Seagate St3320620as (320gb) + Vantec Nexstar Enclosure

[mello yello]

Heres my modest review of this newly (released June) Seagate and how it stacks up in my world

In a word.......love it!!!

I had about 140gb of World Cup games that was cluttering up my WD250 so I went out looking for an option to archive what I hadnt burned onto DVD yet......as you do.

Didnt mind just buying an already built ready made 250gb external and looked at few including.....

Lacie Bricks or Lacie Porsche ($200) ( Maxtors inside..beware)

Western Digital My Books...heard they rattled and vibrated on your desk....recently reduced because of this I think (about $240)

Seagate ready mades (about $220)...hmmmm..not sexy enough....

Ok decided stuff that..I can build my own..even though I just like to walk in...buy...walk out..plug and play. I mean a hard drive is a hard drive..right?......seen one hard drive you seen them all ...........wrong!!!

This little beauty is whisper quiet....it really is a charm. It does have a slight motor noise whirring but its seek is practically inaudible....(compared to anything Ive heard before)....but compared to the WD clacking away I have to actually lean right up to it to hear the faintest of clitter clitter seek noises....thats all Im referring to.

Careful though if you are offered a cheap one..there are made in China and the quieter (harder to find..but well worth the look)..made in Singapore version. The Singapore version has pinky purple glue around the bottom of spindle shaft with markings ...like the one in this picture... bottom view

I think this Seagate might fit quite nicely into a PVR as a noise solution (they come in IDE versions of course)

Oh....and a 5 YEAR WARRANTY

Ok so what enclosure to put this in?

Looked and looked and looked at stacks of fuggly silver enclosures...some coloured ....some with fans....some even with bits that work...some with not

USB or Firewire or eSata ?.....I went for eSATA (obviously faster transfer speed)

Coolermaster and Welland seemed to have a couple of decently built ones in the more contemporary styles but the one I liked was the Vantec NexStar NST 360 SU BK

Comes in Onyx Black and looks pretty spiffy.

Ive been able to transfer about 1 gb/ minute across USB2...havent measured the eSata yet but it is capalble of 1.5Gbits/sec (Sata) and 3Gbits/sec (Sata2).

So an 80GB file took less than about 75 minutes across USB2....and about 30% faster had I bothered to open up my PC and install the eSata to Sata adaptor.....I wasnt too impressed by the state of the twisted squashed-up extension cable supplied in the box....maybe I might buy a better cable and try it but for now no probs with USB and resources peaked at only about 37% anyway.

Total cost $211

So all in all a very nice, neat, quiet desktop package that looks good to boot...how can anything in black not look good

[charlesc]

Oh....and a 5 YEAR WARRANTY

I don't think it is wise to bank on that 'feature' to protect your data. Hard drives do fail, and the warranty replacement to a manufacturer is the least of their costs. Certainly a lot less than your costs in time and data loss.

I have four or five of the 320 GB SATA drives (all OK so far). I had one of the 300 GB EIDE (PATA) drives fail within three weeks. And have seen four other of the manufacturer's '5 year warranty' drives fail in the last six months.

Time was when a 5 year warranty really meant something. But to be fair, that did not relate to buying 300+GB at maybe $200. It was more like 36 GB at $2k. And SCSI at that. Designed for servers.

Long warranties are a great differentiator, but IMO they do not always relate to a product's increased reliabilty.

[mello yello]

Maybe a bit of a marketing ploy rather than confidence of their product, sure....but at least if it does fail after 4+ years youd get some consolation.

Im more interested in reliability as well...hopfully Seagate dont fall down in that area.

[charlesc]

Im more interested in reliability as well...

A topical point indeed.

I'm convinced that the way to manage this is not just to rely on the manufacturer, but rather to take a much more pro-active approach with a number of the good disk tools that are available out there.

And a lot of these are run from a non-windows environment. And for higher reliability, the process may involve all data being copied off the drive first, before subjecting the drive to some streneous testing....

[mello yello]

A topical point indeed.

I'm convinced that the way to manage this is not just to rely on the manufacturer, but rather to take a much more pro-active approach with a number of the good disk tools that are available out there.

And a lot of these are run from a non-windows environment. And for higher reliability, the process may involve all data being copied off the drive first, before subjecting the drive to some streneous testing....

Oh yeah defintelty agree

You mean like an "all zeroes" check?

I think there is only so much you can do to check beforehand to see if its ok....the rest is up to the Gods really. I mean HDDs do have a limited number of read / writes so after a few years it would be wise to re-archive anyway.

