A poll for who makes the best hard drive for the Mac Pro

[krye]

I thought Western Digital had bad failure rates? Was this only true in the old days? Have they done better in recent years? Back in the late 90's my friends and I came across so many dead WD drives that we now cringe whenever someone recommends a WD drive.

I used to be a fan of Maxtor, but I have lost 3 drives in the past few years that all died right out of the 3 year warranty. So me and Maxtor are not friends anymore.

I went Seagate with the FW400 drive I have for Time Machine. But it runs so hot that I think it will just up and die in the Mac Pro without some sort of third party hard drive cooler. This is easy in a PC, but unfortunatly, that luxury does not exist inside the Mac Pro.

Bottom line, I think Seagates run too hot to be used in a tower w/o a hard drive cooler.

 

[Eidorian]

There needs to be an all of the above option.

 

[ungraphic]

good hard drives are not exclusive to mac pros.


ill end your poll right now though:

western digital raptor for speed. for low noise, either western digital or seagate.

if you have money, SSD.

end of thread.

 

[krye]

I thought Western Digital had bad failure rates? Was this only true in the old days? Have they done better in recent years? Back in the late 90's my friends and I came across so many dead WD drives that we now cringe whenever someone recommends a WD drive.

I used to be a fan of Maxtor, but I have lost 3 drives in the past few years that all died right out of the 3 year warranty. So Maxtor and I are not friends anymore.

I went Seagate with the FW400 drive I use for Time Machine on my MacBook. But it runs so hot that I think it will just up and die in the Mac Pro without some sort of third party hard drive cooler. This is easy in a PC, but unfortunatly, that luxury does not exist inside the Mac Pro.

Bottom line, I think Seagates run too hot to be used in a tower w/o a hard drive cooler.

 

[Father Jack]

The Raptor is good and reliable (at least so far) ..

 

[GoKyu]

I've been with WD since the early 90's and have *never* had any trouble with one. I purchased a Samsung bigfoot back in the day (my first "1 gigabyte" hard drive...back when that was like 1TB is now... ), and that was a great drive too, no trouble at all.

My brother had a lot of trouble with Maxtor drives, so I stayed away from that brand.

For my Mac Pro, I have Apple's 320 gig drive (didn't check which brand it is), then 2 WD 320 gig drives, and in the 4th spot a 1TB WD "green" drive as Time Machine backup.

-Bryan

 

[ungraphic]

My current setup on my mac pro consists of the following:

2 Western Digital 250gb Caviar Hard Drives, both at 7,200 RPM w/ 16mb buffer in RAID 0. Applications startup *very* fast on my machine, as well as OS X.

True, the chances of failure are doubled with RAID 0, however, I only use this as my system disk and nothing else (no documents or important PSD files). Although, this bothers me greatly as it becomes a 500gb partition and I only use about 40gb.

I have another 200gb Western Digital hard drive split into two partitions, 150 and 50gb. The 50gb partition being used for windows via boot camp used strictly for gaming, my sony mp3 player and browsing the net if needed via firefox when im too lazy to log back into OS X. The other 150gb partition is an MS-DOS partition used for sharing files between OS X and Windows (if ever necessary).

I have an external hard drive as well, another Western Digital, 320gb used for backup. I do *NOT* use time machine as I prefer having complete control of files.

I've had two Maxtor hard drives before and they both failed. A third one failed on me here at work, although it is not mine but the files on it were/are important (it was sadly replaced by another maxtor).

 

[junior77]

It's really hit or miss....any drive from any mfg has a chance of failing. Unless you see all the failed drives comming back how can anyone make a fair judgement.

I would recommend the lowest cost, longest warranty, entreprise drive from any of the above reputable manufacturers. The main thing being the warranty. If you 'expect' your drive to last longer past the warranty then don't be surprised when it fails 3yrs +1 day. It more than likely will last longer...but no guarantee and no warranty.

I personaly like Western Digital and have had very good luck with them over the years.

 

[ungraphic]

It's really hit or miss....any drive from any mfg has a chance of failing. Unless you see all the failed drives comming back how can anyone make a fair judgement.

I would recommend the lowest cost, longest warranty, entreprise drive from any of the above reputable manufacturers. The main thing being the warranty. If you 'expect' your drive to last longer past the warranty then don't be surprised when it fails 3yrs +1 day. It more than likely will last longer...but no guarantee and no warranty.

I personaly like Western Digital and have had very good luck with them over the years.

warranty doesnt get your data back if a hard drive fails. kind of useless dont you think?

 

[krye]

My current setup on my mac pro consists of the following:

2 Western Digital 250gb Caviar Hard Drives, both at 7,200 RPM w/ 16mb buffer in RAID 0. Applications startup *very* fast on my machine, as well as OS X.

