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#3974550 - 06/29/14 03:25 PM Reliable HDD types?  
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I'm looking for a big (2+TB), and reliable storage drive as my 2TB Caviar Black is acting up. I know that HDD's are hit-or-miss with almost every brand; but now that there's green, NAS, enterprise, performance, etc. types of HDD's and they're all comparatively priced with each other. So is there a type that's more reliable than say your typical "performance" desktop hdd?

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#3974560 - 06/29/14 04:04 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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I'd say WD and Seagate are good brands... I currently have two Samsung Spinpoints as well and have been very good.


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#3974604 - 06/29/14 06:25 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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Western Digital all the way. Seen too many Seagates fail, as well as IBM/Hitachi drives...


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#3974614 - 06/29/14 06:48 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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WD Blacks are great,
-Out of like 10 in the last 3 years, I've only had 1 fail and it was heat related (brother had his system running in 105F room),
it's still sitting on my desk waiting to ship, but I've completely forgot about it so,

-Nice long warranty periods.
-Nice Cache Size (64 MB)
-Better Prices (now back to pre-flood).
-Decent Read/Write Performance.

Out of 9 I have left, only 1 of them runs hot, and it's the oldest one that's like 7 years old (bought in 2006)


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#3974617 - 06/29/14 06:58 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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I'm not sure there's anything that's superreliable, but I know I'll never have another Seagate.
Whatever you decide on, check it out in reviews and look for refurb listings. That's a bad sign. If there's a firmware issue, you'll hear about it in the reviews.
The last 2 I've bought (non-SSD) have been WD. I've only had one WD go bad, and old IDE that was about 10 y/o. I've had 2 Seagates that were noisy from day 1.


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#3974648 - 06/29/14 08:11 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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I saw a report that the Samsung are by far the worst, with WD in the middle and Hitachi's the most reliable.


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#3974713 - 06/29/14 10:49 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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That seems to be the other way around... I've had Hitachis fail on me in the past so now I don't buy them.


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#3974725 - 06/29/14 11:18 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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Originally Posted By: JoeyJoJo
I'm looking for a big (2+TB), and reliable storage drive as my 2TB Caviar Black is acting up. I know that HDD's are hit-or-miss with almost every brand; but now that there's green, NAS, enterprise, performance, etc. types of HDD's and they're all comparatively priced with each other. So is there a type that's more reliable than say your typical "performance" desktop hdd?



Hi Joey, yes there are important differences. What you get depends on your needs for performance, reliability and cost. If you specify, we could probably give you a better opinion.

Enterprise: High performance, 24/7 operation, error recovery features, will cost you your first born
NAS: Average performance, 24/7 operation, error recovery features, good price
Green & equivalents: Low performance (poor seeking, idling makes for long spin-up), power-saving, great price.
Performance: High performance, no error recovery, a little pricey

To make a long story short:

1) Do not trust your data to any brand. If it's important, you should be backing it up or have a redundant disk setup. If you don't you'll get bitten -- just a matter of when.

2) That said, once your data is safe, you have some flexibility. I have to respectfully disagree with Vertigo and recommend against buying Samsungs, Fujitsus or "Hitachi Deathstars," as they are known in many circles. Buy Japanese cars. Never buy a Japanese hard disk. WD's and Seagate's manufacturing quality have fluctuated over the years, but I've netted fewer WD deaths than Seagates over the years. I'd say Seagates generally have an average failure rate, while WDs have low failure rates. That said, check the reviews on each series. Certain models from each can be very prone to problems

3) If you choose not to take my advice regarding #1 and like to live dangerously, I'd recommend something from the WD Caviar Blue Series (balance btw price & performance). I'd recommend something from the Red series, to perhaps get a little more reliability.

4) If you have a RAID setup or backup your data regularly, then throw a Seagate Barracuda's in that puppy. I've noticed Seagates have historically excellent IO performance versus their WD equivalent. I have two and RAID 1 and am extremely happy with them. I would normally buy WD, but they've gone crazy with their prices on performance drives the last time I looked.

5) Contrary to what many tech articles say, don't worry about the lack of error recovery (WD = TLER, Seagate = ERC...same difference) on consumer drives unless you're running a complicated raid setup using a hardware RAID controller and your computer is serving a webpage or something else that needs to be running all of the time. Those features will basically let your drive limp on for a little while longer when it starts erroring out, which is symptomatic of an impending failure anyway. For a regular desktop setup, you don't need these features.

#3974743 - 06/30/14 12:43 AM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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I'm not running RAID (nor plan too) as this drive is just for storage/playback of movies/music (and some larger game mods that I don't want to re-DL again). I think I'll stick with WD and maybe go with a blue or green drive as they seem to be the best price

I'm also looking into a second external drive/enclosure for redundancy, then I can back my internal to it and just put it on the shelf

Thanks everyone for the comments!

edit: Just browsing NewEgg, and they have a 3TB WD Green for $120, and a 3TB WD Red for $125; would the RED be better in my situation if I don't plan to use it as a NAS HDD?

Last edited by JoeyJoJo; 06/30/14 12:48 AM.
#3974746 - 06/30/14 12:56 AM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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The WD black is on sale, I just got a 1TB for $77 at Amazon. Newegg and Tigerdirect have sales going on too.
Looks like it dropped $8 more today. 3TB for $184.


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#3974770 - 06/30/14 02:19 AM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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Red & green are pretty much the same, with the difference being the presence of error-recovery and power-saving. If those are the only options you'd consider, go with the Red if they are that close in price. However, I made some recommendations below I think you'd be happier with.

It sounds like you could get the drive contents from the cloud in case of a failure, so reliability isn't the highest concern here. In this case, get the fastest Seagate or WD you can afford that meets your storage needs:) . I honestly think that, if you regularly do significant file transfers, the modest performance of the Reds/greens will annoy you.


I'd recommend the following:

WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX
Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001
Seagate Barracuda STBD3000100

#3974799 - 06/30/14 03:24 AM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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Red Drives are for NAS and Come with NAS Specific Firmware, I wouldn't stick one in a Home PC.


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#3974882 - 06/30/14 10:18 AM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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I buy mostly Seagate for the computers I build for myself and relatives. Seagate has a bad reputation (seems left over from another time); so, they sell cheaper than WD (good, a bargain smile ). But, I have bought WD on sale (they work okay too).

We have 7 PCs in the house, most with multiple HD. Only had one disk failure in the last several years -- it was a known firmware issue (not a random failure). Lead to a rash of failures out in the public space -- thus, the bad reputation. The later models of Seagate have not had firmware issues (to my knowledge) -- and the original issue was fixed by a firmware update.

FWIW.


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#3974927 - 06/30/14 12:23 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I think I'm going to go with a 2TB "performance" drive internally, and a 4TB Green for my external backup (found a 4tb WD Green for $144!)

I'm also looking into a new (but small/cheap) SSD just for Windows + Apps, as right now they're on my "gaming" ssd and it's starting to fill up

Now to make sure I have the budget to buy these suckers biggrin

Thanks again!

Last edited by JoeyJoJo; 06/30/14 12:26 PM.
#3975118 - 06/30/14 05:59 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: Allen]  
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Originally Posted By: Allen
-- and the original issue was fixed by a firmware update.

FWIW.


I still had 2 of those go bad.


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#3975254 - 06/30/14 11:59 PM Re: Reliable HDD types? [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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I had the one too -- out of 3 drives with the "problem". So, that batch (model number range) was "suspect" for all time. I bought no more from that batch. However, earlier and later model number ranges were okay for me personally.


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