sata drive recomendations

[blacknight31k]

Im building a new system, I have most of parts. Im looking for a good hd and i want to go with a sata drive, keep in mind i just spent about a Grand already.

1: storage needs to be around 160 to 250gb

2: i want 16mb cache

I like maxtor, but i read some articles on the diamond max having problems with nf-4, dont know if they have fixed this problem already

Spec's

a8n-sli premium
athlon64 3700+ san diego
2x512 pc3200 crutial ballistix
evga 7800gt co
win xp pro
antec true power 500 psu
antec full tower case

any suggestions???

thanks for your info

[Midknyte]

where did you see those articles?

Only WD and Maxtor have 16MB cache drives in that segment.

Hitachis are pretty solid, but you're better off looking at review sites than personal opinions.

http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/250_1.html

[blacknight31k]

The article was in Maximum PC, Jan. 2006 "arch rivals face off" page 35. they say its a "compatablity problem between nvidia chipset and the drive" diamondmax 11 and that it also afectected the diamondmax 10.

I was leaning toward the diamondmax 10, but after reading that, and doing a little searching the web. I found that maxtor has a firmware update to fix the problem, but its not listed on there site. I found out that you have to contact them via "phone" and then they will email you the patch. And who really wants to do that?

[blacknight31k]

Thanks for the article, very usefull info. The hitachi's look very impressive especially in gaming, which i do quite often. hehehe

thanks again