Seagate, WD, or...?

[Octopuss]

I haven't bought a HDD (for myself) in over 5 years. I assume it's still mainly WD and Seagate people are buying the most. Too bad Samsung is no more, I love my Spinpoints.
Anyway, what should one buy these days when performance and reliability are the key requirements? I was thinking WD Black, but that might have changed over the years...

 

[FordGT90Concept]

WD Black (7200 RPM) is good.
WD RE (7200 RPM high reliability) are good.
WD VelociRaptor (10,000 RPM) is good.
Seagate Barracuda (7200 RPM) is good.
Seagate Constellation ES (7200 RPM high reliability) are good.

The rest be garbage.

 

[Frick]

The rest be garbage.

The Toshiba drives are pretty good too afaik. I think they're Hitachi drives, which has proven reliable, under certain conditions that dose not apply to home users.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Toshiba is the only other manufacturer out there besides Seagate and Western Digital. I have no experience with them so I can't comment. Judging by reviews on Toshiba's website, I wouldn't be inclined to buy.


Quantum -> Maxtor -> Seagate
IBM -> HGST (Hitachi) -> Western Digital

 

[Jetster]

There all about the same nowadays. What ever is on sale

 

[mroofie]

I haven't bought a HDD (for myself) in over 5 years. I assume it's still mainly WD and Seagate people are buying the most. Too bad Samsung is no more, I love my Spinpoints.
Anyway, what should one buy these days when performance and reliability are the key requirements? I was thinking WD Black, but that might have changed over the years...

Don't buy Seagate well at least not the cheap ones trust me my 1TB is on life support didn't even last a year without running into problems!
I'm so disappointed with Seagate we have only used them nothing else :|

 

[jboydgolfer]

Barracuda.3TB drives are 89 U$D.I've had good experiences with WD 4 the most part, but Never have I had drives keep kicking ass like Seagate Barracuda's.I just uninstalled a barracuda I installed for one of My customers about 3 or so years ago, and found it had a broken data port, that had been fixed with using several zip ties to hold the 6GB/s cables in, and was STILL holding it's own.

 

[Aquinus]

Don't buy Seagate well at least not the cheap ones trust me my 1TB is on life support didn't even last a year without running into problems!
I'm so disappointed with Seagate we have only used them nothing else :|

I have a Seagate Constellation ES.2 drive that works flawlessly, however I would expect nothing less than perfection from a Constellation ES or WD RE(1,3, or 4) drive considering those are all enterprise-class drives.

I've used several seagate drives and none of them have failed, same with Hitachi. However I have had a number of WD drives fail on me but WD was always very fast about RMAs (I do advance RMAs and I'll have a new drive in 2 days.) So any drive can fail, it doesn't need to be made by a particular vendor. There is no substitute from proper testing of a drive before you start relying on it.

I've had good experiences with WD 4 the most part

I would expect nothing less from enterprise class drives from any vendor.

I have 4 WD blacks in my RAID 5. They're all solid but when I bought the last two, both were defective (failed within 24-hours of each other,) but once again, WD's support was super fast and responsive.

I should also note that I've never gotten a re-certified drive back from WD that has failed.

 

[mroofie]

I have a Seagate Constellation ES.2 drive that works flawlessly, however I would expect nothing less than perfection from a Constellation ES or WD RE(1,3, or 4) drive considering those are all enterprise-class drives.

I've used several seagate drives and none of them have failed, same with Hitachi. However I have had a number of WD drives fail on me but WD was always very fast about RMAs (I do advance RMAs and I'll have a new drive in 2 days.) So any drive can fail, it doesn't need to be made by a particular vendor. There is no substitute from proper testing of a drive before you start relying on it.

I would expect nothing less from enterprise class drives from any vendor.

I have 4 WD blacks in my RAID 5. They're all solid but when I bought the last two, both were defective (failed within 24-hours of each other,) but once again, WD's support was super fast and responsive.

