G5 PM Hard Drive Recommendations?

[nomad01]

I'm getting a PowerMac sometime soon and want to add a second hard drive pretty much straight away.

I'm looking at two on eBuyer that are priced well but just wondered if anyone had any advice.

Ones I'm looking at are:

Western Digital WD2500JD 250Gb 8mb Cache 7200rpm Serial ATA

or

Maxtor 6L250S0 Diamondmax 10 250GB 7200rpm Serial ATA150 16mb Cache

Thanks
Steve

 

[cube]

storagereview.com

 

[nomad01]

storagereview.com

Thanks for that. I'll have a look through.

I was more interested to see if anyone was going to say "STAY AWAY from X brand" or "that won't work in a PM".

Cheers
Steve

 

[cube]

I was more interested to see if anyone was going to say "STAY AWAY from X brand"

Lookup your candidates in the reliability survey.

 

[nomad01]

Lookup your candidates in the reliability survey.

Yeah I have. The WD seems decent but noisy. Can't track the Maxtor down though.

I'll keep looking.

Thanks

 

[cube]

If you want silent, I would look at the Samsung SpinPoint P120, but it's not in the reliability database either. I have a P80 in my Cube and I am happy with it.

 

[iGary]

Get a Seagate.

Nice 5-year warranty and nearly dead silent.

I had four of them in my last PM.

The Maxtor in my PM sounds like a hamster on a wheel compared to my nice, quiet Seagate.

 

[nomad01]

The Maxtor in my PM sounds like a hamster on a wheel compared to my nice, quiet Seagate.

Heh heh. Free pet sounds like value for money though.

I'm looking at buying from ebuyer.co.uk and the user reviews on there for the WD and the Seagate both seem pretty good so I'll get one or the other.

Thanks for the input.

Steve

 

[cube]

Verify if the Seagate warranty does apply if you buy an OEM drive.

 

[nomad01]

Verify if the Seagate warranty does apply if you buy an OEM drive.

I will but if it's just replacement warranty, for the cost, I wouldn't be *too* bothered if it wasn't covered. I'll be backing everything up anyway.

Good point though.

Thanks.

 

[Bear]

Get either a Seagate or an Hitachi.

I could tell you bad stories about pretty much all the brands of hard drives that are around today. Seagate and Hitachi are the least trouble prone.

 

[Bear]

I will but if it's just replacement warranty, for the cost, I wouldn't be *too* bothered if it wasn't covered. I'll be backing everything up anyway.

Good point though.

Thanks.

Another warranty related point. Seagate offers 5 year warranties, Hitachi offers 3 years. What do the others offer for retail drives?

Some companies (or models of drives) are down to a one year warranty for the retail packaged drive. That tells me they don't expect them to last to 3 years with any decent amount of regularity.

Buy a drive that the manufacturer is willing to give the longer retail warranty. The OEM drives will be the same quality but may have shorter warranties. Also a lot of times you have to go through the correct OEM to get warranty service on an OEM drive.

 

[cube]

Get either a Seagate or an Hitachi.

I could tell you bad stories about pretty much all the brands of hard drives that are around today. Seagate and Hitachi are the least trouble prone.

Hitachi is ex-IBM, so they have the worst historical reputation.

 

[cube]

Another warranty related point. Seagate offers 5 year warranties, Hitachi offers 3 years. What do the others offer for retail drives?

Samsung gives 3 years even for OEM.

 

[Bear]

Hitachi is ex-IBM, so they have the worst historical reputation.

Actually not all of the Hitachi drives are off the old IBM production lines. Hitachi had their own drive business as well. Also, Hitachi has applied their own technology and resources to the forer IBM production lines.

And in truth, IBM had a couple of spectacular failures with one generation of drives that caused most of the IBM failure issues.

 

[Bear]

Samsung gives 3 years even for OEM.

I have never used a Samsung drive, nor do I know anybody who has. Do they actually make their own? Or do they get drives relabeled from another company?

 

[Brize]

Another vote here for the Seagate Barracuda if you're looking for a high-capacity drive. I've always found them to be very quiet and reliable.

If the extra storage isn't critical and you fancy a performance boost, pick up a 10,000 rpm 74GB Western Digital Raptor.

 

[cube]

I have never used a Samsung drive, nor do I know anybody who has. Do they actually make their own? Or do they get drives relabeled from another company?

I have a P80. They make their own drives and have very nice tech. But they only make smaller drives with up to 2 platters (P120 has 125GB per platter).

 

[Macabron]

I myself like the 300Gb maxtor, it is a little bit noiser then the seagate but the 16mb cache does make it feel snappy. Besides it makes the most sense in $. It is jus a little bit more than less storage and a lot less than those with 400 or 500Gb. My 2 cents.

 

[cube]

I myself like the 300Gb maxtor, it is a little bit noiser then the seagate but the 16mb cache does make it feel snappy. Besides it makes the most sense in $. It is jus a little bit more than less storage and a lot less than those with 400 or 500Gb. My 2 cents.

For 3 platters you can get a 400GB Seagate.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Another vote for a Seagate. I have one and works flawlessly and quiet

 

[desenso]

Seagate, or anything well reviewed WITH A COMPARABLE WARRANTY (which you won't find, so get a Seagate)

 

[uaaerospace]

Another vote for Seagate. That's what came in my PM G5, and I added another recently with which I'm very pleased. Quiet...no problems.

 

[javiercr]

I have never used a Samsung drive, nor do I know anybody who has. Do they actually make their own? Or do they get drives relabeled from another company?

I am not 100% sure but I think they make their own, Samsung is actually a brand that makes lots of things that are put inside other people's products, e.g. the memory for the iPod nano.

I have 2 maxtor drives, one western digital and one samsung, the samsung is the only one that didn't get noiser with time, it is 20Gb and at least 5 years old, it looks identical externaly to the need ones, I guess the new ones should have improvements to make then even quiter and more reliable (i'm guessing).

 

[JasonGough]

Another vote for Seagate. That's what came in my PM G5, and I added another recently with which I'm very pleased. Quiet...no problems.

Sounds cool.

I was recomended the Seagate Barracuda from the ProTools forum, cos its quite and reliable.

Do the Seagate drives come in all PowerMacs or do they just put in whatever they can get their hands on at the time?