Hello,

Spring semester at uni is over and this week I will have to return the laptop computer I've been borrowing. A couple of months ago my main PC started failing so I do not trust it the least (haven't really looked into what's wrong yet but I suspect it is the hard drive).

I'm in need of a new hard drive so I can transfer all the data currently residing on the lappy. Thereafter I am planning to install the new hard disk drive in my file server. For that reason I'm looking for a cool, quiet drive with an considerable amount of capacity but more important: I'm looking for reliability rather than performance.

A couple of years ago I'd go purchase another Seagate drive (there's currently 8 Seagate drives in my file server) but since Seagate was bought up, or merged with Maxtor (whatever), which is the manufacturer I trust the least I'm not sure which drive to get.

StorageReview recommends Seagate Barracuda ES.2 for a light-duty server, but I don't know ...

What do you reckon?

IDE or SATA?

If SATA (II) then I can warmly recommend the
500 GB Samsung HD501LJ
(Samsung SpinPoint T166 HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II NCQ 16MB)

It's a discontinued model but still available in many shops
(the new version is I think called: Samsung HD502IJ, 500GB, 16MB)

The HD501LJ is the best HDD I've ever had.

It's really quiet and fast too.

But the best part is:
It always stays cool (~ 42°to 43°) also under really heavy load in my server and the gaming PC.
All other HDDs I have and had were usually going up to ~47° till 53°. And 5 to 10 degrees is enormous for me

How much space do you want? I'd go for a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 or 7200.11, but i've heard good things about a certain Samsung 640GB drive.

I've had 2 Maxtors die on me, and a third's got bad sectors. Avoid

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

I've had 2 Maxtors die on me, and a third's got bad sectors. Avoid

Yes, indeed. They even start to make weird noises after a while

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I would probably have gone with a Samsung Disk if they had any in stock, but they didn't so I went with a Seagate 7200.11. Cross your fingers!

Redundant now that you've chosen one, but another vote for the Samsung 501s here. I use a pair of them in my Synology DS207, and they're mighty quiet and cool.

Seagate bought Maxtor, and now there are rumours that Seagate rebadge drives as "Maxtor". I highly doubt Seagate would use Maxtor "expertise" and ruin everything!

at any rate you should never trust a hdd completely... that said i never had problems with wd other than that they tend to get loud with wear
the samsung 250gig one i have is one of the worst drive ive bought so far btw... the 750 one seems fine though