Whats your opinion on the most reliable+fast hdd's?

[Fitseries3]

its HDD time again.

i like to replace my hdds in my main rig every 9-12months to keep from loosing a drive.

my machine runs 24/7 and is the file server for my entire network.

i need a 1tb and a smaller fastish drive for OS.

from what i can tell the WD black 1tb and black 640gb are the best option but i want to know that you think.

i need something thats reliable and fast BUT has to be cheap.

if you find a deal link it here.

i'd like to stay around $100-120 for both drives. less is always better.

[Kantastic]

You can find 1TB Samsung F3's for $70, I picked up 2 for that price on 2 different occasions just last month.

[Fitseries3]

hm... i dont trust them. i've had more samsung drives die on me than any other make.

[erocker]

Look for "enterprise" or server type drives. Drives geared towards 24/7 server use.

[theonedub]

The WD Blacks are the choice if the F3 is out of the running. I really like the 750 WD Black I just picked up even though I have barely used it. I took a gamble on the Samsung F1 for my main rigs primary HDD and have no regrets, its a very solid drive.

[Fitseries3]

Originally Posted by erocker

Look for "enterprise" or server type drives. Drives geared towards 24/7 server use.

most are out of my price range.

the 1tb goes to sleep mode after 10mins of no use but the os drive spins year round lol

[utnorris]

SSD for the OS drive and a Seagate 1TB .11 for the data. TD is running 1.5Tb's for $70 and 2TB's for $90.

[Fitseries3]

haha...

you missed the part where i said both drives for a total of $100-120

[Flibolito]

After numerous successful build I would have to say Western Digital and Seagate are your best bets. The Caviar black 640GB is one of the fastest 7200 RPM drive you can buy and is great for an OS and a little data. Seagates make awesome data drives and are by no means slow. So do a combo a WD 640gb black for OS and a few 1.5TB seagates 7200.11 or 7200.12s for data.

[sttubs]

I highly recommend the WD Black's too. I've used 20 in different builds since they've come out. All worked right out of the box, they're quick, and they're still running strong.

[zithe]

These things are cheap and pretty quick. Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 R...

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24...8as-raid0-tune

Slightly high access time, but I don't think you'll notice a few milliseconds.

[Fitseries3]

right now im running 64gb ssd thats one of the fastest.

didnt plan on running it in this PC but had to to get the data off the old drive and never got around to cloning it over to the WD 640gb blue i was using but is now in megarig.

so im used to WD blue 640gb + WD green 1tb

my thought was to get WD black 640gb and 1tb. just not 100% sure.

my last seagate seemed to be getting worn out rather fast. was clicking and slowing way down so im still on the fence about them.

[Easy Rhino]

it would make more sense to keep all your important data on a nas or an external hdd rather than spend all that time and money planning on the drives to die.

[Hockster]

Only mechanical HDD's I'll ever use are Western Digital. I had 7/12 Seagate 7200.11 and .12's fail in a 8-9 month period. Two of the failures were RMAed replacement drives. I have a couple Samsung F1's in use, and they're fine, but Samsung are hard to find locally. Fedex/UPS handling and hard drives don't make a good combination as far as I'm concerned.

[Fourstaff]

Raid your drives, then you will not need to worry about failing harddrives anymore.

[Hockster]

Uhh, yeah. RAID doesn't mean individual drives last any longer. A failed drive is still a failed drive.

But FWIW the first 4 of those drives were actually intended for a RAID 5 array. First failure was during the creation of the array. Arm crashed into the platters. Second drive failure was about 10 days after purchase, third failure was about 30 days after purchase. I had purchased two new drives to cover the downtime for the RMA process only to have that third failure. I never did ever get any data on to the array. The first and third RMA drives both failed somewhere around the six month mark, the others I just quit keeping track of. I've got two RMAed drives on a shelf, I never dared to use them. A couple others I never even RMAed, just tossed them in the garbage and swore off Seagate for as long as I live.

[DanTheBanjoman]

Originally Posted by Fourstaff

Raid your drives, then you will not need to worry about failing harddrives anymore.

I would say, worry less. In most affordable RAID levels only one disk may fail, a second disk still means sadness. Though I agree, it makes more sense than replacing all drives every year. Specially considering the odds of a year old drive failing shouldn't be too different from the odds of a new drive failing. And if fit is really scared he can keep a hotspare and back the stuff up every day.

[Fourstaff]

Originally Posted by DanTheBanjoman

I would say, worry less. In most affordable RAID levels only one disk may fail, a second disk still means sadness. Though I agree, it makes more sense than replacing all drives every year. Specially considering the odds of a year old drive failing shouldn't be too different from the odds of a new drive failing. And if fit is really scared he can keep a hotspare and back the stuff up every day.

That's closer to the truth, if you are willing to go the extra mile, you can build a raid array with 2 redundancies.

Originally Posted by Hockster

Uhh, yeah. RAID doesn't mean individual drives last any longer. A failed drive is still a failed drive.

But FWIW the first 4 of those drives were actually intended for a RAID 5 array. First failure was during the creation of the array. Arm crashed into the platters. Second drive failure was about 10 days after purchase, third failure was about 30 days after purchase. I had purchased two new drives to cover the downtime for the RMA process only to have that third failure. I never did ever get any data on to the array. The first and third RMA drives both failed somewhere around the six month mark, the others I just quit keeping track of. I've got two RMAed drives on a shelf, I never dared to use them. A couple others I never even RMAed, just tossed them in the garbage and swore off Seagate for as long as I live.

Its pretty rare for so many drives to fail consecutively, unless you have some defective batch or you have been mistreating your drives.

[Hockster]

That's the only brand I've ever had trouble with. And it's not like I juggle with them or anything. That particular motherboard and controller currently was four WD drives on it for over a year, virtually 24/7, and not a single issue.

[morpha]

Originally Posted by Kantastic

You can find 1TB Samsung F3's for $70, I picked up 2 for that price on 2 different occasions just last month.

I agree with Kant, Samsung are a great price and quite fast. The only significant noise that make is this odd squeal when they first spin up.
In my 2 Computers I use mostly Samsung drives (I have a few WD green powers that I got heaps cheap). The ones I have are all F1 series and are still going strong.

Mussels is also a big Samsung fan. Some of his must be 5 years old and still running.

Stay away from Western Digital Green Power's. Slowest POS hdd's ive ever seen.

Originally Posted by Fitseries3

hm... i dont trust them. i've had more samsung drives die on me than any other make.

Thats too bad. I've never had any fail. It might be worth mentioning that I dont have our hdd's ON very often and that may attribute to their long life.