):

    Pros:

    • Fastest SATA-150 drive tested to date
    No issue with speed, it's good.

    • Several capacities available, with 300GB being the highest
    Not unexpected from and industry leader.

    • Quiet operation
    Weighty consideration for the home or office, a brace of noisy drives is unwelcome while trying to watch video or listen to music on the computer.

    • Supports Native Command Queuing
    Fine.

    • Excellent value, only 48 cents per GB
    Really this is a minor concern, unless you're building a storage rack and only care bang/buck. If I want cool and quiet, I'll pay extra for it.

    • 16 MB of cache memory provides a nice performance boost
    The bottleneck isn't likely to be your cache it's your MB and OS, but always nice to have more cache.

    Cons:

    • Runs a bit warmer than other drives
    Might warrant an extra fan if running a brace or more, potentially negating and quiet running. I've got an old Quantum drive you could fry an egg on and the heat effectively is killing the bearing lubricant.

    • Three year warranty is good, but not the best
    Really, what good is a warranty, other than it's DOA? Does anyone do backups anymore? How's that MTBF? A warranty is the least of my concerns if my drive dies in the first year.
    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Clueless presentation by spworley · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After you click through the first two ad-cluttered pages, you start to see some results. They're presented in a single bar graph with dark shaded gradients.
    The graph uses the same X axis to compare three totally different quantities: CPU percentage, access time in milliseconds, and bandwidth in MB/sec. As a bonus, note that smaller values for CPU % and access time are good, but larger values of bandwidth are good.
    Edward Tufte, where are you?