Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB Vs Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB

christophicus

Right . Basically I want to get a high capacity drive and these two HDD's are both €125 on komplett. Im just wondering which one is better??

I would assume that the WD has slightly better performance but that the Samsung is cooler and quieter, would i be right with these statements??

Also installing windows on these sata drives . I need a floppy for this dont i? Does a floppy come with them cause its getting very hard to find floppies anymore, adn last time I checked I copuldnt find one on komplett.

Finally will an SATA2 drive work on any mobo that supports SATA1??

cheers
chris.

Creamy Goodness

you are right in your statements. but WD is only slightly if not on par on performance with the samsung.

samsung's do have a reputation of being quieter.

you don't get a floppy with the drives as they are OEM drives ie. you get only the hard drive in an anti static bag.

i think windows xp sp2 doesn't need a floppy to install the sata drivers with.
i think a floppy with sata drivers should of came with your motherboard. if not you'll have to download them off their website.


SATA2 is backwards compatible

Steffano2002

Cremo wrote:

i think windows xp sp2 doesn't need a floppy to install the sata drivers with.

That is correct!

SeanW

Steffano2002 wrote:

That is correct!

No! it's not - it depends on the board - some boards based on older or inferior chipsets such as the Radeon XPress 200P, will require a floppy with drivers (and yes, I know because I tried it with Win XP SP2) because the SATA implementation on those boards were handled by way of a third party controller via a peripheral interface as opposed to natively on the Southbridge along with PATA.
The nForce 4 chipset, on the other hand, recognises all PATA and SATA channels as a single group of IDE channels and any OS loading can see all types of ATA drive.

SATA2 is backwards compatible

Basically true but sometimes the drive comes with a SATA 1 jumper that you might have to change first.

zilog_jones

I had no trouble installing Windows XP SP2 using SATA2 on an Intel 975X based motherboard.

Cabaal

Personally I'd go for WD, but thats cause I own so many already and none of them have failed yet...unlike maxtor, IBM, Seagate

irlrobins

Cabaal wrote:

Personally I'd go for WD, but thats cause I own so many already and none of them have failed yet...unlike maxtor, IBM, Seagate

Ditto

zilog_jones

I've had a WD Caviar 280 for 15 years and it's still going strong! 80 whole Megabytes of sheer quality

I also am currently using the 320GB version of the SE16 and it's grand, though it ain't quiet.

christophicus

Thanks for all of your comments , I went for teh samsung in the end, i'll let you know how I get on when trying to install xp on it.

jozi

christophicus wrote:

Thanks for all of your comments , I went for teh samsung in the end, i'll let you know how I get on when trying to install xp on it.

It's very quiet, im not even sure if i have ever heard the drive over my maxtor.

I bought mine a couple of weeks ago, it wasnt 125 then

EDIT: The WD drive was Silent PC Reviews quietest tested drive only just beaten by the Samsung when it came out, thats if my memory serves me right. Either drive isnt a bad buy by a long shot

christophicus

Cheers man thanks for that. so your saying the samsung is better?