Hitachi Deskstar T7K250: The Deskstar 7K500 is easily the fastest 7200 RPM drive around. A bit gets lost in translation, however, when moving down to the 250-gigabyte model. The T7K250 lags the WD Caviar WD2500KS by a bit in the Office DriveMark and places fourth overall. Hitachi's drive finishes first or second in all other performance tests, however, and as a result is the fastest overall drive featured in this roundup. Its seek noise and active power draw, however, remain on the high side when contrasted with the competition.

Maxtor DiamondMax 10: This aging design seems to have a lot of pep remaining, especially evidenced by the smaller but more recently revised 250 GB drive's besting of the slightly larger (but older) 300 GB flagship. Maxtor's drives tend to enjoy a cost advantage... at the time of this writing, it is the only unit in the roundup with a best-case price tag resting just under $100. A decent performer, the DiamondMax 10's power dissipation levels and seek noises, like the Deskstar, sit slightly above the rest of the pack.

Samsung SpinPoint P120: Samsung's flagship no longer stands contrasted against competing units twice its size. In our productivity suite, the drive offers decent performance, placing near the top in both the Office and High-End tests. For gaming purposes, however, Samsung's design languishes near the bottom of the charts. On the plus side, even when going up against same-size competition, the SpinPoint's noise levels and power consumption are among the best around.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9: In its flagship 500 GB incarnation, the Barracuda 7200.9 is a middling performer at best. The loss of half its capacity and half its buffer leaves the 250-gigabyte 'Cuda a relatively poor performer. Though it offers environmental and gaming performance on par with the SpinPoint, Seagate's drive does not match Samsung's strong productivity scores. The Barracuda's server scores, on the other hand, lead the pack. No discussion of the 7200.9 is complete without mentioning that Seagate remains the only manufacturer to back its SATA drives with the same robust 5-year warranty that protects its SCSI line. While we do not necessarily believe that a longer warranty automatically translates into a more reliable product, it is clear that many readers do- if you are looking for peace of mind, get a Barracuda.

Western Digital Caviar WD2500KS: The WD2500KS is built on an older platform, evidenced most clearly by its less dense, 83-gigabyte platters. It nonetheless offers above-average performance and manages to capture the number one slot in the Office DriveMark as well as our World of Warcraft trace. The drive's idle noise floor is not nearly as loud as objective measurements may suggest. It also offers the coolest overall operation of all drives in the roundup. The Caviar is the only review drive that does not offer NCQ - while this is no drawback in single-user applications, the drive's scores suffer under multi-user patterns.

We would be remiss without noting that, overall, performance differences between all five contenders remain relatively small. These days, 250 gigabyte SATA drives are commodities; all players have honed their offerings down to levels where distinguishing between them on the basis of performance, environmental factors, and price can be quite difficult. Absolute fastest? Hitachi. Least expensive? Maxtor. Quietest? Samsung. None of these factors matter? Choose your favorite brand.