Any advice for Seagate ST3160827AS (160G SATA)?

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xfile

Hi:

I'm thinking to purchase the above model as the primary drive of the system.

Appreciate any advices from someone who has used this HDD, such as its
performance, reliability, problems with XP Pro (SP2) and others.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the reply and I will Google for more info.

Just a note, I did check and read many info from Seagate before choosing
which model to buy and all I want now is the user experience not their data
sheet or spec.

Thanks again.
 
Abhilash Tibrewal(MCSA) said:
Don't base you purchase decisions solely on NG discussions. Look around on
the web for reviews.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Seagate+ST3160827AS+review
Click to expand...
If you don't have any thing to say don't send him to google

BTW. I use Maxtor brand but recently their quality went in toilet.
In 1 year I killed 2 HD (both got replaced with their refurbs.)
One of them I did defrag, and during that operation (by Norton Speed Disk)
drive died out with error, freezing system, all kind of problems.
Maxtor HD utility showed lots of errors and recommended to replace drive.
Second one had same problems that happened after I resized partition
(PM8.0).

As Seagate go, look into their warranty policy. I thing they offer just 1
year, where Maxtor offers 3-5 years.
My current Maxtor 300Gb with 16Mb memory can transfer over 120Mb per second
and its SATA drive
 
Hi,

Thanks for your information and in return, you might want to know that
Seagate now offers 5 year warranty for its products as well.

But if I remember correctly, it will be for its "retail" products and for
OEM, it is subject to the OEM - a practice I have read is common for all
device provider to OEM.

Thanks again.
 
The Seagate is an Average rated hard drive.
Seems like all the hard drive made in the past 2 years are mostly crap! I
use a Western Didital 120. It is the most reliable one I have used to date.
I have had many Maxtor's fail within 6 months to a year! Hitachi looks to be
a promising drive with their lastes entries.
I think I would shy away from Maxtor, Seagate, and Samsung.
If you decide to use the Seagate, please post and let us know how it does
for you.
 
Hi,
I had a 40 gb Seagate that came with my HP. I had problems with the power
source which caused Bad sectors on the hard drive. I replaced it with the WD
120gb. But to be totally honest with you. I have found more support on the
Seagate website than on the Western Digital site. My problems came from an
overheating in the powersource(dust) not the actual harddrive.
Good luck with your decision.
Donna
 
Hi,

Thanks for the feedbacks from all of you.

Honestly speaking, I don't know which brand is the "best" per se.

My experience with WD and Maxtor was long ago during XT, AT era and it was
not so good at that time, so I moved to Quantum under expert's advise for
many years until it is gone, and to IBM for a short period of time and to
Seagate about 2 years ago. But they all have problems one way or the other,
especially IBM ones seem so easy to break down without any reasons and
caused me to loss many important data.

I used 4 Seagate drives and one of them broke down last year.

Interestingly, the reason for me to buy a new drive is not because it is
broken down. I do hear large noise from the system when a slave drive put
in (regardless of which HDD) but not from the HD itself. I will have the
system to check up as well and it could be the same reason as Donna's.

However, I'd like to take the opportunity to buy a new HD and do a clean
installation of Windows and set up a new environment since the current one
is 3 years old with many hardware upgrade, software updates, installations,
removal, and repair installations, and so on, which cause the system has
some minor problems once a while despite its performance is still well.

And yes, I found Seagate's site has plenty of helps and supports which is
one of the reasons for me to choose it.

The reason for my post to consult your user experience is that I'm not so
sure which one to buy now especially it's going to be the primary drive.
Although I've done some researches and read some of their spec and data
sheets, I guess you all know that the real performance may not be like those
written.

Thanks for your comments, and I think I might take the model - if I have not
changed at the last minute :)

Please let me know if you have any additional comments which will be deeply
appreciated.
 
Hi,

Just a quick update:

I eventually purchased and installed the hard disk.

Armed with slipstreamed XP Pro SP2 and drivers, the installation went
through smoothly.

I am using Asus P4P800 SE, BIOS can detect right after the HD was installed.

Windows XP installation also went well, installed network card driver, audio
driver, and activated.

I noticed that the "noise" seems to be lower, and observed (with my eyes)
performance seems to be a bit of faster during boot up and Windows loading.

I am still installing additional applications and porting some data to the
new drive.

But so far so good.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the sharing, but how do we know if it's NCQ or not.

By the way, don't feel too upset. I read somewhere during my initial
research of the drive that NCQ will not show much of performance
improvements during normal operations.

I was thinking to have one as well, but I don't know if this one is or not
because I have no way to find out by looking at the drive.

Thanks for sharing.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the confirmation.

I meant to post the link for the article that I read, but could not find it
due to the other system is still under installation.

I'll post if I got it again.

Once again, thanks.
 
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