[SOLVED] New Hard Drive to replace the one that got FRIED!

WD may have better warranty, but they always run hotter that my Samsung dirves. About 6-8 Celsius hotter.

Three versus five year warranty... that's not a big deal for me.

Samsung is extremely competitive with other other brands for sure.

What means do you use for measuring drive temps? Is that a feature on newer HDD or something special you've set up yourself?

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology)

Any software that is programed to monitor hard drives can report the temperature.

There's nothing wrong with Samsung drives, the 100GB one in my notebook has ran nearly non stop for almost two months now. There was a time that the notebook was so hot that it burned my leg, waking me up. So as to those who feels that Samsung drives are no good, think again. They can go through hell and back and still keep running fine.

As to whether Samsung or WD is the better drive, time will tell for me, I have two of them, a Caviar Blue (320GB) and a 750GB Caviar Black. I do not intend to put my desktop through what my notebook has endured, so I can't say who is better. But I can say that both are well built drives with a solid reputation behind them, so you can't go wrong either way.

Cat

Just use S.I.W. - System Info for Windows. It's free and shows everything about your hardware, software, network connection, ex-wife, mother-in-law, etc.

Download it here: http://www.gtopala.com/download/siw-setup.exe

Try it... you'll like it!
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My new Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB Hard Drive is running smoothly and is very fast. If I do say so myself... it was an excellent purchase.

I'm a Happy Camper now, time for S'Mores!!

The two platter 1TB spinpoint F3 HD103SJ is on sale this weekend at Newegg for $59.99. It is $15 off their price and $5 off the best price I could find elsewhere. I just bought one 2 weeks ago for $64.99 price and it is perfectly quiet and relatively cool - it is sitting here in my Thermaltake esata Blacx right now. I may pick up one or two more, maybe put one at my brother's house for backups.

A good freeware drive monitor is Acronis Drive Monitor, developed by the same company as the well known Acronis True Image. In fact, when you register for the download, you're given the option to download a free trial of Acronis True Image Home 2010.

The monitor alerts you to high drive temps, warns you of possible data loss situations, gives you a complete list of your drive specs, hours (or days) powered on, and backup reminders (assuming that you're using an Acronis product).

It can be found at:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...drive-monitor/

Hope that this is a useful app to suit your drive monitoring needs. It has worked well for me.

PS: Since I downloaded the product, the version of the backup software has been updated to Acronis True Image 2011.

Cat

I bought one of those back in April. I got it for $69 w/free shipping at eBay. Best price I could find at the time.

I would definitely jump on the chance to get another one, but I need to get a new DECT 6.0 cordless phone set and a PCI-E eSATA Dual Port card for my JBOD case.

Both should run about $35 total at eBay. I am watching a couple of really good deals at the moment.

I installed one of the SATA to ESATA adapters in mine. It just runs 2 Motherboard sata connections to a bracket over an unused PCI slot but I had the SATA slots to spare.

I get Newegg's emails too, I tried to resist the purchase, but it was just too tempting to turn away from it. The Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ is on it's way to me. I just ordered it thirty minutes ago, with the discount, it was a total of $59.99.

I wished that this drive was available when I bought the WD Caviar Black (750GB) a few months ago. I've never owned a TB sized drive of any kind.

What has happened is this. I bought a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent backup drive, not long ago, and thought that it would be all that I would ever need. Man, was I wrong. That drive is full, 400GB of the Caviar Black has been partitioned as a backup one, too. The rest of the drive, I run Linux on it.

When I purchased that drive, I intended for it to be my main drive, it was advertised as "cool & quiet", but it's been everything but that. From day one, there was a slight rumbling, I thought I knocked something loose while installing it. Also, where the drive is, I could feel the case and it was much warmer than the 320GB stock Caviar Blue, which is much quieter & cooler than the Caviar Black is. So I simply put it into my drive case, and made extra backup storage, as well three Linux partitions.

Personally, I feel as though either I was a victim of false advertising, or the Caviar Black is simply overrated. The ad stated cool & quiet, as well as fast. While it's not a slowpoke, I see it as no faster than the OEM provided Caviar Blue that I reinstalled just a month after removing it. It runs noticeably warmer, and isn't quiet by any stretch of the imagination. However, it does make a good extra backup drive.

Hopefully, the Samsung drive will be a more satisfying one for my use, I intend for it to be my main drive. I can't afford to keep accumulating backup drives. Specially priced or not, I expect a top rated drive to run cool & quiet. I can't even hear my OEM Caviar Blue drive running during operation. I hope that the Samsung turns out the same.

Cat