The "big boys" I'm referring to are the large hard drives. Their size is growing faster than just about any other PC component. Here's a nice comparison article.
The good old magnetic hard drive, with its rotating platters and flying heads, is still the mainstay for mass storage, even as other technologies seem to emerge. Refinements in platter materials, head technologies, and magnetic substrates allow hard drive companies to stay ahead of the cost and performance curve. With Hitachi and Seagate announcing plans for perpendicular recording technology, capacity and performance should continue to increase.
Hard drive technology is advancing rapidly, as digital media proliferates. Most of us will have multiple hard drives in our homes, including tiny drives less than an inch in diameter in handheld devices, compact drives in notebook PCs, high capacity drives in our PCs, and even bigger drives in DVRs. Rotating magnetic media is the storage medium of choice for our digital stuff.
Today, we'll be taking a look at three high capacity desktop drives: the 250GB Western Digital WD2500SD, 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10, and a 400GB Seagate 7200.8. Drives from Maxtor and Seagate use its latest platter technology, while Western Digital's drive uses its 80GB per platter technology built on a more rugged platform suitable for reliable RAID 0 operation.
The Maxtor and Seagate drives both offer better performance than their earlier-generation models. Western Digital's RAID Edition drive continues the company's tradition of shipping high-performance drives, even if the data densities aren't up to that of the competition today.
If you really plan on running RAID 0, then you might consider the WD2500SD. It's built to more-robust standards than normal desktop drives—an important factor when running RAID 0. After all, if you have two drives holding all your data, you'd prefer neither to fail.
The Maxtor seems to offer the best balance across a wide range of environments, and 300GB is generally enough capacity for everyone. It's also a great deal, currently, with prices well under $200 on the net.
If you need that extra bit of capacity, though, the Seagate 7200.8 is well worth considering. It's pricey, though, at around $325 online. On the other hand, you also get the best warranty in the business today, at five years, so that's worth a bit extra.
In the end, all three of these drives offer differing blends of performance, features, and capacities. Depending on your needs, you're not likely to go wrong with any of them.
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