DescentBB

Western Digital 200GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model WD2000JB, OEM Drive Only $118 *** ATA100

Maxtor 200GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model 6Y200P0, OEM Drive Only $123 *** ATA133

Seagate 200GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3200822A, OEM Only $133 *** ATA100


Note the Maxtor is ATA133 whereas the other two are ATA100.

Paint me dumb but ... Will my motherboard (A7N8X-DLX v2) take advantage of the extra 33 Mhz?

yes, that board takes ATA-133.

take the drive with the larger cache.

Bad link.

And chances are your harddrive wouldn't be fast enough to saturate 133mhz, so as far as speed is concerned it's mostly just marketing.

All have 8Mb cache ...

Personally, I've found that I like Seagate drives the best. The Maxtor I bought is quite rattly and the Western Digital isn't much better. However, the Seagate has been totally silent for the couple years I've had it. They are also more seldom on sale, from my experience. It just behaves like a higher-quality drive, in my opinion.

I've never had a hard drive failure with any of these, but I don't carry out wacky mods or overclocking crazyness like some others do either.

see what the rated db are for each, and pick the quiest one.

I recently bought 4 of these Maxtor Diamond Max drives http://store.yahoo.com/justdeals/gs7.html

They work well in my raid 5 rig

I recently bought a WD drive with 8meg cache

its a nice complement to my seagate.

All things being equal, i'd go for quietness