A $300 price tag makes this the most expensive of the 160GB drives we tested, but its cost per gigabyte is still well under $2. And there is only one other SATA drive that is cheaper. This value is not all that bad considering that the SP1614C is the second strongest performer in our round up – beaten only by our labs winner. This Samsung took fourth place in our Sysmark2002 scores, just beaten by the Seagate ST3160023AS SATA; but it turned the tables in Drivespeed32, beating its competitors by a huge margin. Unfortunately, this drive was 'outshined' by many other drives; its value rating manages to dilute its very strong performance, and it has suffered in its overall rating.
You may be wondering why you want this drive at all, given that that Samsung IDE drive is cheaper and faster. If you wanted the best drive that is a SATA - this is it. SATA is RAID-friendly, hot pluggable, and cool on the guts of your computer - if it is essential that you have SATA, the excellent performance of this drive makes it a prime candidate.
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