Hard Drive advice

[Mongoo13]

Trying to pick out 3 hard drives for an audio recording rig with large sample library playback. trying to keep the cost for 3 around $300. Looking to get the best individual performance from SATA 3gb/sec and the quieter the better.

At new egg The top 3 rated 500gb are Samsung T, Western Digital, and Segate. I always thought seagate were suppose to be the leader of the pack but that was 2 years ago, things could have changed. Also I don't know if their perpendicular writing would be a positive or negative for large 40gb sample VSTi's. One drive will be recording multiple uncompressed wav's likely in 24bit/44.1khz maybe higher but unlikely.

So I need two large drives, and one average size for programs. Performance and silence is what I'm looking for around $300. What do you suggest I look at?

 

[Mongoo13]

The Seagate Baracuda has a new model out with perpendicular read/write in 500gb. The .11 model is about $124. Then there's a Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS that looks good too and cheaper at $105. This isn't perpendicular recording though I think. I could go with one of each. Think I'll avoid the samsung, there are a lot of reviews saying they die pretty quickly though I've noticed all brands have that problem somewhat.

Anyone know which is quieter & better performing drive between the western digital and seagate? One will be for date and the other for vsti playback.

 

[Throckmorton]

Seagate has a 5 year warranty, and in my experience Seagates never die!

I doubt the speed difference between those drives will be significant.

 

[Luminair]

Perpendicular recording or not is not something the user should be concerned with.

The best price:space ratio is found in 500gb drives when they are on sale for less than $100.

There is very little reason to buy a drive less than 500gb. The only sub-500gb drive anyone would recommend would be a raptor or a single-platter version of a new drive like the samsung F1 or hitachi p7k500, both of which are too new to have been commonly reviewed.

If performance is actually a concern then get a drive that performs the way you need it to. Find benchmarks with some app that represents the app you use.

If the truth is closer to "performance doesn't matter because they are all fast enough", then the WD GP, Samsung F1, and Hitachi P7K500 are all pretty quiet and fast to different degrees. AAKS SE16s from WD are also fast and quiet.

Note I didn't mention any seagate drives. That is because the current generations of seagate drives are noisy and perform unremarkably except under certain narrow circumstances.

storagereview.com is the only site to go to for hdd information.

 

[bsix]

Luminair is spot on. The Hitachi with acoustic mode on is pretty quiet and best performing of those drives, but I'm personally waiting for the Samsung F1 as it will probably be a little bit quieter. Check Anand's latest review on the Seagate - it seems to offer no real advantages to Samsung's previous generation drives outside of warranty.