Maxtor or Seagate

[Speedo]

First I was going for the Maxline-III (decision based on SR and AT reviews). Then I found out this drive is unavailable for atleast a month here in Sweden. The Diamondmax10 is available though, and I still haven't figured out if there are any differences, performance wise.

When searching thru the forums, I saw some recommendations of the Seagate disks. I found there are two models: 7200.7 and 7200.8. The 7200.7 seem to have NCQ, which the bigger 7200.8 drives does not seem to have. However, I heard something about 133GB/platter, which I assume is in the bigger 7200.8 drives. How does this affect performance?

Can't find any good comparisons of these drives on the web...

 

[fstime]

Maxtor sucks, Seagate makes the best hard drives right up there with Western Digitall. Thats all I can help you with, dont know much about NCQ.

 

[ohnnyj]

Hi there:

I personally like the Seagate drives as I have always had good luck with them. I do not think they are as fast as the 16MB buffer Maxtors but they are still quite speedy and inaudible. The 7200.8 is actually their newest line and they all support NCQ, a few of the 7200.7s do as well but if you go with Seagate, get a 7200.8. I have found one comparison of the Maxtor to a Seagate, and it looks as though the Maxtor outperforms the Seagate. However, this is not to say that the latter is necissarily slow, it is not, I have the 400GB model and I am very happy with it. So in the end if you want the ultimate performance go with the Maxtor (unless you have a A8N motherboard which a lot of people seem to be having problems with these drives and this mobo), or go w/Seagate for ultra silence and still speedy performance.

Here are the drives listed on Seagates site.
Here is the review I found.

 

[ribbon13]

7200.8
The 8 means eigth generation... so it would have all have the features of the previous generation...
7200.7 is SATA1 with NCQ
7200.8 is fully SATAII (which requires NCQ, where it was an option with SATA)

 

[Zucarita9000]

My two hard drive choices are Western Digital and Seagate, in that order.

I've used a couple of Maxtors before, and one of them died. I suppose that Maxtor has improved their drives since then, but since Western Digital has never let me down, that's what I buy. All of my PCs have WD hdd.

 

[VRXJudge]

Neither. Get a Samsung 160GB + 8MB buffer. I do believe they come in both IDE133 and SATA.

 

[PascalT]

I'm using a maxtor 300gb 16mb drive right now and it's very fast. i can tell you about its reliability in 3 yrs

 

[Mem]

which the bigger 7200.8 drives does not seem to have.

They do have NCQ,PDF specs on 7200.8 series.


NCQ Drives Compared : Maxtor DM10 vs. Seagate 7200.8 Review.(SATA drives) .

Between the two 300 GB NCQ-enabled drives we?ve looked at today, the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 and the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8, it is very clear to us that Maxtor simply has a better all-around product. The DiamondMax 10 showed better performance across the board, runs noticeably quieter, and costs anywhere between 5-10% less compared to the Barracuda 7200.8. That?s a pretty clean sweep, in our books

However remember Seagate have an awesome 5 year warranty ,so that makes the decision harder.

 

[ribbon13]

Seagate's overall will last longer than other drives, but by the time it's an issue, you'll probably have upgraded to the newest sweet spot... like 2TB's because the 2.5TB drives are too much more.

 

[Brian48]

I currently have several Maxtors, Seagates, and WD's. I actually prefer the Maxtors. Faster than the WD's and almost as silent as the Seagates. Never had one fail on my ever. Can't say the same for WD's.

 

[tbooth]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
Seagate's overall will last longer than other drives, but by the time it's an issue, you'll probably have upgraded to the newest sweet spot... like 2TB's because the 2.5TB drives are too much more.

This is why I went with the maxtor 300GB Diamondmax 10, I figured the 3 year warranty on the OEM drive was enough and that by the time it ran out I'd be using a much bigger/faster drive anyway.

 

[PascalT]

It's all the same almost. some drives will fail, some won't. it's all about the luck of the draw really..

for 10 ppl who say maxtor sucks, 10 says wD sucks, etc..

altho seagate seems to be most people's no1 choice.

 

[Jotho]

I love my Seagate drive so far, and it also has a 5 year warranty.

 

[Nebben]

Here's my input: Maxtor drives have failed on me SEVERAL times, within a year or two of installation. Seagate drives have never failed on me, and they do have an awesome warranty policy. Someone I know had a Seagate drive die on him, unfortunately, but their RMA policy is excellent: They charged the cost of a replacement to his credit card, shipped out a new drive via 2nd day delivery, and provided a prepaid sticker to return the old drive. Upon receiving the dead drive, the credit card charge was refunded.

