Most Reliable TB Hard Drive

[stormtroopar]

Its a little hard to say... I had great experience with some old WD drives, 120 gig a while ago, it was very solid. Then I just had my main drive, a raptor 150gig went completely dead all of a sudden after 3 years.... I can't even boot up the computer when that drive attached to the system... I am also using 2 1TB WD black series RE3 drives for my NAS and so far so good...

I have a long history of using Seagate drives, their old scsi, to cheetahs to the latest baraccuda sata drives... and have not had 1 issue with anyone of them.. So maybe for me, the seagate seems very very solid. But that doesn't mean it will never fail. Just depends sometimes, and I absolutely agree Maxtor is crap!! I had an external drive that just died all of a sudden after short usage, its still around cause I am trying to find a way to recover some important data I have on there without paying a huge fee for places like geek squad..

Personally, I probably prefer a little bit of Seagate over WD just cause of my history with them thus far. But I think its a crap shoot and a bit of luck sometimes with these things though. I hope the 2 WD drives in my NAS will stay good for a long long time...

 

[nanofrog]

Seagate bought up Maxtor, so this may be part of the problem experienced on the consumer models.

 

[marsabit]

Thank you for your very gracious response...

Don't bump old topics that are older than a year old. Start your own.
Not to mention that you posted in the wrong forum. Go post in the Mac Peripherals forum.

"Thank you for your very gracious response...appears ive wasted your time..best regards.

 

[hehejames]

Do we have any good data yet on what the most reliable hard drives are?

Anything out there is better than IBM DeskStar 75GXP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar_75GXP

 

[gxgt]

They are pretty much all junk

I've built computers for many many years. At one point in time almost everyone had good times but also went through periods of trouble be it Maxtor, Quantum, Seagate, Western Digital Ect. But now everyone seems to be having trouble and it seems to be coincidental with the onset of perpendicular recording (tighter tolerances?), the incredibly cheap drives and overseas manufacturing.

I thirst for a good reliable hard drive but it doesn't matter which drives you read the reviews on at NewEgg, they are all bad. Drives with failure rates of 8% are getting 5 star ratings. I have 3-5 year old WD's and Seagates that I'm comfortable running as a single drive but anything new I build up will have RAID at least for the data. I very recently had two WD's fail in the same week under the 3 year warranty, one had been totally unplugged for months.
I RMA'd 3 WD Drives today.

It doesn't matter if you read the reviews on the desktop drives or the enterprise drives, they all have high failure rates. The only exception for WD seems to the the Raptors and while the failure rate is up, it's not reports as high as the others. Some of the green drives might be an exception but WD's error recovery is different for desktop drives and not suitable for RAID use. Desktop drives can take too long in attempting error recovery and time out in RAID use.

I've gone to the Samsung RAID class drives with the 7 year warranty. I have no proof they are more durable, I only hope the warranty reflects the product and I haven't been burned by them yet.

If you buy a 1TB RAID Class Samsung at NewEgg right now they throw is a free 500gb Seagate. Go find the reviews on the "free" drive for fun, I wouldn't want it.

With any luck manufacturers will wake up and realize that users burned by the extensive number of failures are willing to spend a little more for a reliable drive. The first on to follow that program is going to get a lot of sales.

 

[stormtroopar]

Well, my raptor drive just died horribly 2 months ago... My system can't even pass bios when the drive is hooked up to the computer. (using a different boot drive)... Its pretty bad.. just gone all of a sudden one day. I have had drives die on me before, but not like this..

So, yeah, I have lost a bit of faith on WD. As I posted recently, I did get 2 WD RE3 enterprise grade drives a while back for my NAS Raid 0 and I hope they are really "enterprise" grade and is very reliable. I paid more for it just for that reason and I don't mind because I want that backup to be absolutely rock solid and reliable.. I remember the good old days of my old WD 120gig drive being super reliable and its still running... Like gxgt said, I think its changed a lot since then... and the reasons you mention are probably big factors to this...

How are seagate drives these days? I used to have very good reliability with their drives and so far all my seagates are still doing good.

