Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

B Gallagher · Jan 15, 2006, 04:34 AM

Hello all - I'm looking at getting a 200 or 250GB IDE drive and an external case to back up my files and what not.

I've got a choice at all of the local shops of Seagate, Western Digital, and Maxtor. I know that WD has a 5 year warranty, and because of this, I'm thinking of going with them. Is there anything else I should know?

Also, there's various other factors - such as the buffer (cache?), seek time, and so on, which I want to take into account when getting a drive. However, I'm not really too sure what these numbers mean.

Can anyone help me out here?

Thanks!

mduell · Jan 15, 2006, 04:38 AM

Seagate has the 5 year warranty, not WD. Seek times will all be the same (within tenths of milliseconds), and buffer doesn't matter that much.

I'd suggest buying online at Newegg for better selection (and probably prices). Be sure to get an external enclosure with an Oxford chipset if you are using Firewire.

egleband83 · Jan 15, 2006, 05:45 PM

Definitely go with the Seagate. I've had 3 WD drives fail on me, and losing your data is one of the biggest heartbreaks. I've had multiple Seagates and always been extremely pleased with their performance, quietness, and reliability.

rparke1 · Jan 15, 2006, 06:18 PM

i'd go for the seagate as well. i've had nothing but good luck with seagate, maxtor is poop and so is the other brand.

gnomexp · Jan 15, 2006, 06:48 PM

Seagate.... sitting right next to my 2.5in 100GB drive.

f1000 · Jan 15, 2006, 07:11 PM

I recommend Seagate as well. On a side note, I believe Seagate recently bought out Maxtor.

sarts · Jan 15, 2006, 11:54 PM

I just had my 120GB WD fail on me. No signs, nothing... just straight up hardware failure! So definitely Seagate, and Maxtor has been bought over by Seagate.

B Gallagher · 02:39 AM

Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like I'm gunna go with Seagate then!

I need to get back to study now.. ah NN is so good for procrastinating.

Edit:this is the drive I'm looking at now. Any comments? How can I make sure that the warranty for this specific drive is 5 years? And is that an international warranty? :O

Thanks!

wuzup101 · Jan 16, 2006, 05:58 AM

I would buy off of newegg.com also. As for what drive, WD, Maxtor, and Segate all make good drives. IMHO you can't go wrong with any of them. You're always going to find people that had problems with this drive and that drive.

On a side note, I have several PCs at my house and this mac, and have been putting together PCs as a hoby for several years now. I have quite a few drives from all the above manufactures, and I can't recall having a drive fail on me. I even have a few of the IBM Deathstars that have been running strong for ~6 years now. Having 3 WD or any other brand name drives fail on you in a short amount of time either means you got drives from a bad batch... or you screwed something up.

Most recent drives I've purchased were Maxtor 250gb/7200rpm/16mb cache drives (bought 2 over xmas break)... both have 5 year warranties...