i have decided to buy a hard disk, size 320gb. can anyone recommend me what to buy? seagate,hitachi,samsung? what's the best in that size category considering performance, noise and everything else? thanks
I agree with Shadow 100%; get a Seagate or Western Digital. I have two WDs that I have had for 4+ years that have given me absolutely no problems; that's with them being on 24/7 all those years with power saving disabled. I have one Seagate that I've been "breaking in" for the past 6 months. Do NOT get Maxtor; I have two and they make more noise new out of the box than an ancient 320MB from my dad's old 486.
I am using a Western Digital Caviar RE WD3200YS 320GB. It is an business enterprise type HDD which means it is meant for continual usage. The drive is pretty quiet and as far as I know does not suffer from any overheating issues.
It also comes with a 5 year warranty if that makes any difference to you. Just remember no matter how long the warranty period is, once the HDD fails you might loose all your data.
The Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 drives are good, but some people have been vibration issues with it, thus making noisier than the older 7200.9 drives. Other than that, it's a very good drive.