Seagate BarraCuda 7200.10 ST3250620AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive (Perpendicular Recording) Bare Drive

Pros: Windows installed pretty fast. Very Quiet. Not sure what other peeps are talking about with heat... mine is cool to the touch... good air flow around it though.

Cons: Formatting took FREAKIN' forever! It took FAR less time for XP to install than it did to format the drive!

Overall Review: I have seen the error of my ways and I shall never depart from Seagate again. I have returned to the flock after having an adulterous relationship with a 160GB WD drive. That only ended in heartache... she took my music, my movies, my pictures... my heart... And after only 8 months! I should have had a prenup (AKA: Backup!) I never thought I would find love again... And then, when I was least expecting it, I staggered in from the cold to Newegg's site. I had tried all the other places, WorstBuy, Short Circuit City... And there she was... 250GB of love for only 65 Bucks! Sure she was a little larger than the last one, but after what I've been through, you don't really look at the physical things anymore. You just want dependability... I hope you find your soul-mate!

Pros: Very fast performance under linux /dev/sdb: Timing cached reads: 2812 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1405.91 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 222 MB in 3.00 seconds = 74.00 MB/sec Model Number: ST3250620AS vs Timing cached reads: 3016 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1507.91 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 176 MB in 3.02 seconds = 58.20 MB/sec for a Model Number: WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0

Cons: none. at this moment one of the better choices

Pros: The Seagate ST3250620AS 250GB drives are fast (3.0 Gbits/sec SATA). These are noticably faster than the 1.5 Gbit/sec drives they are replacing. Like the other Seagate drives I've owned, these are very quiet, and run with very little vibration. I had to put my fingers on the top of the drive to convince myself they were powered up. Even when data is being written to them, they have very little vibration. I got a pair of Seagate ST3250620AS 250GB drives for use in a RAID 1 (mirror) array. The noise from two of these drives is more than drowned out by one of the case fans. They do run warmer than the drives they replaced, but they also are faster and larger. They aren't hot enough to cause me real concern, but running cooler would make me happier.

Cons: These drives run warm. They are not hot, but warmer than most other drives I have used. The drives may come configured to run in 1.5 Gbit/sec by default (with the tiny jumper next to the SATA interface [data] connector installed). The description of the jumper is "Limit data transfer rate to 1.5 Gbits per second," so I didn't take any chances and removed it.

Overall Review: Download either the floppy or ISO CD-ROM of the Seagate DiscWizard from http://www.seagate.com -> SUPPORT -> DOWNLOADS -> Installation Software (DiscWizard). The CD-ROM version of the DiscWizard detected the new Seagate drive allows setting the size & format of all new partitions. It then creates & formats the partitions on the new drive. Finally, it copies all the files from the old boot partition (i.e., the old C:\ drive) to the new disk and sets up the master boot record - making the new drive bootable. You may have to swap some cables or make changes in the BIOS to pick the new drive as the boot drive. This worked even though both my source and target drives were RAID 1 arrays. (You should disconnect the old boot drive & boot once using the new drive alone so that Windows discovers the new partitions & assigns the drive letters appropriately.) The D:\, E:\, etc. partitions are not copied for you, but that's a simple drag and drop operation once you boot from the new drive.

Pros: SATA2 and perpendicular recording. AND uber-fast. It is amazingly quiet- doesn't hardly make a sound.

Cons: NO NCQ. I guess Native Command Queing is what really speeds everything up. I wish I would have kwown that. I read an article where the ones with NCQ were a bit faster than w/o.

Overall Review: Make sure your have SATA2 cables- my mobo didn't come with them. Also, I beleive a jumper needs to be switched in order to allow 3Gb/s. I still need to do that... Intel E6600, Antec P160 case, OCZ 520watt Powerstream, 2 Seagate 250GB 7200.10 (SATA2), Nec 3550A burner, Corsair XMS2 2GB DDR2800, Windows XP Home, connect3D X1900GT

Pros: FAST! I took out my old SATA I 8 MB cache drive and swapped this in and there is a huge difference. Windows and applications load up much faster than with the old drive. Perpendicular recording, 16 MB cache, and SATA II make this hard drive a steal at this price! It comes out to about 29 cents per gigabyte of storage, what a deal!

Cons: Not a single bad thing to say about this product so far.

Overall Review: If you want to use this in SATA II (3.0 Gb/s) mode make sure to remove the jumper that comes on it before installing it.

Pros: this is amazing.. my cpu boots up in under 12 secs.. 7864 on 3d mark o5!!!!! got two of these running raid 0. play bf2 starts up seriously fast.. this is better than a raptor and for alot cheaper

Cons: none... very cheap?? lol

Overall Review: i should have bought another for a back up drive..

Pros: Fast. Simply put, this drive is very fast. In a multitude of tests, it has a 160mb/s burst speed with 77mb/sec sustained speed. This is with SATA II enabled on a NForce 4 chipset.

Cons: Noise. I run a completely silent computer (no active fans). This drive is quite a bit louder than my previous Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 series. It spins silently but seek sounds are noticeable.

Overall Review: Noise may not be heard if running in a normal computer case (with active fans). However, it is louder than some other drives out there. But in the end, the drive's performance cannot be beat.

Pros: 1 - Amazing value. 2 - The Barracuda 7200.10's perpendicular-recording technology gives high areal density. High areal density gives higher sustained transfer rates. I bought this 7,200rpm drive to replace a 10,000rpm Raptor that went bad after being used less than 1,000 hours. HD Tach shows that this Barracuda gives higher burst rates and higher sustained transfer rates than the Raptor!

Cons: HD Tach says that seek time averages 14.2 MS, not the greatest but not bad.

Overall Review: It's pleasant to anticipate the benchmarks that will be obtained with a combination of perpendicular recording and 10,000rpm rotational speed.