Seagate 1TB (7200.12) or WD Caviar Black 640GB
 

Both are same price at $60 now...
Is the caviar black speed and performance worth the extra $ (or in this case, 30% less storage space?)

Is there gonna be a noticeable difference between the caviar Black vs seagate 7200.12 in terms of window startup and game startup time?
A lot of benchmark and HDtune results actually show the seagate having a higher avg transfer speed than the WD black tho. Is the caviar black REALLY faster?
http://www.gergin.net/posts/HD%20Ben...0D%20v2.55.jpg
http://www.overclock.net/attachments...0528as-hdt.jpg

you need to look at what you need more... space or performance.. if its for your main c drive, id go for the WD... when you run scans, defrag or maintenance software.. it will be faster coz its a smaller drive... if its a drive for storage, go for the bigger one...

I would stay away from WD Black. They are not exactly the most efficient drive out there. And if you need the extra performance, just check out SSDs for now. They are miles ahead of spinning drives.

For storage solution in 2010/2011 is
SSD for system
Low consumption/RPMs drive for storage
BD-R for backup (for those unaware, yes, 25GB's BDR has dropped below a dollar if you know where to get them)

What's the longevity of a BD-R disc? Because if it's anything like a DVD-R, it would be a pretty unreliable backup (I have DVD-R's that were unreadable after a year).

I gave up backing up to optical discs long ago. If you can buy 25GB Blue Ray blanks for $1, that's 4 cents per GB. Hard drives cost 6 cents per GB, and can be reused over and over. It's also about 10 times faster to backup to hard drive.

About the Seagate vs Black debate. I doubt you can tell any difference in speed, but you will notice the difference in capacity. I think the Seagate is quieter as well. I have a couple 7200.12 and a couple Blacks, but not in the exact sizes you are inquiring about. As you know the Seagates are cheaper. There is also a difference of 2 yr in warranty period if you care. It's barely worth the hassle and shipping charges to get back another used hard drive.

BD-R spec are relatively speaking more complicated than DVD-R. Making them pretty good for storage. The first BD-R I recorded was almost 2 years ago when we switched to BD-R from DVD-R. It still plays fine and no CRC error.

Granted you have now both HTL and LTH type of BD-R on the market. If you want the best compatibility across different readers/players, go for HTL, it's a bit more expensive but worth the trouble if you are looking for the best compatibility.

That's only possible if you are not backing up with off-site requirement. The data I need to backup comes to 12~20GB per week and for every month we send them away to store it in headquarter where they are kept for 7 years and then destroyed after that. (public company's requirement)

HDD are still very vulnerable to vibration shocks (with the exception of SSD) and for critical data backup, they are not ideal and the weight and dimension make then difficult to store and transport. You could toss around a BD-R without worrying the data might go wrong, not exactly the same thing to be said to HDD.

I haven't had any problems with my blacks. They're great drives with 5 year warranty. The last seagate's I used gave me bad experiences. Also platter density takes into account. That's why the seagate may be faster than the black. Bigger platter density yields higher transfer rates.