Looking to buy a new HDD

[GThomp6654]

I have come to the conclusion that my HDD is on it's way out, primarily because my boot sector seems to need fixing a little bit more than it used to, well saying that, it never needed fixing, now I am finding it happens at least once a week.
I have 3 HDD's in mind, but not sure which is possibly considered the best, I do not need a huge amount of space, only for photo's programmes, etc

the ones I am looking at are:

Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - £50.00.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130826

Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache - £50.00
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124228

or the

640Gb Western Digital WD6400AAKS SATA - £55.00
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...tern+Digital+WD6400AAKS+SATA+?productId=33249

any advice, or other recommendations will be greatly appreciated

 

[Whiffen]

All of those drives are great, each should meet your needs perfectly.

I would go with the Seagate one because of its larger cache.

 

[nazartp]

I agree with Wiffen. All things being equal, I would probably go with WD drives over Seagate (just based on personal experience), but will not pass the opportunity to double the cache. So from the list of three, Seagate is the one I would go with.

 

[Ultiweap]

Ok all of these are nice one and will make the work perfectly for you but for me I prefer more the 640Gb Western Digital WD6400AAKS SATA - £55.00.

 

[Whiffen]

I'm a WD fan also, but I saw the bigger cache for the same price and both manufacturers are highly regarded so why not go for a Seagate ^^

Also the first two are SATAII, which I think is better than just plain SATA, which is what the third drive he listed is.

 

[GThomp6654]

Thankyou all for you're advice, although I am still not 100% sure which way to go, after all you have said go for the Seagate due to larger cache, but then said that you all prefer WD, argh, why is even choosing a new HDD not easy haha

 

[Whiffen]

Ahah, Its just a brand name thing. The Seagate is the best drive in this case ^^

 

[nazartp]

I'm a WD fan also, but I saw the bigger cache for the same price and both manufacturers are highly regarded so why not go for a Seagate ^^

Also the first two are SATAII, which I think is better than just plain SATA, which is what the third drive he listed is.

It's a typo on the retailer web-site. However, both SATA and SATA II should give enough of the bandwidth even to the speediest hard drives. In fact WD Raptors are all SATA I. Not sure about Velociraptor and too lazy to look it up.