 

[nanofrog]

Well, my raptor drive just died horribly 2 months ago... My system can't even pass bios when the drive is hooked up to the computer. (using a different boot drive)... Its pretty bad.. just gone all of a sudden one day. I have had drives die on me before, but not like this..

So, yeah, I have lost a bit of faith on WD. As I posted recently, I did get 2 WD RE3 enterprise grade drives a while back for my NAS Raid 0 and I hope they are really "enterprise" grade and is very reliable. I paid more for it just for that reason and I don't mind because I want that backup to be absolutely rock solid and reliable.. I remember the good old days of my old WD 120gig drive being super reliable and its still running... Like gxgt said, I think its changed a lot since then... and the reasons you mention are probably big factors to this...

How are seagate drives these days? I used to have very good reliability with their drives and so far all my seagates are still doing good.

I've a Velociraptor, and 8x RE3's. So far no problems. The 5yr warranties do help a bit with some hope of reliablility, but those with only 3, do make me nervous, as those same drive families where 5yrs just a year ago. That doesn't bode well IMO.

In general, the consumer drives have definitely gotten of lower quality, and a good part of that seems to be poor Quality Control. Not just drives, but electronics in general. Recent events has put Seagate worse off than WD by a considerable margin it seems (both the 7200.11 and ES.2 series). All kinds of problems, particularly with the consumer units, though both lines where affected. Just do a search, and you'll see quite a list. I'm not sure on the newer models, but it would be worth checking any drive in detail first before buying.

I've not used Samsung's lately, but they do seem to be doing OK, according to some information I've located here and there. I still won't touch Hitachi though, due to a total lack of support (won't issue new firmware).

 

[iamcheerful]

i usually pass on Seagates and go straight to WDs however, this time just abt a week ago, i went with 2 pieces of 1TB consumer grade model, the details can be found at this link.

so far, only occasional sound during spin ups from idle. not as silent as the 6 pieces of 640GB WD (Link). performance wise, both are surprisingly comparable to each other.

as for reliability, guess i'll have to wait it out.

p.s. just using them as non-essential data drives for now.

 

[bzollinger]

I've had the best luck with WD. After owning maxtor, enterprise seagate SCSI, and regular seagate. All HDD have issues. Some are built for raid systems (WD RExx series), some are built for power conservation ("green"), in the end they are like batteries they die. Back up early and often and buy the fastest, quietest, coolest hard drive with the best warranty and then use it if needed!!

 

[stormtroopar]

I've a Velociraptor, and 8x RE3's. So far no problems. The 5yr warranties do help a bit with some hope of reliablility, but those with only 3, do make me nervous, as those same drive families where 5yrs just a year ago. That doesn't bode well IMO.

In general, the consumer drives have definitely gotten of lower quality, and a good part of that seems to be poor Quality Control. Not just drives, but electronics in general. Recent events has put Seagate worse off than WD by a considerable margin it seems (both the 7200.11 and ES.2 series). All kinds of problems, particularly with the consumer units, though both lines where affected. Just do a search, and you'll see quite a list. I'm not sure on the newer models, but it would be worth checking any drive in detail first before buying.

I've not used Samsung's lately, but they do seem to be doing OK, according to some information I've located here and there. I still won't touch Hitachi though, due to a total lack of support (won't issue new firmware).

Yeah, I agree, with the drive's warranty changing like that.... yeah, its pretty scary and probably a good indication... I and probably many others, would rather pay a bit more to have more reliable drives than to have all these drives so cheap these days but aren't as reliable. HD is one of the most important component in a computer...

I wouldn't touch Hitachi either... but the sucky part is, the new Mac Pro I just got, Apple bundled the 640gig drive with Hitachi's latest line of drive.. I did some research on it and most review saids its not bad, pretty solid.. but I don't feel too good about it... I am worry about its reliability.. hopefully they did improve like what most reviews said... Eventually, I am going to take it out and use an SSD instead anyway for my main drive.

I used to be an all scsi person, and were big users of Seagate Cheetah 15k drives.. thats all I used to use and other scsi drives that I have tried don't even come close in the end, performance and reliability.. Those were, in my experience, some great quality drives and they are still running today. But it just cost too much and imo not needed to have scsi / sas machine these days..

