Picking a hard drive - what specs to look for?

[blazure]

Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
or Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive.

I'm looking into buying a hard drive soon. I'd prefer something under 1TB due to cost. Based on tech specs (please no Seagate vs WD discussion), which drive is better? Same RPM, same Cache, same size. What else should I look at?

Thanks!

 

[sminlal]

Go to the manufacturer's web sites and check the drive specifications. Look for a drive that has a fast access time and a fast transfer rate. Make sure you look at the sustained transfer rate and not the "buffer to host" transfer rate, which is typically the speed of the SATA connection and has nothing to do with how fast the drive can really run.

Access times are getting harder to come by in the manufacturer's specs, so you may need to look for benchmarks that compare sequential vs. random performance to get a real comparison.

 

[sewalk]

The Seagate drive was $5 cheaper when I checked. That's going to be more signifigant than any performance differences.

A question like this is sure to generate scores of anecdotal horror stories against one brand or the other. I say ignore them and focus on the specs and price.

 

[unksol]

these have same warranty, cache, rpm. access time and read/write speed will vary but not enough to really matter. it really comes down to cost/brand preference/reviews. I don't like either of these guys but the WD has far more 5 star reviews and the Seagate had way more 1star/DOAs 25% vs WD 12%

 

[blazure]

Looks like the Seagate has 8.5 Random Read Seek and 9.5 Random Write Seek while WD has 8.9 Read Seek and 10.9 Write Seek. Seagate has higher Read/write power, but lower idle power, while WD has lower operating power and higher idle. Do these really matter that much?

Sources:
http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/barracuda-data-sheet-ds1737.1-1111us.pdf
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701277.pdf
http://www.technopolis.com.au/products/2342-caviar-blue-35-sata-desktop-hard-drives.aspx

 

[sewalk]

The differences are miniscule and will not result in any difference you will notice in daily operation. unksol's observations on the Newegg reviews are a better metric for choosing a drive. The Seagate has 100% more poor reviews than the WD. These informal reviews are to be taken with a grain of salt but that is a huge difference in the number of dissatisfied customers even with the relatively small sample sizes.