Best Internal Hard Drives?

derbothaus said:

Western Digital always. I have Greens and Blacks and Raptors. If you are using as boot disk no one beats their speed and I/O. I have had 3 failed Samsungs, 2 Failed Seagates, and 1 failed Hitachi. So far 0 failed WD's. External or Internal. I also run 2x500GB FW800 Passports and 750GB MyBook eSATA/FW800 AND an ancient 320GB media monster thing with USB card reader. Anyway even with all my "luck" it is hard to say anyone else would have the same experience.

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I would also agree with you. WD drives are very good. We use lots of them at work & they've withstood some very demanding, long computing sessions day after day.

Here's my recent great experience with WD:

I was using 8 WD 2TB RE4's in a Cineraid CR-T08E enclosure and 5 drives had D01 firmware and 3 drives had D02 firmware. I was having trouble getting good read/write speeds in a Raid 5 setup and one drive was having time out errors and failing.

Keep in mind, all 8 drives were out of warranty and when I got in touch with WD level 3 support... he said just send in the drives and he would send 8 new drives with the latest B01 firmware. I just received 8 new drives yesterday and now I have eight new RE4 drives with manufacture date of July 2012 and the latest firmware. I'm just initializing the new Raid 5 setup and we'll see how the new drives perform.

WD support really stepped up to the plate for me and I won't hesitate to purchase WD drives in the future.

mluters said:

I got in touch with WD level 3 support

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How did you get in touch with them? I have two drives that are still under warranty and would love to have them replace it with new ones rather than refurbs. Thanks.

When I spoke with their first level of support... I was insistent that there must be a way to update the firmware and there must be a reason they changed the firmware. Level one support initially said there was no way to update the firmware... after I was persistent, he finally said it was above him and he would pass it along to the next level.

I really needed all my drives to have the same firmware for proper testing and that's why I was persistent...I never thought they would change them all for new drives.

Very lucky of you. I'll try calling rather than using the online forms and see how far I get. Thanks.

I've had very good luck with WD Black HDDs.
HDDs reviewed

some links

jickerson said:

Those speeds sound a little high to me. That might be the burst speed from ram, but i'd be surprised if it was the continual speed

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I have searched for some reviews. Here a couple of links. I will look for more.
If anyone is interested and has the time to look them over maybe they can post their thoughts, or even offer more info/reviews.
Hope they help.

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=848&Itemid=60

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5042/seagates-new-barracuda-3tb-st3000dm001-review

http://www.silentpcreview.com/seagate-barracuda-3tb

I've also been very happy with Western Digital. I'm using four 2TB RE4 drives in my 5,1 plus two more in Voyager Qs sitting on top. Backups are four external Caviar Black 2TB drives. Windows and Snow Leopard get Caviar Black 1TBs as does my MBP's Time Machine. Both the MBP and mini have 750GB Scorpio Black drives that replaced smaller Scorpio Blue drives.

While my use isn't particularly heavy-duty or taxing I've been really happy with Western Digital.

Bought 4 ST2000DM001. So far so good.

Purchased 4 Seagate ST2000DM001 from Amazon a few weeks ago for under $99 w/free shipping. Excellent deal.
Have been heavily testing, erasing, writing reading off of them since.
Have not put into production use yet. Will end up RAIDing 3 of them inside my MacPro with multiple backups of course.
Speeds for sequential Reads & Writes have been averaging 200MB/sec.
Haven't had that "Chirping" sound happen yet.
Might be due to the FirmWare revision of these drives? FW:CC4B
Haven't seen that FW# listed on Seagate's site for FW's that need updating.
Will update with any new info.

**If anyone has any recommendations on how to prepare HDs before putting
into use it would be much appreciated. eg. Best methods, software etc.***


Found another review for NewEgg with some more tests that they ran.
http://newhdd.blogspot.com/2012/04/seagate-barracuda-2-tb-7200rpm-64mb.html

Bought 4 ST2000DM001. So far so good.

Purchased 4 Seagate ST2000DM001 from Amazon a few weeks ago for under $99 w/free shipping. Excellent deal.
Have been heavily testing, erasing, writing & reading off of them 24/7.
Have not put into production use yet. Will end up RAIDing 3 of them inside my MacPro with multiple backups of course.
Speeds for sequential Reads & Writes have been averaging 200MB/sec.
Tests so far done with Diglloyd's DiskTester & Apple's Disk Utility

Haven't had that "Chirping" sound happen yet.
Might be due to the FirmWare revision of these drives? FW:CC4B
Haven't seen that FW# listed on Seagate's site for FW's that need updating.
Will update with any new info.

**If anyone has any recommendations on how to prepare HDs before putting
into use it would be much appreciated. eg. Best methods, software etc.***
It would be much appreciated because my knowledge and experience is limited.


