[robdudley]

I'm having an issue with a couple of hard drives. My WD Caviar SE16 500Gb has started to make some nasty grinding noises and I expect it will die soon so I need to replace it. But I also have a p-ATA 133 300GB drive and an empty ATA enclosure.

Any help is welcome. I would rather just replace my WD Caviar SE16 500GB with a similar sized device to install in my SATA to USB enclosure. but I don't know if SATA 150 or 300 are the same as SATA 2. Should I forget my ATA133 enclosure?

What should I replace my WD Caviar SE16 500GB and what with? Any recommendations.

Thanks in advance

[muckshifter]

Well ... for starters, it's SATA-II, not SATA 2 (no I'm not nit picking, it's because the II is actually part of the acronym), and just because a drive is listed as SATA-II doesn't mean it's capable of 3.0Gbps. It's a long story and a numbers game, but to be safe, stick with drives that identify themselves specifically as 3.0Gbps.

One of the numbers games I'm referring to is, as in your case ... ATA133 v SATA II 300 ... is 133 faster than 300

There is a lot more to it than my simple analogy ... suffice to say, go get another SATA-II / 3.0Gbps drive as a replacement, SATA-II 300 does wonders for multimedia and content creation. The higher transfer rates help in audio/video data throughput more than in office productivity applications due to the requirements for large amounts of data to be moved.

... who's to choose? one is as good or as bad as the other, personal choice is left to you.

[Abarbarian]

Some SATA drives have jumpers on the rear end like CD/DVD drives and you can set them for 150 or 300 operation . Google is your best friend for finding the best deal . I prefer Seagate's as they have never let me down and usually come with a 5 year guarantee .

[Adywebb]

I'm wondering how long you've had that WD Caviar? - the SE16 haven't been around that long have they?

If thats the case it may be worth looking at the warranty situation for it - also do you really want to get another one if that has failed relatively quickly, although I appreciate it can happen to any make/model at times.

Personally I use Samsung Spinpoints on all my rigs - they seem to have a very good reputation for reliability, speed and low noise

[floppybootstomp]

As Mucks said, with hard drives it's pot luck really, in my experience it's not so much the make of drive but more the batch and factory where they were manufactured.

I've had every make of hard drive fail on me except Samsung and Maxtor, for what it's worth.

The highest failure rate I've had is with Western Digital.

For the past 15 months or so I've favoured Samsung. Fast, quiet and so far - reliable.