Seagate or Western Digital

[parimal]

As I have mentioned in eariler thread that I want to buy good quality 80GB 7200rpm IDE hard drive. I heard Seagate hard drives runs hotter than that of Western Digital. Is it true??....As many people are saying WDs are louder than Segates....It'm totally confused....what to buy?? How much sound WDs make?? Is it noticable?? And if heat dissipation of Seagates are more, does that mean that they have short life??

[kram 2.0]

I would get the Seagate HDD as it's simply very quiet, never had any problems with heat. It also runs generally at a better seek time than the WD - WD tends to be very slightly less expensive though. Also, Seagate has a 5 year warranty, where WD has 3 years.

Hope that helps,
kram

[swampdonkey]

Hi There,

I own both Seagate and WD drives. Both are excellent performers. My WD 40 gig is very quiet, I do Not hear it over my cd drive. But I would have to say that my Seagate 120gig is dang near silent. As far as heat, I have not had any problems yet with either drives. (I have had my WD for about a year, my seagate for about 6 months.) What to buy? That is up to you. They are both great drives in my opinion.

Hope that helps,
~sd

[yellohut]

both companies are good and make quality drives..
the seagates are quieter, but it's not really that noticeable.
usually the WD's are a little cheaper..

my advice, shop the circulars and buy whatever's the cheapest at your local BestBuy/Circuit City/Comp USA/Office Max?etc...

they usually have some relaly good deals (even cheaper than going OEM online) after rebates (abd I've used rebates for both companies and gotten them back.

HTH
-yello

[ric449]

Seagate is better in my opinion. They are usually cheaper than Western Digitals, they are quieter, and they have a longer warranty than Western Digital.

[RJ]

WD or Maxtor all the way. I don't trust Seagate, their drives were very bad, and their Service is very bad, they refused to take the hard drive back only a short time after the warranty expired. Service shouldn't be that picky.

I prefer a hard drive that lasts long enough to not needing to use the warranty over a hard drive with a long (i.e. 5 year) warranty but the frequent need of using it.
The price difference is negligible, at least here in Germany.

RJ

[Hi Ho]

I have never used Seagate so I can't comment on those but I have a Western Digital 80 GB hard drive and it is just about silent.

[Force Flow]

I've been very happy with my WD 80GB and 120GB JB HDDs. I've had some problems with the 200GB, but haven't been able to pinpoint the problem with those yet. The one thing I've noticed is that they run *extremely* hot, which may contrbute to the problem.

[regans cortina]

A lot of pcs i have repaired have had seagates in them , and theyve turned out to be shot . The total opposite with western digitals !!! Ive got an 80 gb and a 40gb 7200 8meg cache variants in my own system, the 80gb having had for 2 years , with absoloutley no problems at all !!

[ric449]

It depends really, Seagates used to be major crap, but they have made a comeback and are now in the same league as Western Digital. I think Seagates choice to move the warranty up to 5 years was a way to restore consumer trust in them.

[regans cortina]

I agree. Just because ive come across problems with seagates, doesnt mean id avoid them !! . Personally i prefer wd,s but i would easily buy a seagate.

[scomac]

I've got a 120meg 7200 Seagate. I've had it for a year, and I haven't had any problems with it. I don't notice that it runs hot or anything, I think it runs at about 75 to 85 F most of the time (depending on how warm it is in the house) and as for noise, I can't hear a thing from it. Most of the time I can't even tell when its reading or writing to the disc it's so quiet.

Scomac

[JTH]

I have used three WD drives now without problem, although I've never used Seagate. I've never had an issue with any of them and I don't notice them as being loud at all (if you really want to cut down on computer noise, getting a quite PSU is the essential element IMO).

If I was getting a new drive, I would get either WD or Maxtor, as they are the most popular around here and its the opinions of the public that matter more than any benchmarks or tests IMO. WD also have some very good software that comes free with their drives (and are downloadable from their website), including the Data Lifegaurd data protection tool.

[TheMajor]

using 2 seagate's, and I never hear them at all...

blew a WD last year

[zip86]

Does the WD 8.9 Seek Time differ noticeably from the Seagate's 8.5 Seek Time?

[nlawalker]

That seek time is in milliseconds, so "noticeably" is relative. It does make a small difference, but... I'd recommend the WD. Get the one with the 8 MB cache. I saw the exact drive you referred to (80 GB, 7200 RPM, IDE, 8 MB cache) in a Fry's Electronic's ad the other day for 34.99 after rebates. That's a great price.

BTW, I am actually running this very drive right now (though I payed a fair amount more than 34.99 a year ago). It's... a hard drive. Haven't had a single problem with it, and I don't notice it to be loud. Works great for me.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by parimal As I have mentioned in eariler thread that I want to buy good quality 80GB 7200rpm IDE hard drive.

Both Seagate and Western Digital make good quality drives right now so either brand would be good. But with anything mechanical, you could get one that doesn't live up the makers reputation.

Originally Posted by parimal I heard Seagate hard drives runs hotter than that of Western Digital. Is it true??...

Generally...yes. But don't get the idea that Western Digital hard drives run cool...they don't. They get fairly warm too. I installed a pair of 120GB WD SE HDDs in a friend's computer and they ran fairly hot. That was two years ago and the computer is still working fine.

Originally Posted by parimal As many people are saying WDs are louder than Segates.

Again, this is generally true...but I've installed WD HDDs that ran virtually silent while another same exact model would run fairly noisily. And I've installed Seagate HDDs that were virtually silent but have come across a few that were louder than most WD HDDs. Same with Maxtor. I have a 30GB Maxtor that is probably the most quiet hard drive I have now, but I also have a 10GB Maxtor that is the loudest.

Originally Posted by parimal How much sound WDs make?? Is it noticable??

Like I said, some are very quiet while others will make more noise. I had a chance to replace a 80GB WD SE with a 160GB Seagate Barracuda not too long ago and the Seagate did run more quietly than the WD HDD...but the difference wasn't earth shattering, just noticeable. I'm running 3 WD HDDs in my computers now...two are very quiet running and the last one is noticeably more noisy, but it's not that noisy...you can just hear it a bit more than the others, that's all.

Originally Posted by parimal And if heat dissipation of Seagates are more, does that mean that they have short life??

It's possible, but I suspect they'll last a long as any other HDD brand out there. But remember, hard drives don't last forever.

Cricket

[glc]

We have been a WD house for 10 years, and just switched over to Seagate because of the 5 year warranty.