The thing is, do you guys think in the SATA world, when they say / make these enterprise grade drives, does it "really" make a difference, is it really more reliable and more gear towards enterprise, super reliable usage...?

Also, with HD quality being the way they are now, I see going SSD is probably a better option. (if you are willing to pay more) Forget the storage size for a sec, do you guys think so too? Potentially a lot more reliable, not to mention quiet, lower voltage, and small.

From all user reviews I have read and my own experiences, I do know sometimes it just depends on the drive you actually got, a bit of luck. The brand can have a smaller or bigger percentage of failures, but at the end of the day, just come down to some luck in getting a good drive.

 

[Tesselator]

Hi all,

We've been reading a lot about trying to find the fastest 1 TB hard drive, with the Samsungs getting a lot of attention. My question is a little different... Do we have any good data yet on what the most reliable hard drives are? I realize that all will fail at some point, but are some less likely to do so than others? I'm currently trying to set up a RAID storage archive.

Thanks!

Well, as this was 4 months ago now I guess you already got everything figured and setup. But for people coming to the thread in search of answers to a similar question: I would assume any of the green drives would last the longest and be the more reliable just on the principle of their mechanics. My bet would be on the Samsungs 1st and foremost with WD right behind. The Samsungs back it up with a 5 year warrantee and while not certain, I would guess the WDs do as well.

Next up after green class drives would be RAID slash Enterprise class drives.

I imagine the standard desktop class drives like blacks and blues, etc. would fair the worst.

 

[kellen]

Just stick to a manufacturer like Seagate/WD for the most part. If you really want the extra peace of mind, get an enterprise edition.

However regardless if you get a regular drive or an enterprise, just make sure you have a backup. I feel thats more important than the drive you select. Any drive could fail.

 

[IronFixXxeR]

I can't wait until solid state drives come down in price. I really hate having such an important mechanical component in my computers that can randomly decide to break down.

 

[nanofrog]

The thing is, do you guys think in the SATA world, when they say / make these enterprise grade drives, does it "really" make a difference, is it really more reliable and more gear towards enterprise, super reliable usage...?

Yes, as there's a few hardware differences. At least the sensors (additional feedback systems), though it used to mean the motor and servos were different as well. Not sure on the later still being true these days. But it still makes a difference. And it should be reflected in the drive specifications if you compare it to the consumer models.

Also, with HD quality being the way they are now, I see going SSD is probably a better option. (if you are willing to pay more) Forget the storage size for a sec, do you guys think so too? Potentially a lot more reliable, not to mention quiet, lower voltage, and small.

I do expect SSD to replace HDD at some point, but it still needs to evolve a bit, particularly in available capacity and cost/GB.

Well, as this was 4 months ago now I guess you already got everything figured and setup. But for people coming to the thread in search of answers to a similar question: I would assume any of the green drives would last the longest and be the more reliable just on the principle of their mechanics. My bet would be on the Samsungs 1st and foremost with WD right behind. The Samsungs back it up with a 5 year warrantee and while not certain, I would guess the WDs do as well.

Next up after green class drives would be RAID slash Enterprise class drives.

I imagine the standard desktop class drives like blacks and blues, etc. would fair the worst.

Unfortunately, the Caviar Green's are only 3 years.

At least for these drives, I'm seriously wondering what's going on, and that with an extra 2 years on the warranty, Samsung may take a big chunk of that market.

 

[IronFixXxeR]

On a side note, everyone is talking about the warranties. I have never applied or used a warranty for any HDDs. Are you eligible for the warranty if you buy an OEM drive?

 

[nanofrog]

On a side note, everyone is talking about the warranties. I have never applied or used a warranty for any HDDs. Are you eligible for the warranty if you buy an OEM drive?

Yes.

For WD, you have to register the drive and provide proof of purchase date, or they'll go by the first date of production. Others are similar though, whether it's via registration, or send in a copy of the sales reciept with the drive when shipped with an RMA.

 

[Tesselator]

I've used warrantees a lot. But that came mostly from customers I represented. The bulk was to Micropolis back awhile but there have been others too. It's $5 in shipping and a two week wait if the store doesn't support a direct replacement. My last one was at the store and on the very last day of the warrantee.






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