Great customer service, and a 5 year warranty is offered with all of their retail drives I believe.

 

[tallman45]

Originally posted by: VRXJudge
Neither. Get a Samsung 160GB + 8MB buffer. I do believe they come in both IDE133 and SATA.

Ditto, I put them in 11 systems in one of my acounts (160gb SATA) for a year and a half now and not one failure. Virtually silent.

Still running 4 Maxtor 80gb drives in one of my home systems which is about 2 yrs old now.

 

[Speedo]

Thanks for all of your comments.

It's a hard decision. In the review at GamePC, they say that the Maxtor clearly wins, in most aspects. However, the horror stories with this drive and the A8N-SLI (which I will be using), the varying access times (SR's forums), and the generally high failure rates makes me back away from the Maxtor.

However, the performance of the 7200.8 is a little lower than I had whished for. But I wonder how it feels in a real world scenario. When compared to the Raptor (which would be a much more expensive choice, since I would need a seccond drive), does the Raptor boot up windows noticeable faster? Is there a noticeable difference in game/level loading times? Photoshop and other programs? I really want a snappy system, but I don't want to get the Raptor just to get higher benchmark numbers...

 

[fstime]

My seagate failed.

 

[amol]

i have a maxtor 250GB Maxline II

i recommend seagates

or if the person pisses me off, hitachi deskstars (aka DEATHstars)

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: Brian48
I currently have several Maxtors, Seagates, and WD's. I actually prefer the Maxtors. Faster than the WD's and almost as silent as the Seagates. Never had one fail on my ever. Can't say the same for WD's.

Eh, my 160GB Maxtor DM9+ is just as quiet as my Seagate idle, but the seeks are considerably louder (barely noticeable on the Seagate, clearly heard on the Maxtor). Haven't had a Maxtor fail on me though, nor have I had a Seagate fail. One of my WD's looks like it's going now though...whining like crazy.

 

[wayliff]

Seagate

 

[smthmlk]

seagate.

 

[ohnnyj]

Originally posted by: Speedo
Thanks for all of your comments.

It's a hard decision. In the review at GamePC, they say that the Maxtor clearly wins, in most aspects. However, the horror stories with this drive and the A8N-SLI (which I will be using), the varying access times (SR's forums), and the generally high failure rates makes me back away from the Maxtor.

However, the performance of the 7200.8 is a little lower than I had whished for. But I wonder how it feels in a real world scenario. When compared to the Raptor (which would be a much more expensive choice, since I would need a seccond drive), does the Raptor boot up windows noticeable faster? Is there a noticeable difference in game/level loading times? Photoshop and other programs? I really want a snappy system, but I don't want to get the Raptor just to get higher benchmark numbers...

I have a similar setup: two 74GB raptors in RAID0 for boot and a 400GB Seagate for storage. I think this is one of the best setups you can have. The Raptors still hold the edge over even the Maxtor 16MB cache drives and so make a good choice for a boot drive, and then after that a storage drive doesn't have to be terribly fast, especially if you are storing static stuff such as MP3s or pictures. If you are doing high end video or something there may be a noticable difference but it most likely won't be like night and day. I wholeheartedly recommend the Seagate; fast, quiet, 5 year warranty and what seems to me is higher reliability.

 

[gwag]

seagate, but I dont know how there costumer service is as I have never had to use it. the other guys are good if your in the warr. period I use them a couple times a year.

 

[CraigRT]

Seagate, I can't go on enough about how unreliable Maxtor has been for me.. they cause me nothing but headaches and are well into the double digits for failure rate (%)

I would recommend ANY other drive company before Maxtor.

 

[sparkyclarky]

Originally posted by: Speedo
First I was going for the Maxline-III (decision based on SR and AT reviews). Then I found out this drive is unavailable for atleast a month here in Sweden. The Diamondmax10 is available though, and I still haven't figured out if there are any differences, performance wise.

When searching thru the forums, I saw some recommendations of the Seagate disks. I found there are two models: 7200.7 and 7200.8. The 7200.7 seem to have NCQ, which the bigger 7200.8 drives does not seem to have. However, I heard something about 133GB/platter, which I assume is in the bigger 7200.8 drives. How does this affect performance?

Can't find any good comparisons of these drives on the web...

The latest gen Seagates are both slower and noisier than the latest gen Maxtors, but Seagates have a generally higher reliability according to the storagereview database.