The 500GB Seagate 7200.12 has an OK seek time of ~14.5ms. It's the 1TB variant that was being slower (e.g. here) and I don't know why.

Sorry for the confusion: Intel reused the "E6300" model for the 45nm Pentium Dual Core part at 2.8Ghz. It's a great value right now.

Yes, it'll work without the yellow wire connected. The header on the S12-II is two pin and you only need to attach the 12V (red) and ground (black) wires. As Mike says, the power supply varies the voltage to control the fan speed. The starting voltage is 4-4.5V and that is why the S-Flex F, which st...

Since abelincoln mentioned the Seasonic, can anyone confirm if the two-pin header on the Seasonic S12-II Bronze boards can accommodate (with regard to surrounding area) a 3-pin connector?

I found another review here: http://www.hardwareluxx.de/community/showthread.php?t=542829 The F3 500 is compared directly with the F1 320, and returns about the same result in the 4K Random Read test in CrystalDiskMark (0.78 MB/s). Seeing as the F1's weakness lied in multitasking and server patterns...

Thanks for the heads up. It's worth adding that E3200, E3300, E6300, E6500 and E7600 support VT regardless of the sSpec you get.

First benchmarks arrive! Someone has just posted this over at planet3dnow: http://www.abload.de/img/hdtune_benchmark_samsuyhg7.png http://www.abload.de/img/hdtune_benchmark_samsu8fha.png http://www.abload.de/img/hd-tach-long-samsung-fpgai.jpg http://www.planet3dnow.de/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=4005...

Fudo says it'll be out today. I look forward to seeing how it compares with G41 + E6300/E6500. I hope AMD supplied testers with upcoming 45W Athlon II parts.

Thanks for sharing. I think I'll add these links from my bookmarks:

WD
Seagate & Maxtor
Samsung (at least some of them)
Hitachi: interface speed is adjustable through the Feature Tool

2. Dampen

+1. I've experimented a little with acoustic material and noticed that it works great for absorbing seek noise.

@whiic & loimlo Thanks for clearing that up. :) It could be that Tom review that gave me the impression that Hitachi is still plagued with slow access time, but I don't remember. So we can conclude it's a decent option, at least in the 500+ range. @DavoNess Another option that just popped up is the ...

Sorry it was a typo, I meant 7K1000.B. Do you know anything about access time in this series? I suspect it's over 16ms like the P7K500.

I wouldn't recommend Hitachi at this point, because their attempts at creating power efficient 3.5" drives have yielded lousy access times starting with the P7K500 series, and I think that continues to affect their state of the art 7K1000.B series as well. [edit: no, it's fine; see below.]

[edit: WD5000AAKS-22A7B2 was speculated to be a single-platter drive, but it isn't. Please look for newer threads.]

If you would be willing to separate OS from data, the upcoming second-generation Intel X25-M SSD at 80GB is affordable for what it is and looks good. Reviews are here and here

@Blue_Sky I guess we'll have to wait and see. I would say that the sweet time for an upgrade would be sometime in the second quarter of 2010, after the dust settles. Of course, that is if the wait is not an issue. @yuu I've seen many opinions on exactly how effective it is but, as we well know, ever...

Looking at the photos of the upcoming P55 boards, the absence of the northbridge chip is most noticeable and it's clear that the motherboard is going to take a smaller part in the system's power consumption from now on. I was wondering if anyone has come across some meaningful power readings for thi...

There we go: WD is now shipping a 1TB (3 x 333GB) 2.5" drive.

http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/17291

Note the 12.5mm height won't fit in most notebooks.

@ psyopper

Also try softMCCs which controls the OSD directly and appears to be compatible with many displays.

Blue is 7200rpm, Green is (so far) 5400rpm and unloads the read/write heads to further reduce power use at idle. I'm not sure about the platter density in the 750GB AADS.

Have you tried the drive in another computer? Bare drives have a 3 year warranty so you can just RMA it, but if you need the data it's more about recovery than repairing the drive for future use. Chances are the data is still there, and depending on how much you value it you can either try to 'do it...

As far as you can tell, does the BIOS recognize the drive? I would also check for external problems -- change the SATA data cable, try a different port on the motherboard, and gently clean the drive's contacts with alcohol.

You mean the old ATI X series? I don't think it would be better. The lower end 4000 series is mainly for desktop and video and is about as efficient as a discrete card gets these days so should work well for you, but note that 4350 is only slightly cooler than the 4550. AnandTech compared the cards ...

Sometimes I find a mention of it in the "Low Load Performance" paragraph, for example here.

I'm not aware of a broad issue with it. What kind of problems does it give you? Please upload a HD Tune screenshot showing the Health tab for the drive. You can also run a diagnostic test using Western Digital's software from here and see what it says.

How about this HIS 4350 card?

Maybe Seagate prefers to play it safe after the problems it had on the desktop lately, so it takes a small step before launching the full series.

Seagate's FreeAgent Go drives have been around for a while and they compete with Western Digital's My Passport series. I noticed Seagate has recently introduced a 640GB drive in this family. Here's the datasheet, updated with the new model: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_fa_go.pdf...

91MB/s max doesn't make sense for this drive, it should be over 100.

In English: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/22/wd_2tb_caviar_black/ In Japanese: http://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/hotline/20090620/etc_wd.html If WD delivers on the firmware front, this can be a monster drive for workstations. http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/1693/sfwd1.jpg ^ Promo card.

Guess now is the turn for the 1 TB capacity point. Akiba reports that WD10EADS, originally a 3 x 333 GB drive, quietly transitions to a 2 x 500 GB platform. http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20090516/ni_cwd1t.html http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/180/im13wd1.jpg ^ The new revision. http://i...