I am currently building a computer and I want to know what are the best 80 GB harddrives. I need one that is fewer than $100 dollars. I heard that IBM was pretty good, and Maxtor was a good drive too. I am looking for a 7200 RPM and a very silent drive. What do you prefer?

Get a Seagate Barracuda IV one of if not the quitest drives available plus it's fast it's on Newegg for $103 which is slightly over your budget but i have heard alot of good things about this drive the only bad is that is a poor performer if be used in RAID due to poorly optimized firmware. But what ever you do don't get a IBM drive as i have heard alot of horror storys a there drives.

Thanks a lot DIABLO. I should stay away from IBM and stick with Seagate. I have an 8 GB Seagate drive for two years now and it hasn't died on me yet.

I got to disagree, IBM are renouned for the quality of there hard drives & are probably market leaders in theis field. I have used IBM for years & never had a problem with them, there performance & durability coupled with the unique AFC (Antiferromagnetically-coupled media). A technology that uses a thin layer of Ruthenium to acheive a storage density of 29gb per square inch. The Deskstars are excellent.
You can also try the Western Digital Caviar hard drives, also excellent but can be a bit noisy.

i would have to say seagate is the better harddrive.

If you want a quiet drive go for the seagate barracuda it is still the quietest around. The maxtor 740DX is also very quiet but some say it produces more heat than the seagate drive. Both use fluid bearings to reduce noise.

Sam66

Seagate or Maxtor, I have both. Never faced a single problem with either.

I use seagate also no problems. Western Digital I do not trust have had 2 fall over when only weeks old when you have a lot of Data this is not good.

Originally posted by Mantis Fist
I got to disagree, IBM are renouned for the quality of there hard drives & are probably market leaders in theis field. I have used IBM for years & never had a problem with them, there performance & durability coupled with the unique AFC (Antiferromagnetically-coupled media). A technology that uses a thin layer of Ruthenium to acheive a storage density of 29gb per square inch. The Deskstars are excellent.



I must totally disagree with you on this one.

Never EVER buy an IBM drive. Especially the DeskStar GXP Series!! they are without question head and shoulders above all the others for failures. Of course they wont ALL fail but the shear quantity which do fail is Staggering.

Not only the 75GXP's are affected, the 120GXP too even though IBM supposedly cured the problems with supposedly super technology.

IBM aren't trying to sell off their drive making department without good reason. Not surprisingly they can't yet find a buyer.

Search for the Deskstar reviews through any search engine. The overwhelming majority of results will suggest these things SUCK big time!!

I prefer Maxtors personally . WesternDigital get good reviews, Seagates are okay but I found the 40Gb Seagates slower than the Maxtors.

Western Digital. Is a bit noisy though...

Thats the good thing about this place sometimes....You can get good opinions & constructive critisism, which makes good reading & is beneficial to everyone.
CHR15 I agree with you on some points, yes IBM have not been up to scratch with there hard drives lately (may be for a while now) & they are about to sell the hard drive division, I think to a company in Japan ??
The 120GXP did get good reviews, but you cant beat your own experiences with hardware.
I guess sometimes your lucky & other times your not, if you buy something & it breaks down or doesnt serve its purpose, its more than lightly you will never buy from the company again, best thing is to see what people say & evaluate for yourself. I see the seagate's are popular here so may be next time I will try one myself.

I am going to purchase the 80 GB Seagate harddrive at newegg.com. The harddrive will be an OEM and will not come with any cables. Do you need to purchase any cables?

If your building a computer 1 or 2 IDE cables will usually come with new motherboards.

I did search, I found in Volume 6, No 12 of Maximum Pc the IBM 60 GXP hard drive was named their hard drive of the year! I have one and its great.

get a western digital 80 gb

Well, I have a WD 60 Gb, one year old, and is has started to get bad sectors. :(
I also have a 3 year old IBM disk, works like a charm.
With the worrying stories I have heard lately from IBM, and my bad experience with WD, I would say get a Maxtor or Seagate. :)

I bought IBM drive for my current box, it died after just 6 months. I'll never touch an IBM drive again.
Cables should be supplied with the mobo, howl with rage at your supplier if not.
--