Seagate BarraCuda 7200.10 ST3250620A 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 3.5" Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Under load, it is difficult to hear drive activity amongst the noise produced by my two stock 80mm fans, power supply, and CPU fans. In room temp of 75F/24C, disk temp without any cooling has not reached beyond 42C even after hours of defragmenting, cloning, and long file transfers.

Cons: Industry's highest five year warranty means best replacement program but does not necessarily translate to reliability - a prime problem with all hard drives, regardless of manufacturer. However, no complaints with this one, so far. Data loss shouldn't be much of a problem if you have multiple backup drives anyway.

Overall Review: This drive is actually my first one from Seagate! I've used "desktop user" drives by Maxtor, WD, IBM, and Quantum ('90s) all of which have been running for more than 7 years in continuous 24/7 operation without any issues. I've only used high-end quality power supplies to fuel all my hard drives, so I believe much of the great reliability I've experienced is attributed to this factor. My best advice with hard drives: Worry a little less about hard drive manufacturer, and focus more concern on a good power supply.

Pros: Perpendicular. 16MB cache. Great price/capacity. 5-yr warranty. Virtually silent.

Cons: None really.

Overall Review: My third; first two are in RAID 0 and perform well. Unfortunately, infant mortality is higher on all hdd's now, regardless of mfg - but Seagate's AFR of .3% & 700K MTBF is still better, hence superior warranty.

Pros: Lots of storage space. When it tried to work seemed to perform well.

Cons: Had major issues with bios recognizing HD in 2 diff comps. Had to run Seagate utilities mulitple times before OS would install. Finally died totally ( the smoke literally let out)

Overall Review: Sent off for replacement from Newegg. Looks like you either get great drive or get one of the unlucky few like I did.

Pros: Quiet, runs cool, good performance.

Cons: None to speak of.

Overall Review: This drive is as fast as any of my other SATA & SATA 3.0 drives baring the WD Raptors I’m running in other computers. This drive runs as cool as all my other Seagate drives, 34C W/O any cooling being provided. This drive is typical of all drives in that it will not yield the full capacity of the drive. This is due to the way manufacturers market their drives. This drive formats to 232Gb and that’s the full capacity. This drive is installed in a very old VH6T W/ a PIII 1.4S CPU. I had no problems with not being able to see the entire capacity of the drive. It was recognized as 250GB. Formatted in NTFS, HD tach clocks this drive at 87Mb burst speed and 68Mb per second average read. Pcpitstop also clocks this drive at 68Mb per second average read.

Pros: Runs very quiet, cool-to-average running temp, and Seagate's DiscWizard made it all so easy.

Cons: Windows couldn't 'see' it until I ran DiscWizard on it. It's an OEM - so for some of you that don't understand "OEM" you will be surprised that you ONLY receive the drive. NO screws, box, docs or anything. Well, you do get one jumper.

Overall Review: I'm running this as my master drive and an older 110 GB 8mb-cache Seagate drive as a slave. Both work flawlessly together. DiscWizard can be found on Seagate's site.

Pros: I ordered two of these drives for use with my older motherboard stuck at ATA100 speeds. They performed beautifully, I immediately noticed an increase in responsiveness over my 4 year old 120GB 7200RPM 2MB cache Western Digitals.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: These are a great way to upgrade your drives when you need to stick with ATA100, sweet price too.

Pros: Not really much to say, great drive, runs fast, stays cool, and I love the price.

Cons: None.

Pros: Bought two of these in a RAID 0 for video capture on my old p4 system. Works like a charm!

Cons: None.