Best hard drive for XP

[Bkanneg]

I am needing to replace my Maxtor 40gb hard drive in my Dell Dimension XPS B1000r, and was wondering what the best brand is. It looks like the main ones are IBM, Maxtor, or Western Digital. I am looking for at least a 60 gb drive. Is one better than the others, or are the all pretty similar.

FYI - I am going to try to load Win XP on the drive. I had it on the old drive, but it crashed (don't know if it was an XP problem or a drive problem). Does one handle XP better than the others?

Thanks,
Brian

 

[RSX]

Some test report said it depends on what application do you run. But I always use Quantum

 

[Maggotry]

All of those brands are fine. IBM, Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate. Some people will swear by one brand or another. Actually, they're all about the same. The IBM model 60GXP is the current king of the benchmarks, though. Personally, I'd get which ever of these four brands is on sale.

 

[NeonFlak]

Maxtors new line the D740X comes in different sizes starting at 20gb. The D740x is currently the fastest hd on the market, if you don't include the wd1000bb-8 (I think that's right) which is the 1000bb but with an 8mb buffer. If you want to see for yourself though check Storage Review. Unless the HD is bad, the os doesn't care where it goes.

 

[SpecialEd]

Operating systems don't really care what hard drive you use. All Brands are basically the same. The basic things to look at are size and RPMs.

edit: oh yeah.. and the most important thing... price

 

[Mem]

Lots of good models however I`ve a new Maxtor D740X 40gb (about 8 weeks old) they do a 20,40,60,80gb models & it`s fast ,quiet and at a very good price ,your question on harddrives with XP well no problems here using it with XP Pro.

 

[Bkanneg]

Thanks everyone. I think I am going to go for an 80Gb Maxtor D740X. The place I am buying it from has an OEM version that says is drive only. Is that okay? Will that include any software I need, or does it just mean not mounting brackets or cables. I don't need that since I will use the cable I already have and mount it in the same place my current drive is.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[MasterHoss]

Yeah, I agree with everyone as far as saying that no matter which of the drives you decide on (Maxtor, IBM, Western Digital) you'll be fine.

You said you wanted the fasted--it would be the WD1000BB "Special Edition". New Egg has that drive and the same drive that called something else (just look at the specfications...100GB 7200RPM 8MB buffer).

 

[Bovinicus]

I like the Seagata Barracuda IVs. They are on the same level as the competition in terms of performance, but they are much quieter. Seagate is also very good in terms of reliability.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Sigh, StorageReview is shutting down at the end of the month.

Anyhoo, WD has announced the 8MB buffer version of its 120GB drive (according to x-bitlabs). It's probably only available at WD's online store right now.

-SUO

 

[Pariah]

Both the regular and SE 100GB WD drives are faster than the D740X with the 120GB WD performing in between the 100 and 100SE thought it has a higher STR than any other IDE drive available. Due to WD's bad naming scheme there is no way to tell what drive you are getting if you buy one smaller than 100GB, so despite the fact you could get a drive faster than the D740X, there's also a chance you'll get one that is slower, so if you need something smaller than 100GB, the D740X is the way to go.

"Anyhoo, WD has announced the 8MB buffer version of its 120GB drive (according to x-bitlabs)."

Some people have found these drives (1200JB) in regular 1200BB retail boxes from B&M stores. It seems to be luck of the draw as to which you may get.

The WD1000BB-SE has the model number WD1000JB which is what some stores have it listed under.