Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB Serial ATA - Lightning fast drive rivals SCSI, super performance. The Western Digital Raptor family of hard drives offers the best performance possible without dropping the cash for a SCSI setup, and even SCSI may have a hard time outpacing the Raptor! The Raptor features Serial ATA, 10k RPM, a fast 4.5ms seek time, an 8MB cache buffer, and a 5-year warranty.

Western Digital Special Edition 200GB - Speed, high capacity, low price. Western Digital's Special Edition Series takes top honors for 2004 in terms of price and performance. This ultra-quick 7200 RPM drive is available in both IDE and Serial ATA models with pricing starting at around $100 for 200GB of data storage.

Hard Drive Buyer's Guide

Selecting the right drive is little more than a process of elimination. Unless you are serving data for a Fortune 500 network center, then there is little reason for the average consumer to be purchasing expensive SCSI drives and specialized controller cards.

Some manufacturers like to spin marketing buzzwords by labeling their drives as ATA models, but these drives are nothing more than the same old standard flat ribbon cable IDE drives we have been purchasing for years. Nearly everyone upgrading systems over six months old will be purchasing IDE drives.

The latest player to arrive on the scene is Serial ATA, and he packs a serious performance punch. Take note we said Serial ATA, not ATA! Serial ATA drives are easy enough to identify, as they require a small cable for connecting the drive to the motherboard or similar controller. Technology aspects aside, Serial ATA pricing is similar to IDE models, and we suggest anyone buying or building a new system to spend the extra few dollars for a Serial ATA drive. The simplified cabling by itself is worth every penny of the difference.

Performance of computer hard drives is typically measured in rotational speed (RPM) and cache memory size. Common sense applies here. The higher speed a drive spins, the faster it can transfer data. As to cache memory, this acts as a buffer between the fast computer and relatively slow hard drive platter. More memory generally equals better performance, up to a point.

Some vendors may be offering 5400RPM models for desktop systems, but you should avoid these like the plague. They may suffice for backing up data, but the latest 3D games and interactive applications can easily bring a 5400RPM drive to a slow crawl. The most popular models will feature a 7200RPM rating, and this is our absolute minimum recommendation. A few adventurous Serial ATA models have even pushed the envelope to an incredible 10000RPM.

Remember those bargain basement 5400RPM drives we were talking about earlier? Well, most 5400RPM, and some 7200RPM, models are hiding an insidious secret. Entry-level manufacturers have flooded the market with low-cost drives featuring a mere 2MB of onboard cache memory. Again, this is fine for data backup, but we recommend 8MB for most system configurations. Desktop drives featuring 16MB of cache are starting to surface, though the performance difference is often minimal when compared to their 8MB siblings.

You would not spend $30,000 for a new car without expecting a warranty, and the same applies to an expensive hard drive. Warranties vary wildly, even across different models of one manufacturer. A quality drive will feature a full five-year warranty, though some entry-level models may only offer a single year. Common sense says to go for the best warranty possible, as this drive will be storing your precious data, but a gambling man may play the odds by purchasing a dirt cheap drive with little to no warranty which translates into a manufacturer that has little faith that their drives won't fail. The real question is, "Do you feel lucky?"

What about RAID? RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, and it means just that - you string together a series of hard drives to increase performance and/or data reliability. RAID goes beyond the scope of a simple buying guide, but AC&NC serves up a good read on various RAID levels.

Most consumers, especially gamers and A/V enthusiasts, will be interested in RAID 0 to attain maximum storage subsystem performance. The cost of such a system has significantly dropped in recent years, and in fact, many motherboards now offer integrated RAID support. Even without such support, all you need is a simple PCI RAID controller and a couple of matching hard drives to bring RAID 0 performance to most any desktop system.

Much like several other products we have mentioned, simply pick whatever brand meets your desired specs and price point. We could rehash the Western Digital versus Seagate versus Brand X debate many times over, but what you will find is most manufacturers meet similar rigorous testing procedures. We primarily use Western Digital in our offices, but that is because Western Digital drives are always on sale at one of the top retailers like Circuit City or Best Buy.