True, the chances of failure are doubled with RAID 0, however, I only use this as my system disk and nothing else (no documents or important PSD files). Although, this bothers me greatly as it becomes a 500gb partition and I only use about 40gb.

I have another 200gb Western Digital hard drive split into two partitions, 150 and 50gb. The 50gb partition being used for windows via boot camp used strictly for gaming, my sony mp3 player and browsing the net if needed via firefox when im too lazy to log back into OS X. The other 150gb partition is an MS-DOS partition used for sharing files between OS X and Windows (if ever necessary).

I have an external hard drive as well, another Western Digital, 320gb used for backup. I do *NOT* use time machine as I prefer having complete control of files.

I've had two Maxtor hard drives before and they both failed. A third one failed on me here at work, although it is not mine but the files on it were/are important (it was sadly replaced by another maxtor).

I see that WD has won your heart. It's wierd how I have never owned a WD drive and I have such a negative option of them based on nothing but my friend's experience with many, many failed WD drives. He fixed computers back in the day so he'd see how many PCs came in with dead WD hard drives and told me to never ever buya WD drive.

My PII back in 1998 had a Seagate that died right out of warranty, so I swore to never buy Seagate again. The only other choice was Maxtor. I bought many Maxtor drives over the years. I sold some on eBay to make room for some bigger one, but the last 3 drives that I bought around 2001 (30-40G models) all died right out of thier 3 year warranty. So Maxtor makes me nervous. I can't trust them with my data.

I picked up a FireWire enclosre from OWC, so I really had no control of what drive came with that, but it's a Seagate. The heat that thins thing gives off makes me nervous. I don't see how something can run so hot and not impact the integrity of the data on the drive, or not cause a failure.

I just don't know who's good anymore. The WD fans say WD is great, the Seagate fans say Seagate is great.

 

[krye]

warranty doesnt get your data back if a hard drive fails. kind of useless dont you think?

Yes, warranties on hard drives are useless. I couldn't care less about the drive. It's the 10,000 pictures of my kids and the 100 gigs of video that I care about. I am vigorous with my backups (I even burn my backup hdd to DVD at least once a month.) So it is unlikely that I will ever loose data in the event of a hdd failure, it's just one less thing to worry about. What the point of keeping a backup drive if it dies in 6 months?

 

[amik]

The best drive question depends on what you are after. There are tradeoffs between price, speed, capacity and noise. The raptors are fast, small, noisy and expensive (on a gb/$ basis). The WD GP drives are slower, quieter, bigger and more moderately priced. I went with Samsung F1s because I felt they offered a more reasonable balance between price, speed, capacity and noise. Too bad the fastest drives aren't the biggest, quietest and cheapest. I'd be all over them.

 

[jeffmc]

The main thing being the warranty.

warranty is nothing, raid is everything.

i rock a 146 gig raptor as my system disk

3 500gig drives - 2 in a mirrored raid set, the third as a hot swap for said raid set.

your drive may be covered under warranty but my data is going no where

 

[Cryptic1911]

Any drive has a chance of failing, so its kind of a crapshoot. I've used every major brand and have had issues with all of them over the years, but my fav lately has been seagate. I've got all seagates except the boot drive in my mac pro (wd that came with it), and I just bought two samsung f1's for an external just because seagates had too much startup amperage draw for most of the external enclosure's power supplies

Over the years I've seen every manufacturer go through bad spells.. WD, IBM, Maxtor, Seagate, etc. I choose Seagate usually now because they offer 5yr warranties where most only offer 1yr.. that way if it dies I'll at least have a bit better of a chance getting it replaced

 

[gdieter]

I see that WD has won your heart. It's wierd how I have never owned a WD drive and I have such a negative option of them based on nothing but my friend's experience with many, many failed WD drives. He fixed computers back in the day so he'd see how many PCs came in with dead WD hard drives and told me to never ever buya WD drive.

My PII back in 1998 had a Seagate that died right out of warranty, so I swore to never buy Seagate again. The only other choice was Maxtor. I bought many Maxtor drives over the years. I sold some on eBay to make room for some bigger one, but the last 3 drives that I bought around 2001 (30-40G models) all died right out of thier 3 year warranty. So Maxtor makes me nervous. I can't trust them with my data.

I picked up a FireWire enclosre from OWC, so I really had no control of what drive came with that, but it's a Seagate. The heat that thins thing gives off makes me nervous. I don't see how something can run so hot and not impact the integrity of the data on the drive, or not cause a failure.

I just don't know who's good anymore. The WD fans say WD is great, the Seagate fans say Seagate is great.

