Best hard drive

[Stevech]

Another neat thing I like about Acronis True Image is that you can "mount" a saved disk image as a drive. Then you can browse/copy the directories/files on that backup as easily as if it were a real drive partition.

[jrfuda]

Rupp, I recently started using Acronis True Image to image my system. It works great and can image the entire HDD without a reboot, you can even (and I have) image your whole system through a RDP session. It makes boot disks and will even save to a hidden partition on any of your HDDs from which you can restore an image from during the boot process by pressing F11 (there will be prompts to follow, so you don't have to worry about accidently restoring an old image if you press F11 accidently).

Hi Rupp,
I've used drives from most of the manufacturers you have listed, either at work or at home and all are about the same. I agree with the noise. Some drives are quiter than others.
As for copying everything over to a new drive I use a program called Xclone. Just connect the old drive as a secondary to the new machine. Install windows and run Xclone in a dos window. You may need to re-install/repair the window setup. I've done this a few times now, on various machines and it always works. No fuss no bother other than having to re-nstall/repair windows afterwards. Plus Xclone is free.
It can be found here Xclone13.zip. The authors name is David Weber.

[wpiman]

I want tomogh chime in and say that I have experienced several failures with WD drives (4 in total) within the last couple of years. The were all loud and started to whine more as they died. I recent bought two Seagates and they are mighty quiet and still working. I hear Samsungs are good too.

http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.js...il&c=1&b=g&u=c

120 gig for $40 after rebates.

[Rupp]

Ok,
I'm as confused as ever. So I think I will get a cheap drive and a good ghosting program. Now to find one that can image from within Windows.

[huggy591]

I was at my local CompUSA store yesterday (I hate that place, but sometimes I have to visit) and they had a bunch of 80GB CompUSA/Maxtor labeled 7200RPM EIDE hard drives for $39.95 each after rebate. They have a 1 yr limited warrantee. We were going to pick a couple up, but we had such a bad time trying to find anyone to wait on us to buy a monitor that we just walked out.

Did I mention I hate CompUSA retail stores? I've had the most problems with Maxtor drives here (IDE models) - they seem to die after a year or so of solid use - just out of warantee. My other brands (Seagte, WD, IBM) have worked far better, but everyone's experience is different. I think it is model run dependent.

Yup Skibum, this is same direction that HD threads on AVSForum have gone. Everybody has a favorite or a bad experience. Would be nice to see warranty return vs. Sales numbers from each manufacturer (yeah, right).

I buy when I find 250 gig for less than .50 / gig. Gonna start switching over to SATA.

[Skibum]

The only WD drives that I use that have any noise whatsoever are the RAPTOR series 10,000 RPM units. (and their speed makes up for it)I use WD drives almost exclusively in the machines that I sell. Failure rate has been very low.
Guess this just goes to show that for every 10 people you are gonna find 9 different opinions.

[stevene]

You guys made be bend down and put my ear next to my computer. I have 6 WD 200GB drives on a raid 5 card in my machine sitting at my feet and I can't hear a thing. Could be I am just deaf .

Seriously though, the WD drives I have are whisper quiet. Except when I am moving a lot of data around. Then the whole case rumbles a little.

I do have seagate drives in my other machines and they are also very quiet.

StevenE

[Auritania]

I have about a dozen Maxtors, a dozen Seagates and about 30 Ssamsungs.

The Samsungs are by far the quietest drives I own. I haven't had any problems with them at all. The Seagates are very good also. The Maxtors are noisy and don't seem to last. I stopped buying WD drives a few years ago. My ears couldn't take the high pitched whine out of them.

[dilbert1]

I would buy anything but a Western Digital. I have had four different drives fail (in three computers) in the last two years, and Maxtor and Seagate drives do not have a problem in the same computers.

I also have a 3ware IDE RAID5 disk controller, that requires a special BIOS be downloaded if you plan on using Western Digital drives, if that says anything about their quality

Seagate also recently switched to giving five year warranties on their drives.

Jeff

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/...1,2285,00.html

Go to the web site of each hard drive manufacturer and read their published warranty.
Some little thing about a One Year Warranty beginning the DATE OF MANUFACTURER.

Silly, they can increase the warranty to one year!

You decide....

[Skibum]

Rupp

A WD, is not a WD...rather, there are several "levels". I would strongly suggest a WD with the 8mb cache. In this case you want the WD 1200JB, and NOT the WD 1200BB, unless of course you have SATA, then get the WD 1200JD

[Michael McSharry]

Ranish Partition Manager is an old free application that will also do a drive image from master to slave. It does not depend upon manufacturer or slave vs master drive size. On my last disk crash I bought a pair of 80G drives ($39 Western Digital from Frys) and when I had everything restored I cloned it and removed it so the next crash will not be so painful. I think the WD drive also comes with tools to clone identical WD-only drives.