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Tini
SlippyPARegistered User regular
SlippyPARegistered User regular
I'd like to know what you gents think about the below two products, see if you think they are good products. Thanks.
ENERMAX Noisetaker II EG495P-VE ATX12V 485W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: EG495P-VE
Item #: N82E16817194009
$89.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3400620AS 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3400620AS
Item #: N82E16822148138
$109.99
ENERMAX Noisetaker II EG495P-VE ATX12V 485W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: EG495P-VE
Item #: N82E16817194009
$89.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3400620AS 400GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: ST3400620AS
Item #: N82E16822148138
$109.99
Do a barrel roll.
Tini on
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Posts
Enermax PSUs are the win. I only use Enermax in the systems I build for myself.
Western Digital I haven't been terribly impressed with their average consumer line stuff. Their higher end stuff I hear good things about but I've got friends with terrible experiences with the Caviar line of stuff.
Some people like Enermax PSUs, but the failure rate from best to worst is Fortron->Sparkle->Seasonic with Enermax another couple steps down, but not bad at all.
Seagate bought Maxtor, Maxtor still sucks.
If you googlefight "seagate died" vs. "western digital died" the results are 283 to 112 (Hitachi is off the charts, but then they make more than hard drives). This is by no means a truly scientific process, but then neither is any uncited opinion.
I have, personally and professionally, had more problems with Seagates and Maxtors than any other brand. Maybe I'm just unlucky enough to get more than my fair share of their bad drives crossing my path, it's not impossible, but I don't think it's probable. After all, computer hardware is my thing. I've personally built hundreds, repaired or upgraded thousands of systems. I did a semi-regular internet radio show about hardware. I'm moderating the PAX07 Hardware Industry Panel. I spent days of agonizing over what heatsink could possibly replace the venerable ThermalRight SLK series wherein I compared hundreds of models from dozens of companies. Why? Because I obsess about hardware.
(Also, I do know that Fortron and Seasonic produce cleaner power with the same degree of reliability as Enermax. I simply haven't had any problems with Enermax personally, so my brand loyalty is staying with them until I do.)
Seagate drivers are fairly robust, I like them and that's primarily what I run...
having said that: If you ask "how good is is X or Y" drive on the internet, you'll get a lot of people saying X sucks and that they have had very high rate of failure or vis-versa. But honestly, most home users don't use or go though enough drives to make any statical difference... even if you go though ten thousand drives over the course of a few years, that still isn't valid... since more then likely you didn't have ten thousand of Y drives to also go though under the exact same conditions.
I'd say if you buy a random harddrive off the internets, you have apox 1-7% failure rate, regardless of who makes it. If Seagate drives fail 3.5% of the time and Western drives fail 4% of the time, is it that big of a concern?
Also another thing to take into account is the warranty. Seagate for example has a 5 year warranty on their drives. So if they do blow up, you can get a free replacement (or upgrade if they don't have current model/size). You should do back ups regardless of what drive you buy. Having said that, other manufacturers probably have very similar warranties.
Usually I just buy Seagates cause I'm a fan boy, but if you want to get over technical about it I would compare the following:
Interface (SATA, IDE, SCSI,etc - look for the interface you want)
Cost
Warranty (length)
Performance (most drives are going to be in the same range... a 7.2K SATA drive with 8Mb Cache is going to be "about" the same as any other 7.2K SATA drive with 8Mb cache. The only 'noticeable' difference in performance is when you go "up" a class (ie. comparing a 7.2K drive to a 10K drive, etc))
Reliability (some drives gets some vague stats about how long they will last. For the most part, these are meaningless marketing bullshit stats. Google if you really want to, but I won't take them into account).
Also even if you don't shop newegg, you can still check it ou on there page for reviews. Be warned of the fan boys though and take note of my advice above.
*disclaimer; I'm a seagate fanboy.
I'm still waiting for you to cite these independent studies. I tried to find some things myself, but the scanners are jammed by that paper google labs did about how industry lies about their drive failure rate.
Have you ever considered that you encounter more dead Seagate and Maxtor drives because.... well.... they're popular? It makes sense for the most popular brands of any hardwear to have the highest number of failures, simply because they have the highest number of uses.
Even if you have went though a hundred thousand hard drives in your experience... statically, it doesn't really add up to much. There is so much it doesn't account for... like usage and environment and you don't have a control to compare it to and doubt you have exact stats.....
For all we know your data center had a moisture problem or that the Seagates where in Compaq servers that had poor ventilation. while the WDs where in Dells that had good ventilation. Or well, maybe all the Seagates where in servers on the north side of the datacenter and was 10 degrees hot in there during the months of July and August. There is SO much that has to be accounted for when it comes to hard drive reliability and failure rates.
No offense, but don't think you have a control environment, enough recorded data or a big enough sample size to just say "all Seagate suck".
Like I said... if you ask hundred professionals that have dealt with hundreds if not thousands of drives, you'll get half of them swearing Seagates are the best and half of them swearing that Seagates are the worst. Same goes with WD, Matrox or any other brand.
Statistically, I'm willing to bet if you bought random [new] hard drives off the internet you would get a 1% to 7% failure rate, regardless of brand.
Personally I've had more Matrox and Hitachis fail on me... but really what does that matter? At most I've only worked with probably 15K drives in my career (over the course of 10 years) - but that doesn't really mean much. There is to many factors involved to just say "All Hitachi drives suck"
My advise: make sure the drive has a good warranty and backup regularly - regardless of brand
Ultimately anything any of us says is just anecdotal, and should be taken as such.
There you go.
(BTW, if you googlefight "wd died" vs "seagate died", it's 751 to 289...)
The best things to look for in a HD are size, speed, cache size, interface and warranty. At the end of the day, whoever has what I'm looking for in these categories for the best price is going to be what I go for. I do lean towards Seagate drives, but I've also owned WD and Fujitsu. At work, I'm in an environment with appx 1,500 systems. In these systems, I've had WD, Seagate, Maxtor, Fujitsu, Samsung, IBM and Quantum (on the old ones). Guess which brands have failed on me? If you said all of 'em, you'd be right. In my experience, from most reliable to least, it'd go: Quantum, Seagate, WD, IBM, Samsung, Fujitsu, Maxtor. In my experience. As has been said, it's all going to be different for different people. I lean towards Seagate mostly for their range of options and their 5 year warranties. But hey, if you can get a good selection for less money in another brand, more power to you - this includes for the OP.
Anyways, the Seagate drive you've picked out, Tini, looks good, and has that nice, big 16MB cache.
As for the PSU, that one looks good. A friend of mine just picked up this Corsair with the nice detachable cabling, which he recommends, but it's $40 more. I love my PC Power and Cooling PSU, but they are hella-expensive, so I'd recommend them if you have money to throw around
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
btw, I usually suggest spending a bit more on power supplies.
The way I see it, Usually [not always] the 3 things that'll "stay with you" over the years [when upgrading your computer] are Monitors, Cases and Power supplies... so in those 3 categories, it's good to get something that'll last awhile.
The case I'm using has been though 3 different "systems" and monitor has been though about 4 systems. Power supplies would of been 3 or 4, if I didn't have a tendency to overload and blow them. :P