Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

400gb PATA hard drive: hitachi 7k400 v. seagate barracuda?

Jul 29, 2005 7:12AM PDT

Help! I'm kind of a newbie, dealing with hardware...I am trying to decide between two 400GB drives: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 & the Hitachi 7k400 deskstar. I'm trying to increase the storage on our departmental intranet server (lots of images and video) before I leave for school. I really want to minimize the panicked phone calls I get from the people in the office, requiring me to come running pell-mell back here again.

Therefore, the absolute, hands-down most important factor is reliability. I am reading about a lot of problems with the Seagate locking up, etc. Is it really less reliable than the Hitachi? Even if they do have a 5-yr. warranty, drive failure is really not something that this office will be able to handle, even with weekly backups to an external hard drive. Then again, I am also reading complaints about the Hitachi running really hot; how could it be less prone to failure if it that's true? I really don't want to have to buy and install a fan, too.

Any help would be vastly appreciated!!! You can also email me at yahoo (same handle).

Discussion is locked