Hard Drives > Samsung Hard Drives > From 200 GB to 300 GB

Advantages: Fast, quiet, cheap
Disadvantages: Can get better value with bigger HDDs, may be too small for some

The Samsung Spinpoint has, for the past year or so, been the hard drive of choice for those looking for good value. I needed a new hard drive recently, and I had no reservations whatsoever about getting this. When it arrived, I installed it and was immediately impressed at how much quicker my computer felt to use. Perhaps this was mainly due to the reinstallation of Windows, but nevertheless the hard drive was performing better than my previous ...
...The SATA II interface allows for fast data transfer, and I could copy files about my series of folders with great speed. This model is only 250GB, and so is inevitably not quite as good value as the 500GB model (in terms of £/GB, where it sits at about £0.17/GB compared to £0.12/GB), but I cannot see myself using any more than what is provided, and unless you have an extensive media collection it's probably worth saving the ~£20 and getting this ... Read review

Advantages: Quiet and Reliable
Disadvantages: Slightly more expensive some other companies

...the item. Firstly, the Samsung Spinpoint drives are very silent and can hardly be heard over the system and CPU fan. Ive used several hard drives from Western Digital before this and I am also impressed by its better performance even though they are both 7200rpm SATA2 drives. The capacity of the drive is 250GB and quite frankly, that is a huge amount of storage for music and pictures. Video on the other hand eats up storage like theres no tomorrow. ...
...Seagate Barracuda. I believe my Samsung Spinpoint performs better more quietly yet is usually a good 5-10% cheaper. I would seriously advise people get drives from better brands as data loss can be devastating. I would advise to everyone who can afford it, to run a RAID 1 array so that you dont lose data if a hard drive fails. Thank you ... Read review

Advantages: Low noise, generally low vibration, fairly cool for a 250gb drive, reliability
Disadvantages: Not as cool or quiet as the HA250JC, but considerably cheaper

...success of the now-legendary HA250JC, Samsung have updated their 250gb product line with this excellent drive. Although it is a 7200rpm drive (unlike the HA250JC which is 5400rpm) this drive still runs pretty cool for a 250gb drive, and with generally low rotational vibration which can lead to hum with some drives when installed in media centre, Sky+ or TiVo. When "quiet" mode is enabled (using Samsung's HUTIL utility) the seek noise of this drive ... Read review

Advantages: Low noise, very cool running, low vibration, reliability
Disadvantages: not the biggest or cheapest drive you can buy

In our experience (2 years supplying this drive for TiVo upgrades) this is the quietest, coolest and most reliable drive you can buy to upgrade your TiVo or Sky+ It is a 5400rpm drive (unlike most these days which are 7200rpm) and the reduced spindle speed means it generates less heat and therefore runs a lot cooler and with less vibration than 7200rpm drives. This means that your TiVo or Sky+ will run cooler - extending the life of the drive - ...
...to the box and into your AV cabinet is much reduced too. In fact, the vibration of this drive is often so low that we have to double-check that it's powered on when configuring it as - unlike 7200rpm drives - you often can't feel it spinning when you put your hand on it! The seek noise is also very soft and quiet too, especially when "quiet" mode is enabled with Samsung's HUTIL utility, so you don't hear the heads clattering about during quiet moments ... Read review

Advantages: Maximizes the amount of data vs the cost of the product
Disadvantages: heat issues, cord connectivity, and small installation problems.

...but I honestly only order Maxtor for my hard drives. Now the only downside to the Maxtor 500 GB is that it is an external drive that, if not careful, can overheat and cause connectivity problems, transfer speed issues, or just annoyance from when the usb gets knocked out. That being said, if you can get past the downside of have an external I would recommend this product to anyone not using a Mac. The only reason I do not recommend this to Mac owners ... Read review