Help me guys - Fastest/Quietest HD to buy?

ThE OutsiDer

ThE OutsiDer

Registered
I need to buy a bigger HD, I need it to be the fastest and quietest, who recommends what?
I heard seagate has a virtually silent HD, is that true?
Will a PCI ata 66 card make a speed difference?
 
I got an 80G samsung i recomend it cause its so silent
made my cube absolutely noiseless on the other hand its an 5400RPM so thats not an option for you.
 
Two years ago I purchased an IBM UltraSCSI 18GB HD at 7200 RPM. I went with IBM because at the time, they had the longest lifetime and mean time between failures. I don't know if any other manufacturers have taken up that position. I have ALWAYS used IBM hard drives as I've never had any problems with them. My current B&W G3 came stock with a 12GB IBM UltraATA HD - no problems whatsoever. I think it generally holds true that get what you pay for. Sure, my IBM SCSI drive was expensive, but it still works without failure.
 
I just bought a Sonnet Tempo ATA100 PCI card and a Western Digital Caviar 60GB 7200RPM ATA100 drive... the combination is amazing. The boost from the on-board ATA33 to the ATA100 is phenomenal -- file copies fly instead of poking along megabyte-by-megabyte. I'm still booting from the stock 10GB, so I can't say much for the boot times -- but I have heard that they've been cut down significantly going from 5400RPM to 7200RPM drives.

This drive is also very quiet. I was concerned about heat and noise, since this is hard drive number 3, but I haven't seen any significant temperature problems nor any percievable extra noise.

I currently have 3 Western Digitals now, and I have had VERY good luck with them. They are a 10GB 5400RPM (stock), 20GB 5400RPM (as a slave to the 10GB) and the new 60GB 7200RPM on the ATA100 card. I love this setup. The most difficulty I had in the whole setup was choosing an appropriate and creative name for the new drive.
 
How much is that sonnet tempo ata 100 card?
Is it fully osx compat?
I also do alot of 3d work and wonder if it will aid it, not just games?
 
It is fully OS X compatible out of the box. I even took my two hard drives off the internal ATA controller, put them on the Sonnet card (simply by opening the case up, yanking the cable off the motherboard and plugging it into the ATA100 card), and booted from them as normal. The card supports 4 ATA100 drives -- 2 masters with 2 slaves, if you can find enough bays in your case for them! I got it directly from Sonnet for $99 -- it was a total of $107.XX shipped and everything. Best $100 I ever spent, besides the ATI Radeon 7000 PCI graphics card.

Go here to check it out:

www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_ata100.html

It'll help out any application that would benefit from a faster interface on a hard drive -- like DV capture, audio editing... anything that accesses a disk a lot. I even heard it speeds up booting if you slap a 7200RPM drive on there, but haven't tested that yet.
 
Eldiablo you seem to have what I want.
I also want the ATI Radeon 7000 card as I play alot of
quake Urban terror.
Trouble is I don't know if it is worth the $390aus price.
Also I checked at my apple shop and say an AHEAD ATA -66 pci card but it costed $299 aus. TOO expensive.
Do you think I could buy a pc brand ata 66 pci card for cheaper and it would work in my mac?

What I want touse these things for - (all in osx)
Lightwave 3D
Quake 3 engine games
UT tac ops mod
Red Faction
Photosop
 
Some people have had luck getting their hands on a PC PCI ATA card and plugging it in and having it work -- for some reason, it had both the PC and the Mac ROM on it. HOWEVER -- I wouldn't chance it unless you can afford it. Definitely not by ordering one online -- the nightmare of trying to return it and get a refund would make your head spin.

I don't know the Australian to US currency conversion... do you? I don't know how much $399 converts to in US dollars, but the Radeon 7000 PCI should be around $100. The regular Radeon PCI card should be $150-$175. The difference is that the 7000 card doesn't have any hardware acceleration -- like RAVE. The Radeon regular does. But, I can say going from a Rage 128 16MB PCI to the 7000 has done Quake III and Urban Terror WONDERS. I can play now at 1024x768 with ALL options on and it's smooth and looks great. With the 128, I was playing at 640x480 with medium everything -- and the cool lighting effects off.

For your setup, the 7000 card would definitely help with the games. Photoshop would see a slight boost. Not sure about Lightwave -- that might be more hardware-dependent, and I'd assume you'd be better off getting the regular Radeon card -- but please, don't take my word for it. I don't know -- just guessing. What card do you have right now?

As for the ATA card, mine isn't a RAID card so that's why it was so inexpensive. Sonnet also makes an ATA66 RAID card for $150, but I wanted a single hard drive -- not a RAID setup -- so I went with the ATA100 card. What kind of computer is this going into?

Good luck -- lemme know if there's anything else I can elaborate on!
 
Whatever is in the new DP G4 is completely silent. I heard it was a Segate. I'm at home now so I can't tell you for sure. It also seems plenty fast though I haven't done any speed tests.

I have had five IBM Deskstars, which for a while were the clear bang for the buck leaders. Three of them had a problem including one which totally died and was not recoverable. I will never buy another Deskstar and recommend others to do the same.

I also have the Sonnet Temp card, but X s quirky with it. I have two Deskstars connected to it and I'd say one out of every 4 or 5 reboots one of the drives simply isn't recognized. Another reboot "finds" it. I don't know if it's the drive or the card or OS X.
 
I have tested a lot of HD brands and i have to admit that the best HD for me is the SEAGATE BARRACUDA 7200RPM
I thought the IBM deskstar was the fastest an quietest HD but it has design flaws and will kill your info in 6 months of use.
the SEAGATE BARRACUDA is ultrafast and ultra quiet; really, you could not hear it even with your face glued to your mac's case.
Only time will tell if the barracuda can store your data safely for years and not months like ibm's crap.
Cheers
 
In my experience, only the IBM 75GXP series were flawed. I had two of them in a PC, and one went bad within 3 months. The other I sold to a friend just to get rid of it.

I've got three new 60GXP series 7200RPM hard drives from IBM, and they're quiet and running great -- they're in a 120GB RAID right now. I think IBM acknowledged the flaws in the 75GXP and fixed them in the 60GXP. However, I'll never buy another IBM hard drive again.

I've HEARD of problems with Seagate IDE hard drives, but never experienced any problems. Never owned any Seagate IDE hard drives, but I swore by Seagate when I still used SCSI.

I'm a BIG fan on Western Digital. Never had a problem, never HEARD of a problem... I've got three of them now, and two have been running for 3 years straight without incident. Love 'em.
 
Western Digital HD are fine, fast an quiet too.
About Seagate, i have never heard of any flaw unlike IBM's which 75GXP HD is NOT the only with design defects. The 40 gig is also defective.
The Samsung HD is a cheaper HD but is very good too.
Quantum HD was the best years ago, now, i will never dare to buy one again...that's for sure.
Maxtor is a mixed bag. They look like fine HD but there is a lot with factory defects.
Fujitsu HD are fine but harder to find.
Toshiba HD are fine for laptop HD
Conner HD the worst in the history of computing.
Other brands: not tested them.
Cheers.
 
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