Which of these hard drive should I buy? (Samsung Vs. Seagate)

[Hank Kinsley]

Samsung HD642JJ (640GB, 16mb cache)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152134&Tpk=hd642jj


Seagate ST3500320AS (500GB, 32mb cache)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148288&Tpk=ST3500320AS


These prices are from newegg.com. I'm in Canada so the prices are different (Direct Canada) - Seagate=$66.00 / Samsung = $74.00

I was leaning toward the Seagate until I found the Samsung (an extra 140GB for $8). I currently have a Seagate and it's been great. Also the Seagate has over 1000 more reviews than the Samsung, but that might be because the Samsung is newer.

This drive will mainly be a storage/game drive with XP running off my current HDD. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[redwudz]

The Seagate has a larger cache and a 5 year warranty, so I would probably go with it.

[Hank Kinsley]

In real usage terms, what will the larger cache do for me? Will it help me open appz faster?

[redwudz]

I found this on: http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/HDBuyersPt1.htm

The final factor that impacts performance for a hard drive is the amount of buffer on the drive. A drive's buffer is an amount of RAM on the drive to store frequently accessed data from the drive. Since RAM is faster at transferring data than the drive head operation, it increases the speed of the drive. The more buffer on the drive, the more data that can be stored in the cache to decrease the amount of physical drive operation. Most drives today come with a 8MB drive buffer. Some performance drives such come with a larger 16MB buffer.

It seems the trend is going to 32MB buffers on HDDs. Several other brands are also using 32MB buffers. How much affect this has on performance probably depends on the type of data and the other specifications of the drive.

EDIT: A article with a bit more info and some links: http://computer-drives-storage.suite101.com/article.cfm/sata_hard_drive_performance_tutorial

[INFRATOM]

Read this article, my moto is buy more than you need before you know it you have to upgrade and end up spending more.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-terabyte-1tb,2077.html#
this is part of their conclusion:

Mainstream / All-round Hard Drives

Mainstream users will have to decide if they want a versatile drive, which they can use as a system drive and to store a lot of data. If you’re looking for an all-rounder, we recommend going either for Hitachi’s Deskstar 7K1000.B (watch for the B!) at 1 TB, 750 GB or 640 GB, which offers balanced performance and efficiency. Western Digital’s Caviar Black or RAID Edition 3 (RE3) are the better application drives, as they deliver quicker access time and I/O performance.

[zoobie]

1TB $79 w/ 3 year warranty (thx edDV)

[lordsmurf]

The seek times on 32MB buffers always show to be higher from what I've seen. Makes no sense to me.

Given brand choices, I only use Seagate or Western Digital.
Never Maxtor, try to avoid others.

[Hank Kinsley]

I appreciate the suggestion on the 1TB drive, but that is from the US site - in Canada it costs more, plus I dislike mail-in rebates.

I was just hoping that someone could give a semi-knowledgeable person like me a guide between the 2 drives that I posted. Is Samsung trustable? I read somewhere that 320GB (320x2=640GB) platters are ideal because that is the maximum amount of space on a platter currently. Keep in mind that this will be a secondary storage drive and that I have no plans on RAID anytime soon.

Thanks for all your help so far.

[jollyjohn]

Over the years I have used a number of HDDs and different brands. The worst being WD and Maxtor. The best Seagate. I replace HDD every three years, even if they are still in good working order. Lost data is irreplaceable, software and HDDs are not.

John

[glockjs]

seagate and samsung are both solid. i have used them both and both brands are top quality. seagate has a longer warranty and better customer service. but i still go for whatever is the best deal between the two.

[nic2k4]

Problem is your buying from the wrong places. Check out

www.canadacomputers.com
www.infonec.com
www.pcvonline.com

They have daily and weekly specials. I've seen the Seagate 500GB and 640GB on sale for $59.95 and $72.95 CAD respectively. Plus their shipping rates are very reasonable. Sign up for their news letter and never miss a deal.

One word of advice, if you want your drives to last make sure they get good airflow. That might mean adding a hard drive cooler , unless your case has provisions for adding a fan to blow directly onto the drives. What damages drives is heat above 50 C, you can run SpeedFan to see what temp your drives are and also see their health status.

[Hank Kinsley]

Thanks for all the help guys.

I went with the Seagate. The longer warranty played a factor, plus my current Seagate is top-notch.

I'll check those sites out in the future nic2k4, but direct Canada has always been good to me. How fast is the shipping on those sites? I have a Thermaltake Tsunami case is it has a big fan right in front of the HDDs plus 3 others. I think I should be okay. Here's a quick question: My current HDD is in the middle of the mounting brackets for HDDs in my case. Is there a prefered setup once two HDDs are in there, or does it really matter? I have a evga 8800 video card in there which starts to invade some of the HDD space in the case.

thanks again!

[redwudz]

Most newer SATA drives run cooler than the same size PATA drives. It doesn't hurt to check your HDD temperatures, but it's not a major factor most times. Google ran a fairly exhaustive study of HDD failure rates and it just wasn't shown that elevated HDD temps were a common cause of failure. But I still like to have a front intake fan that blows over my HDDs.

If my HDDs are closely spaced, like a 1/4" or less, then a fan may be a good option. If you have a larger spacing, then the fans may not be needed. Again, check the HDD temps. 30 - 35C is a reasonable HDD temp, IMO.

[LSchafroth]

The seek times on 32MB buffers always show to be higher from what I've seen. Makes no sense to me.

Given brand choices, I only use Seagate or Western Digital.
Never Maxtor, try to avoid others.

I agree. Maxtor has always had the highest failure rate. The only one that could be worse is the DEATHstar from IBM. Western Digital is my choice.

Lannie

[redwudz]

Deskstars are under the Hitachi brand now. I have a couple of those. So far no problems. But I prefer the Seagates or WDs.

[disturbed1]

The seek times on 32MB buffers always show to be higher from what I've seen. Makes no sense to me.

Given brand choices, I only use Seagate or Western Digital.
Never Maxtor, try to avoid others.

Can't speak about Western Digital, not enough experience with them. I do fully agree with Seagate and Maxtor though. Maxtor is owned by Seagate now, but you can still find (and avoid) the Maxtor brand.

Every brand new Maxtor hard drive I've bought has failed with in 5 years. I still own many working Seagates 250mb - 500gig. The 4 Samsung drives I own (60gig-250gig) are all still working without issues.

I'd go with which ever one was cheaper. I have several drives with 8mb, 16mb, and 32mb cache. The larger the cache, the faster they test but I honestly can not tell a speed difference in day to day use.