Nice review Rich. I was wondering if you noticed any significant difference in the noise level between the drives. Did one or the other strike you as particularly loud?

I really want the quietest computer possible and waiting a few extra seconds is not something I'm too worried about if I don't have to listen to the heads trash around all the time. I'm really hoping that Samsung gets their new solid state HD's available in larger sizes. http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/20/conventiona...

Ben

If yer not worried about a few seconds, get a 2.5" drive. I was ghosting to one sitting open on my desk 4 feet from me and I couldn't hear it above the normal office din.

These 500GB drives are far quieter than my older PATA drives were, unfortunately, I have a lot of noisy fans, so I am not able to truely figure out which is the least noisy. That and I don't have a db meter.

I'm disappointed you tested the Seagate 7200.9 series when the 7200.10 drives have been out for awhile. The new perpendicular recording has significantly changed their performance characteristics. I'd like to see those numbers against the WD and Hitachi drives.

That is what Seagate chose to send us at the time of this writing. Although perpendicular recording technology is where the industry is headed, that is a whole new review. It will probably happen with 750GB drives when is does happen anyway. I would agree though I am very interested to see just what type of difference in speed perpendicular recording does make.