I should also note that I've never gotten a re-certified drive back from WD that has failed.

yes but there was a report on Seagate high cripple rate

 

[Frick]

yes but there was a report on Seagate high cripple rate

I assume you mean this:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

Some models have problems, when used that way. The last bit is important.

 

[Blue-Knight]

I am afraid to buy seagate drives again because I just added one more to my "dead" hard drive collection (RECENTLY)...

All of them started to fail in less than 3 years of light/home usage...

Now I bought an used WD Blue with 3 years of usage, let's see if it survives.

Can you confirm if it's normal a hard drive to die in less than 3 years of light/home usage?

Thank you!

 

[RCoon]

Hitachi has the lowest failure rate when ran within an inch of their life(unrealistic usage), that being said, the failure rate of all hard drives are within tenths of a percentile of each other. There really is no reason to buy any drive specifically unless it's cheaper than the rest. Get whatever is on offer. WD and seagate aren't much different anymore, they're all made in similar factories anyway.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I suspect BackBlaze isn't taking heat into account. There is a direct connection between a drive's lifespan and the thermal environment it operates in. Enterprise drives tend to run hotter than consumer drives (often have more platters requiring more watts out of the motor) so when you put both in the same environment and don't account for the extra heat, the enterprise drives fail more frequently.

They admit their high failure rate of drives may be related to pulling drives from external enclosures. I concur with that theory because external drives have a specific thermal envelop to operate in and that envelope is likely exceeded when the drives are racked.

Can you confirm if it's normal a hard drive to die in less than 3 years of light/home usage?

Infant mortality (manufacturing defect).

 

[Blue-Knight]

Infant mortality (manufacturing defect).

Sad.

And the sadder part is that I can't activate warranty because it is an imported product.
Why? Because shipping costs are so high that will probably exceed the hardware price...

Just correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for replying!

 

[mroofie]

I am afraid to buy seagate drives again because I just added one more to my "dead" hard drive collection (RECENTLY)...

All of them started to fail in less than 3 years of light/home usage...

Now I bought an used WD Blue with 3 years of usage, let's see if it survives.

Can you confirm if it's normal a hard drive to die in less than 3 years of light/home usage?

Thank you!

well depends on the usage but I think its okay

 

[P4-630]

I would say Seagate and Hitachi, quiet.

 

[Octopuss]

I noticed the WD RE drives do not have the advanced format feature, which is a bit surprising.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

They're meant to be in a RAID and ran until they die; thus, data recovery is extremely limited if even possible.

They're also more likely to be shredded by the business that bought them:

 

[mroofie]

They're meant to be in a RAID and ran until they die; thus, data recovery is extremely limited if even possible.

They're also more likely to be shredded by the business that bought them:

Seagate?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

That's a commercial metal shredder. Those two round drums counter rotate and everytime they go around, they take a bite out of whatever is between them. The result is tiny little chunks of metal/plastic--data 100% unrecoverable. I bet BackBlaze has one to dispose of dead and obsolete drives.

 

[Octopuss]

They're meant to be in a RAID and ran until they die; thus, data recovery is extremely limited if even possible.

Is that a reply to any of my posts? I don't understand.

 

[newtekie1]

The only drives I avoid are WD Blues and Greens. I've got a stack of them sitting on my desk dead, all after less than 2 years.

I assume you mean this:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

Some models have problems, when used that way. The last bit is important.

The Blackblaze study has absolutely no use for home users. Their operating conditions and what they consider a "failure" are totally different from home use.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Is that a reply to any of my posts? I don't understand.

It was in reply to:

I noticed the WD RE drives do not have the advanced format feature, which is a bit surprising.

WD anticipates people that buy RE drives knows how to sanitize data.

 

[Octopuss]

How is sector size related to erasing the data?

 

[EarthDog]

6 of one half dozen of another to me. Failure rates on most MFG drives are low quite low

I assume you mean this:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-update-september-2014/

Some models have problems, when used that way. The last bit is important.

I hate that link popping up... that is an enterprise environment where they are beat on CONSTANTLY. Not exactly something to hang your hat on comparison wise considering how most use their PC.