I've had both WD and Seagates, and stopped buying WD after two drives went out within a month after their 3-yr warranties expired. My Seagates? Probably have 10 running at home in all the machines, some dating back 7+ years (okay, those are SCSI enterprise class - but they're also 10K and 15K rpm models), but so far, none have failed (scsi/ide/sata), even the one or two that run hotter than the rest. The older drives are in an XP workstation that runs 24-7. Obviously, I'm partial to Seagate...

 

[krye]

Looks like Seagate and Western Digital are neck-and-neck. Can anyone with both tell me if one runs cooler than the other?

 

[junior77]

warranty doesnt get your data back if a hard drive fails. kind of useless dont you think?

Ummm....back up anyone? Multiple back-ups, offsite if your information is critical to you!

I can almost guarantee your drive will fail, moving parts & heat = bad combination...so, if you just have 1 drive and hope it will keep all your precious data FOREVER and EVER....you are in for a rude awakening.

The warranty is in the favor of the MFG. Their betting the drive will survive the 3 or 5 years of useage (not sure if anyone is offering 7yr). They have high confidence that their product will not fail within 3/5 yrs of service. So, if the MFG has given a product a higher warranty, odds are it will be 'more' reliable. Is this 100%...of course not.

When a drive brand fails once and people never return....bad experience will leave a sour taste. But this can happen with any drive mfg. out there.

 

[aibo]

As an owner of both many Seagate and WD drives, there's no comparison. WD is cooler and far quieter (Raptor excluded). I've never had either brand fail. The Mac Pro is a marvel of acoustic engineering, and throwing a Seagate drive in there is like welding a $20 pepboys muffler to a Lamborghini.

 

[junior77]

Looks like Seagate and Western Digital are neck-and-neck. Can anyone with both tell me if one runs cooler than the other?

There are a lot of sites out there showing comparisons....based on memory, the new Green WD drives are the coolest, but slow.

I know a few enclosure manufacturers recommend against putting Seagates into external enclosures due to heat. Not sure if they have data to back that up....just word of mouth. So, take that with a grain of salt...they just might be going on lower wholesale cost and not performance.

TransIntl being one of them, same with G-technology...IIRC.

I wonder what OWC uses for their external enclosures?

 

[Lumpydog]

Seagate Barracuda's Look Speedy

http://www23.tomshardware.com/storage.html

 

[Soop53]

Hmmm. I purchased a couple Samsung F1 750s and both are fast, quiet, cool and without problems. I actually use one as my boot drive. Absolutely no problems.

 

[krye]

Ummm....back up anyone? Multiple back-ups, offsite if your information is critical to you!

I can almost guarantee your drive will fail, moving parts & heat = bad combination...so, if you just have 1 drive and hope it will keep all your precious data FOREVER and EVER....you are in for a rude awakening.

The warranty is in the favor of the MFG. Their betting the drive will survive the 3 or 5 years of useage (not sure if anyone is offering 7yr). They have high confidence that their product will not fail within 3/5 yrs of service. So, if the MFG has given a product a higher warranty, odds are it will be 'more' reliable. Is this 100%...of course not.

When a drive brand fails once and people never return....bad experience will leave a sour taste. But this can happen with any drive mfg. out there.

Offsite backups? I'm a home user, not a business. I do back ups religiously to hard drive, and then I burn the hard drive to DVDs. I know failure is immenent. I've had drives die before and I've never lost data.

As far as the drive is concerned, it's all about getting my money's worth. I don't like buying junk. (That's why I bought a Mac Pro and not some crappy $500 PC.) When there are 5 hard drive manufacturers out there, one of them has to be the best, the most reliable. As far as this poll is concerened, it looks like Western Digital is the trusted/favored brand.

 

[dukeblue91]

Hmmm. I purchased a couple Samsung F1 750s and both are fast, quiet, cool and without problems. I actually use one as my boot drive. Absolutely no problems.

I'm right with you on this.
They are very speedy and very quiet and usually better priced too.

 

[krye]

I wonder what OWC uses for their external enclosures?

The OWC drive that I bought has a Seagate drive inside and it runs red hot. That's why I started this poll. I don't want to put a drive that runs that red hot into my Mac Pro. So when I do buy another 500G drive to put in my Mac Pro, it won't be Seagate. So if not Seagate then who? Looks like I'm going Western Digital.

 

[krye]

I'm right with you on this.
They are very speedy and very quiet and usually better priced too.

From here:http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Samsung/HD753LJ/

..."The Spinpoint F1 requires fewer components than competing solutions with four or five disks. With fewer heads and disks, the F1 statistically has a lower probability of headdisk failures. According to estimates, this Samsung drive has a 50% lower failure rate than a two-drive solutions and as much as 31% fewer failures than five-platter drives..."

Sounds good to me. This looks like a really good drive. Man, I just can't decide. It's starting to look like no drive manufacturer is better or worse than the other. A drive is a drive is a drive is a drive.