Opinions on this hard drive?

[oldbear 33]

I want to put FSX on a separate HD and I've seen the following for a good price:Seagate Barracuda SATA-600 500GB 7200rpmI can possibly stretch to a 750GB, but wanted to ask if you think it's worth getting.Thanks

[Ben Cap 89]

I want to put FSX on a separate HD and I've seen the following for a good price:Seagate Barracuda SATA-600 500GB 7200rpmI can possibly stretch to a 750GB, but wanted to ask if you think it's worth getting.Thanks

Hi,I'd reccomend staying away from Seagate hard drives. I have had awful experiences with them. On the other hand, try to shoot for a WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD (if money allows).

[Superpilotv2 2]

Hi,I'd reccomend staying away from Seagate hard drives. I have had awful experiences with them. On the other hand, try to shoot for a WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD (if money allows).

I´ve got an Seagate Barracuda STATA II 1 TB and so far no problem with it. But everyone has its experiences, whether good or bad. This can affect all companies. I can only say that they´re not that bad than their reputation.And btw, these WD´s are awefully overpreiced. I had a look into the raptor series for a 300GB version but 150 - 180€ is just too much for a HDD.

[Ben Cap 89]

One of my close friends also had 2 dead Seagate drives. They have higher failure rates than WD.

I´ve got an Seagate Barracuda STATA II 1 TB and so far no problem with it. But everyone has its experiences, whether good or bad. This can affect all companies. I can only say that they´re not that bad than their reputation.And btw, these WD´s are awefully overpreiced. I had a look into the raptor series for a 300GB version but 150 - 180€ is just too much for a HDD.

[oldbear 33]

Thanks for the replies.Well, I've seen a WD Caviar Blue SATA III 500GB for the same price, so I suppose it's a toss-up between the two. One thing I was wondering, will my motherboard be ok with a newer drive? Does it matter whether it's SATA 3 or 6? I'm afraid my tech knowledge is limited, and I'm not sure what the difference means.. Thank you.

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

OldBearIf you can afford a larger driver say 1TB that will be better than a 500Gb. IMHO the impact of fragmentation is lessened on the larger driver and also the capacity being larger when you install several add-ons then the efficency of the larger driver will not be impacted as much.SATA 3 or 6. IMHO at present this seems to be a marketing gimmick with no real performance diferences between the two so either will perform correctly wrt FSX.RegardsPeterH

[Guest jahman]

I've seen a WD Caviar Blue SATA III 500GB

You don't want blue or green, you want black (highest performing), or your HDD micght not be able to keep-up with scenery. loading (and you'll get the blurries).Cheers,- jahman.

[Kosta 122]

What I'd recommend is you check how many platters does the drive you want to buy have. Usually up to 500GB it's one platter, the newer ones.You can also notice it on the size of the disk, the one-platter-versions are usually couple of mm thinner.Single-Platters are supposedly faster, though there are some serious discussions if newer multi-platters aren't faster.I have two singleplatters in my system, and I can tell you they are great performers.As for staying away from Seagate: past 15-20 years that I'm doing computing (PC actively since 1995), there has been NO HDD company who didn't have troubles with harddrives. Every now and then you hear some problem - exchanges with WD, then Seagate firmware problems, Hitachi had massive problems, Samsung had some problems in the beginning... I remember reading whole lot of $hit.In the end: I must have owned about 20 different drives in my life, maybe even more, not all Seagate, but one thing is the fact: my first HDD I owned (a 420MB some-company HDD) died after 2 years of usage, I had one WD with bad sectors (got an exchange), and one Seagate came bad from the store - transferrates slow as hell - got an exchange.The fact is: only one Seagate ever was dead even before I used it. I think that's OK.Oh btw. Velociraptors are great. I'd recommend it anytime.

[Guest jahman]

The end of HDD drive problems for each manufacturer was when that manufacturer replaced the HDD spindle's conventional ball-bearings with fluid bearings (spindle rotation sucks oil into the bearing; oil viscosity keeps the spindle from touching the bearing). Fluid bearings are a big deal: They never fail!In aviation, the equivalent of the fluid bearing is the gas bearing, a.k.a. foil bearing: Turbine high-speed rotation sucks gas (air) into the bearing and again the axle is kept floating in the bearing without touching it. Result: No TBO on the bearing! (Well, not quite, but how about 100,000 cycles?)Cheers,- jahman.

[oldbear 33]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the info.Ian

[TheDanger 182]

I've only ever had one HD fail on me and that was a Maxtor in 2006 and of which I still have. Makes lovely loud clicking noises when powered.All other drives of various makes have lasted until I have replaced them for other reasons.

Edited January 24, 2012 by graham3278

[mpw8679 428]

Another vote for the WD drives. They are the only drive I have owned that have never failed on me. Velociraptors are very good and if I remember right they are made by WD. If it sais Hitachi run away.

[Bob Scott 7,716]

You don't want blue or green, you want black (highest performing), or your HDD micght not be able to keep-up with scenery. loading (and you'll get the blurries).

I agree, and to expand on that, get a Caviar Black with a 64MB cache...much better performer than the 32MB version.

[dazz 69]

Yeah, the 1TB 64MB version has higher density platters (2x500MB) than the 1TB 32MB Caviar Black (3x333MB)But the 1TB Caviar Blue is a very fast drive tooBTW, I'm testing FSX - disk usage with HD Sentinel, PE, Procmon and Performance Monitor and you guys would be surprised how little disk activity FSX has.400KB/s average,50MB/s max (for a split second actually)max queue depth of only 2, almost all read ops happen at a queue depth of 1disk time = avg 0.1%, max 11%1s. samples

Edited January 24, 2012 by dazz

[SpiritFlyer 987]

I recently had to RMA a 2T WD Green that flatlined. It is the only HD trouble I have had in many years of using various sized WD Caviar black 7200 drives. No experience with any other mechanical drive manufacturer. Also had one out of two G.Skill solid states go bad as well.Kind regards,