Seagate 320GB sluggish boot drive?

Thanks for the link

It seems my 2 internal 7200.11s are ok. "no action required" which explains why i think they are working well. - they are using their caches.

also, regarding the 7200.10 i found:

http://www.fluffles.net/articles/seagate-AAK-firmware

The hatter wrote:
Please, plesase, please (is that enough?) avoid these OEM drives. Yes, you save, and yes some work, but I also read like today of people having problems, won't mount, or format. They have different firmware than "regular" and retail drives. Maybe one reason OWC doesn't sell OEM units.

Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for.

I want to be sure I understand, are we using the same definitions? From what I've seen, "OEM" is interchangeable with "bare drive" at some vendors. So these would be the same product:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Western%20Digital/WD7500AAKS/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136131

From what I can tell, the WD7500AAKS is the bare drive and WD7500KSRTL is the retail version of the 750GB SE16. So OWC's is not retail either. Is Newegg just using the term "OEM" as shorthand for "bare drive," or are you saying that Newegg is getting their OEM-labeled drives through some different wholesale method with different firmware installed?

I always buy my RAM from OWC because of the strict specs. Are they doing something extra to their hard drives as well? Something worth $25?

hello, i have been using a 500gb i believe seagate drive on my macpro 4 core 2,6. i found it to be a better(faster) drive then the 250gb my mac came with...i have purchased an 8 core 2,8 mac with a 320 drive. but i would like to use that as a backup start up and use a faster drive... on my 2,6 i have only filled up around 80 gb of 500 gb under tiger(FCS 2, adobe PH, Ill, AE, and C4D my main apps)...with my new mac i guess i need to use leopard...

so i guess i am looking for a faster drive rather than a big drive. i would consider a 750 gb as long as it is faster, but i find it to be a little bit excessive, not in price but simply bluffing, "my drive is bigger than yours" kind of thing.

does anyone have a suggestion for a guy in my situation. please list model numbers, if possible...

one last thing, i have a raid set up with 2 500gb maxtor proline. when i bought those drives someone told me they were good, and i havnt had any problems but now at least on this thread noonw has mentioned them as possible startup drives...whats the deal...

thanks