Help deciding on a 1TB drive

[Sasqui]

I'm looking to buy a second 1TB drive to augment my existing one for data and backup. Right now, I've got several 640 GB WD Blacks, but I've creeped up on the 640GB limit. Mostly photos and camera videos have gradually eaten away the unused space (I'm up to about 600GB, including music, personal photos and videos, and personal documents)

Right now, I've got a WD 1TB Black and a WDGB 640 Black that I effectively mirror in my main rig. No, I don't have raid. Backup is supplemented with an external 1TB USB3.0 drive, that I detach and store in a fireproof safe when not in use. I have another drive that I only backup photos and documents to, but that's another story.

I have a separate 640GB drive for movies and other junk that I wouldn't really miss if I lost the data.

So, I need to upgrade the 640GB drive and it needs to be internal, and very reliable. I've gone with WD for 2 decades now and haven't had a single drive fail out of MANY. However, I'm open. Though I refuse to go with Seagate (long story)

I'm looking at a 2.5" drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145875 $65 with current promo, 3yr warrantee

or a 3.5" drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236625 $70 with promo code, 5yr warrantee

I like the idea of the 2.5" drive mainly because of the form factor.

 

[RCoon]

HGST (WD Company) make some pretty good 7200RPM 2.5" drives. Got one knocking around at home and its been surprisingly good. Unsure about availability though. In a similar position I'd just buy a WD Blue 1TB.

@SuperSoph_WD probably knows all the detailed gubbins about their ranges of HDD's for your needs.

 

[Sasqui]

HGST (WD Company) make some pretty good 7200RPM 2.5" drives. Got one knocking around at home and its been surprisingly good. Unsure about availability though. In a similar position I'd just buy a WD Blue 1TB.

@SuperSoph_WD probably knows all the detailed gubbins about their ranges of HDD's for your needs.

I was surprised to see a 7200RPM 2.5" drive at that price. The WD has twice the cache, but this drive isn't hit much except for backing up and getting data from time to time.

I have a 1TB WD 2.5" blue in my laptop, that's my fourth backup location So far, so good!

 

[BarbaricSoul]

since Seagate is out of the question, get a WD Blue or green

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, @Sasqui !

I must say... a pretty amazing setup you got there! Congrats!
I can suggest you to take a look at the internal storage solutions we offer on our website.
Here are the internal mobile (2.5") HDDs compared: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fNwuPX
And here are the 3.5" desktop internal drives: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=ohc54I

As you can see their type of use and most of the features are pointed out but if you have any additional questions about the gubbins, let me know!

You mentioned that you want to use the new HDD mainly for storage, right? So my recommendation would be to decide either between the WD Green (massive capacity for secondary storage) or the WD Blue (all-purpose everyday computing) as already suggested, because obviously people are satisfied with their performance for that intended purpose.

Even though both of them come in 2.5" and 3.5" form factor, their specs may vary.
For example, the 2.5" 1TB WD Blue has only 5400 RPM, whereas the 3.5" version has 7200 RPM.
Or the 2.5" WD Green's smallest capacity is 1.5 TB and has 8 MB cache, but the 3.5" Green has a 1 TB version and offers 64 MB.
So I'd suggest to click on the drives you are interested in and inspect their specifications, otherwise it can be sort of confusing.

Or you could go with the WD Black again, though people usually use it for gaming or gameplay/video editing storage. But I guess you are familiar with its capabilities already, so it's up to you!

Hope I was helpful! Keep me posted if there's anything else I can assist you with!
SuperSoph_WD

P.S. Thank you for the reference again, @RCoon ! ^^

 

[Sasqui]

^Thanks... a really "odd" reason for wanting 2.5" is the weight. My desktop is so damn heavy, it's hard to even work on it!

 

[newtekie1]

Personally, I like the WD Red drives for data storage: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236600

I'd avoid the Blue and Green drives, I've had too many reliability issues with them. All the ones I've put in customer machines seem to last just about a year and then they start to go belly up.

 

[unclewebb]

Just picked up the WD Black 1TB 3.5" drive that you are looking at. It has a 5 year warranty and impressive performance for a mechanical drive.

 

[Sasqui]

Just picked up the WD Black 1TB 3.5" drive that you are looking at. It has a 5 year warranty and impressive performance for a mechanical drive.

If you look at my sig, I've got 4 WD Black drives (3x640MB and 1x1TB), they've been awesome. The other three are non Blacks 300, 500, 500 & 640.

I have way too many drives! All WD, and a good many date back well over a decade, not a single bad sector. On my desk shelf are two seagate 250 GB drives, from a Dell system RAID array both failed at the same time and Seagate wouldn't replace them within the 3 year warranty because they were OEM. They'll make great fridge magnets when I get to it.

 

[ThE_MaD_ShOt]

Also op on a side note, you think a 1tb drive is going to big enough for you? Maybe a 2tb or higher capacity might be better.

 

[Sasqui]

Also op on a side note, you think a 1tb drive is going to big enough for you? Maybe a 2tb or higher capacity might be better.

I seriously considered a larger drive but the only thing really growing lately have been photos and videos (critical stuff). I've got three 640GB drives kicking around doing nothing!