Found a review & some numbers from NewEgg with some more tests that they ran.
http://newhdd.blogspot.com/2012/04/s...0rpm-64mb.html

Just checking in again to see if anyone has any recommendations on how to prepare HDs before putting them into use.
eg. Best methods, software to use etc.
It would be much appreciated because my knowledge and experience is limited.

TwitchOSX said:

Did you need anything special for that to work or did your Mac just recognize all 3TB right off the bat?

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The 2TB restrictions comes from the BIOS, and as the Mac has an UEFI instead, there are no restrictions in the single-digit TB range.

The Seagates are on sale right now btw, $90 for the 2TB and $129 for the 3TB.

GermanyChris said:

I just installed a Seagate 3tb quiet, cool, and fast.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844

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Hi......same here. Replaced my old Hitachi internal drive. It was starting to make a lot of noise.
My machine is a Nov 2009 i7 27" iMac, 16 GIG RAM.
This Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB has totally rejuvenated my iMac. It feels like there is a SSD in there. And the benchmark specs have stated while it is "no match in terms of read speed" but can surpass them in terms of write speed.
Conclusion..very fast and quiet and lets hope it lasts

I recently lost a crap-ton of data because BOTH my samsung 2TB drives in my RAID1 failed at the same time.

The good news is: Now that Samsung is using Seagate's RMA process, it was much easier and I got a loaner so I could transfer what little data I could salvage.

slughead said:

I recently lost a crap-ton of data because BOTH my samsung 2TB drives in my RAID1 failed at the same time.

The good news is: Now that Samsung is using Seagate's RMA process, it was much easier and I got a loaner so I could transfer what little data I could salvage.

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Putting a Samsung HDD into a Mac is pretty much destined to fail.

Giuly said:

Putting a Samsung HDD into a Mac is pretty much destined to fail.

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How do you figure? / Do you have a source for this?

Putting any hard drive in any computer is pretty much destined to fail... eventually.

I prefer Hitachi then WD. I stay right away from Seagate as they seem to have the most issues.

slughead said:

How do you figure? / Do you have a source for this?

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I think it was a tongue in cheek reference to the ongoing Apple/Samsung sueeachothersassoff battle.

I have (8) WD RE-4 2TB HDDs in a RAID 6, which is on about 16-20 hours every day. (I tend to shut them down every other night.) They've been running for maybe a year now, and I had one of them begin to fail. It wouldn't join the RAID when it was cold, but if I let it warm up first, it would join the RAID like normal.

Western Digital advance RMA'd me a replacement under warranty (5-year!) which I swapped in before having to return the failing one in the same box. Anyway, that was many months ago now, and I've been VERY happy with WD's Enterprise product and service!

I recall that I went online to verify the warranty via the serial number, then called some number and spoke to a guy who authorized the advance cross-ship RMA. It was totally painless.

sngraphics said:

Great timing for this thread.
I was just about to start one like this.
My question would have been to find the fastest Hard Drive out there right now around $100.
After a little research so far I have found the newer Seagate Barracuda Line that was introduced November 2011.
From what I've read, the speeds for this line are almost 200MB/s for sequential transfer speeds.
Is this true? Is there anything faster for the same price?
I have been looking specifically at the 2TB model. MPN:ST2000DM001
Can be found currently for $99 on eBay.

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$65 http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=15_1086_210_212&item_id=037032

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Garnick said:

After much research I had decided on Hitachi drives for the refurb MacPro. I placed the order a couple of days ago and was notified yesterday that they are all back ordered, with no ETA yet. In some ways that didn't surprise me, since these drives seem to have been very hard hit by the problems in Japan and the lack of production facilities. I'm now starting my research again. I'm looking at Seagate Barracuda vs Western Digital(probably black). Of course there are other brands as well, but these two now have most of my attention if the Hitachis are ruled out. I have had good experiences with the Seagate drives in the past, both external and internal, but I'm not yet making that decision. I'd like to get some feedback from the group concerning this issue if possible.

Any and all opinions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you all.

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Check out these guys http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=15_1086_210_212

Dr. Stealth said:

I think it was a tongue in cheek reference to the ongoing Apple/Samsung sueeachothersassoff battle.

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oh lol. I was like "Holy cow is there some firmware conflict I don't know about?"

Does Canadacomputers ship to the US? I tried to buy something from them but when I tried to register it wouldn't accept my US zip code....it wanted a Canadian province code.

DPUser said:

Putting any hard drive in any computer is pretty much destined to fail... eventually.

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iLOL

My new recommendation is Western Digital's new 4TB RE HDD, the WD4000FYYZ. You can't beat that price, $382 each!

With WD's sweet 5-year warranty, I won't be upgrading for another four years, most likely... and by then, who knows what they'll have available. For now, though, this is what I'd buy.