As for daily write / delete/write again duties...Id be happy if I got 5-8 years out of it.

[charlesc]

You mean like an "all zeroes" check?

Something like that, yes. Although much more rigourous than that. Not just all zeroes, but patterns of 1s and 0s designed to be difficult to the drive.

And monitor the smart data from the drive on a regular basis.

For disk utilities, if you haven't seen them before, have a look at some of these:-

Gibson Research Spinrite 6

DiskPatch, HD Workbench (backup important areas)

HD Sentinel

I mean HDDs do have a limited number of read / writes

I'm not sure we would normally be bumping into that sort of limitation. I think the number of read/writes would in practice be very high, probably much higher than we are ever likely to subject a drive to. They don't behave like, for instance, RW optical media, where there are certainly limitations on the number of read/writes.

Otherwise database servers would be going down all around us on a regular basis.

[mello yello]

For disk utilities, if you haven't seen them before, have a look at some of these:-

Gibson Research Spinrite 6

DiskPatch, HD Workbench (backup important areas)

HD Sentinel

Thanks charlesc Ill have a look at some of those. Ive got a couple of 2.5 inch drives rolling around in the boot (ouch yes I know).... with more portable enclosures that I would like to check out before I use.

[charlesc]

Also this one called SmartUDM. Good to check the drives S.M.A.R.T info from DOS.

[Raeandy1503559596]

I have used 4 of these encolsures before for a varity of tasks.

A word of caution. Do NOT try and use them with Samsung 2500 series HD's.

They have a compatabilty problem and do not work together at all. Whether it be in the Vantec or the Samsung, I do not know.

I have used Maxtor and Seagate Hd's with the Vantecs with no issues.

Cheers

[dodgey]

A word of caution. Do NOT try and use them with Samsung 2500 series HD's.

They have a compatabilty problem and do not work together at all. Whether it be in the Vantec or the Samsung, I do not know.

I have used Maxtor and Seagate Hd's with the Vantecs with no issues.

I have a Vantec Nexstar with a Samsung 2500 for a client, and a Vantec LanShare with the same drive for me. It's been working fine so far. Picked the Samsung for the quietness of the drives.

Company wise, Seagate already acquired Maxtor, they are one in the same (not really) these days...

[big_marcelo]

I've got a seagate 320 (ATA) on my Toppy masterpiece and its ultra quiet...... my previous Maxtor was extremely noisy ...... and it failed a few times per year.... so I'm very happy to be back to Seagate.....

[MrBurns84]

I've got a seagate 320 (ATA) on my Toppy masterpiece and its ultra quiet...... my previous Maxtor was extremely noisy ...... and it failed a few times per year.... so I'm very happy to be back to Seagate.....

Got a 320G Western Digital drive..same specs bar less one disc platter than the 500GB version. The drive is very quiet and using the Vantec Nextstar eSata connection, its pretty quick! No regrets for $220!...

[mello yello]

Got a 320G Western Digital drive..same specs bar less one disc platter than the 500GB version. The drive is very quiet and using the Vantec Nextstar eSata connection, its pretty quick! No regrets for $220!...

With the eSATA ....its not hot swappable is it?...I mean do you have to boot up the PC and the drive at the same time?. Its not like USB where you can just power it on after you have booted up...is it?...or is it?

I havent installed the eSATA interface yet . I just have the drive sitting on my desk and switch it on or off via USB whenever I need to and it instantly shows up in My Computer....so that does me fine.

[MrBurns84]

With the eSATA ....its not hot swappable is it?...I mean do you have to boot up the PC and the drive at the same time?. Its not like USB where you can just power it on after you have booted up...is it?...or is it?

I havent installed the eSATA interface yet . I just have the drive sitting on my desk and switch it on or off via USB whenever I need to and it instantly shows up in My Computer....so that does me fine.

Yes it is hot swappable..same as a USB connection. However i'm using the external drive with my laptop and I had to get a eSata express add on card for my laptop to get SATA connectivity. I've used it to install some games onto it and ran the game off the external drive..surprisingly no lag in gaming!

[mountainman]

I too looked at all the commercial complete USB disk drives. They were either too dear for what you got or reviewers found them unreliable. I wanted a simple fanless enclosure to reduce noise as much as possible so as not to annoy my partner when mucking around with video files.

As previously stated the drive in this enclosure is very quiet. The 320gig 10th generation drive was the best value for money with the lowest noise level which is measured in BELS. The 500Gig drives are slightly noiser and expect they would generate more heat and might be prone to earlier failure.

Now all I need is an efficient way of backing up the image of my notebook.

Highly Recommended.