Hi all,
Did a quick search but couldnt find a definitive answer so here goes.

I am building a pc and i need a 500gig HD. I dont have a clue who makes a good one so here is where my question lies.

All i need is a middle of the road, good quality, fair priced HD. Nothing fancy but must be reliable.

I am buying a Asus P5Q-E MB if thats any help. I will have a 512mb ATI card, 8gig of DDR 2 dual channel, 650w PSU and a 64bit OS, cant decide on W7 or XP-Pro at the moment.
Hope thats enough info,

Any help is appreciated.

Regards,

Lee.

Well you need a SATA HD. For what you listed you are looking at a 7200 RPM HD as they are the most common for desktop systems, and are very reasonably priced.

The Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA
drive is one of the best selling on Newegg and is one of your best bets for $56.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136073

Of course you could go to 1TB for $85
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136317

I usually go with Western Digital as I have had good luck with them. Seagate is pretty popular as well.

If you are taking votes for OS i would vote for Win7. MS is going to kill support for XP in a year or two (no more security updates etc. . .), so Win7 is your best bet. Also Win7 has better/less buggy 64 bit software support. I just upgraded from an XP machine to Win7 and definitely like it. XP was a great OS, but it is past its prime. It may take a bit of getting use to, but give Win 7 a shot.

did a little more digging. If you want a little more performance you might look at the "Black" editions. They were sold out at newegg, but here is a 500Gb one from TigerDirect for $60:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...ack%20500%20gb

If you want to compare WD's harddrive lines (green, blue, black) take a look at this article:
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article...ors+of+Caviar/

compdata, your a star thanks for the info, i have a WD external HD which i love so think i will go the route you mentioned. Cheers.

I will certainly give W7 a go too. ;p

Thanks again, great info.

Regards, Lee.

Good luck, and let me know how you like Win7. I have spent a good bit of time configuring it recently and can point out ways to configure it to be more your taste if you run into anything you particularly don't like.

I will Defo take you up on that my firend lol.

Thanks again, i really appreciate your input

I will be intouch.