Fujitsu, WD or Seagate

[donec]

Which drive would be best a 250 GB Fujitsu, WD or Seagate?

[Fred]

donec,

I am not that impressed with the WD drives unless you are talking about the Raptor line, which are pretty good, but expensive.

In order, I would prefer:

1) Seagate
2) Fujitsu

3) WD

Fred

[rivenought]

Seagates have a five-year warranty in the U.S. That is two years longer than most of the others that I have evaluated. That might be a consideration when comparing the $1 difference in price between Seagate and WD.

Also, the WDs I have, while mostly good, are audibly louder than the whisper-quiet Seagates. I have two WDs that actually whine. I was told that Seagates use fluid-dynamic drives instead of ball-bearing drives, so I am guessing that is where the whines come from.

Seagates are now using a perpendicular recording technology. The two I have of that new series in my personal machines (an 80GB PATA in one and an 80GB SATA in the other) have run flawlessly for the past few weeks, but they are only about a month old as of this writing. I have heard good things about this new technology, but I do not have much personal data to support how much better a new 10 series Seagate is in comparison to the previous 9 series.

I have never dealt with a Fujitsu drive as yet. On a side note, have a Maxtor 1.8 GB unit bought new in 1996 that is still running. I have a Samsung 80GB unit that is barely three years old that started giving SMART errors. I have a WD 20GB drive that started intermittent clicking after six years.

You might wish to comparison shop and read reviews of people who have purchased that exact same model drive. I like to read the reviews at Newegg. Sometimes I purchase there, sometimes I purchase from ZipZoomFly. Whatever your drive need, someone else has already been down that path, written a review, and can help you in your purchasing decision. Good luck and have fun shopping.

[yamawho]

I have lost count (about 25) Maxtor IDE and Sata drives 80GB to 250GB since 2002 and not a failure in my systems and the ones I sold. However, Maxtor was purchased by Seagate I think a few years ago and Maxtor has become a value line.

Lately I have been buying WD 500GB drives.
Although I have 3 less than a year old, they seem much quieter than any others.

I purchased a Fujitsu 100GB Sata laptop drive last year and have no issues.

In the end it's a matter of preference, price per GB and availability in your area.

The store I was dealing with at the time stocked Maxtor and had great service ...

[donec]

Thanks for the replies it's the kind of information I am looking for.

[hotweiss]

The Seagate 5400.4 250 GB hard drive is as fast as most 7200 rpm hard drives. I have it in my notebook, it is very fast.