New PC build...

Garrett Low · September 5th, 2008, 09:29 AM

I've got three Samsung Drive one of which is the 1TB. I also have three other's installed in local builds I did that I'm monitoring. For long life I have had the best overall experience with WD drives. They tend, however, to not show as good a transfer rates.

Robert is correct that you will find people all over the board on what drives they like or dislike. Maxtor and Seagate are now one company and they are vertually the same drives now. At one time I would only use Maxtor drives but then they started having reliability issues. I also use to use a lot of Seagate drives but in my last few builds that I've used Seagates they tend to die or be DOA. Robert is also correct about temps. Heat is the number one killer of hard drives. I monitored the temps on the Seagate drives that I had that were giving me problems using a Flukes heat gun and they run very hot. After an hour of them being on but the computer not being used they were reading almost 60C. I suspect that they were not spinning down when they were not in use.

Keeping your drives cool is all a matter of getting enough air flow over them. So, the case you use for your build is important and how you have everything layed out makes a difference too. Here's my pet peeve about cable management again. If you've got wiring all over the place that is obstructing airflow, you can have all the fans you want and it still wont' keep your system cool. Also check out the proximaty of your graphics card to where your drives will be. Your GPU will be pumping out a lot of heat. If it's fan is blowing right at your drives you'll have s difficult time keeping cool are over the hard drives.

Terry Lee · September 5th, 2008, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert M Wright

That's a good price on the Corsair memory (when I clicked on the link it said it was unavailable though). Corsair is a top notch memory maker (and top notch for power supplies).

Yea, it was on sale with a rebate that made it about $60 bucks but I guess it sold out over night.

What I don't understand is why some ram is like $500 bucks and it does, for all I know, the exact same thing as anything else... Even about the hard drives, I'm not entirely sure what i'm paying an extra 80 bucks for when I buy a 1TB hard drive for $180 as apose to one for $100 which has the same specs. securiety in a reliable product? As you say, anyone could have a bad experience with any brand hard drive or computer component for that matter..so why pay extra? I'd say just take care of your stuff and make sure your hard drive(s) have enough air flow along with everything else. However...that still doesn't answer, economically, why the components are of different prices with the same specs..maybe i'm not seeing something?

Robert M Wright · September 5th, 2008, 12:31 PM

With that Antec case, the drives are mounted in a solid metal cage (up to 3 drives/cage) that has a 120mm fan mounted to the front of it. Air from the fan is channeled over and under the drives, without any exit for airflow except at the rear of the cage. Unless you clog the rear of the cage pretty well (you'd almost have to do it on purpose), a significant amount of fresh air from outside the case WILL constantly flow over and under each drive. It's the best HDD cooling design I've seen yet in a case.

I don't know if Seagate has put a new design team in place, or not, for their Maxtor brand drives. From what I've seen of HDD testing results posted at tomshardware.com, it appears that the Maxtors still run hotter than other brands. I still avoid them.

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September 5th, 2008, 09:29 AM	#16
Garrett Low Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Novato, CA Posts: 1,774	I've got three Samsung Drive one of which is the 1TB. I also have three other's installed in local builds I did that I'm monitoring. For long life I have had the best overall experience with WD drives. They tend, however, to not show as good a transfer rates. Robert is correct that you will find people all over the board on what drives they like or dislike. Maxtor and Seagate are now one company and they are vertually the same drives now. At one time I would only use Maxtor drives but then they started having reliability issues. I also use to use a lot of Seagate drives but in my last few builds that I've used Seagates they tend to die or be DOA. Robert is also correct about temps. Heat is the number one killer of hard drives. I monitored the temps on the Seagate drives that I had that were giving me problems using a Flukes heat gun and they run very hot. After an hour of them being on but the computer not being used they were reading almost 60C. I suspect that they were not spinning down when they were not in use. Keeping your drives cool is all a matter of getting enough air flow over them. So, the case you use for your build is important and how you have everything layed out makes a difference too. Here's my pet peeve about cable management again. If you've got wiring all over the place that is obstructing airflow, you can have all the fans you want and it still wont' keep your system cool. Also check out the proximaty of your graphics card to where your drives will be. Your GPU will be pumping out a lot of heat. If it's fan is blowing right at your drives you'll have s difficult time keeping cool are over the hard drives.

September 5th, 2008, 12:31 PM	#18
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	With that Antec case, the drives are mounted in a solid metal cage (up to 3 drives/cage) that has a 120mm fan mounted to the front of it. Air from the fan is channeled over and under the drives, without any exit for airflow except at the rear of the cage. Unless you clog the rear of the cage pretty well (you'd almost have to do it on purpose), a significant amount of fresh air from outside the case WILL constantly flow over and under each drive. It's the best HDD cooling design I've seen yet in a case. I don't know if Seagate has put a new design team in place, or not, for their Maxtor brand drives. From what I've seen of HDD testing results posted at tomshardware.com, it appears that the Maxtors still run hotter than other brands. I still avoid them.