Safe Western Digital hard drive?

[rekhyt]

I haven't been keeping up to the news so I'm not really up to date regarding the latest tech news.

I remember from a while ago that there is a problem with Mac and the WD drives that have free-fall sensors/lock on it. I've looked at a few reviews on Amazon about problems with Lion (presumably because of the conflict free-fall and the one built within Macs) and the drives.

Could anyone advise? (Also could you guys use Amazon.co.uk as the reference for the drives?) (I also remember it being a particular model number, I think, the back 4 letters / numbers that indicate whether it has a free-fall sensor or not.)

Thanks in advance.

 

[chrono1081]

I generally stay away from Western Digital, they have the highest failrate of any drives we have at work (both internal and external). They as of now are higher than our Maxtor drives 0_0

I prefer Toshiba, Samsung, or Seagate myself.

 

[rekhyt]

I generally stay away from Western Digital, they have the highest failrate of any drives we have at work (both internal and external). They as of now are higher than our Maxtor drives 0_0

I prefer Toshiba, Samsung, or Seagate myself.

Are there any specific Samsung or seagate drives that you particularly recommend? Regarding Seagate - I thought people disliked Seagate in the Mac community because of their high failure rates

 

[cocacolakid]

The 1TB Seagate Barracuda's have had extremely high failure rates for about 3 years. Seagate has issued firmware updates that they claim fixed whatever the problem was, but just a few months ago (3-4?) Apple recalled some recent iMac's to replace the Seagate drives in them.

I haven't bought a Seagate in a few years because of that mess.

I've actually had good luck with WD drives, but I've also used Samsung, Hitachi, and one Toshiba without any problems. And for SSD's I've used OWC and Samsung again without problems.

It seems though that if you keep reading reviews you'll find people complain about all HD manufacturer's. I always make sure I have an external backup of whatever Mac (or Windows for everyone else I know) I have. It's much less likely two separate drives are going to fail at the same time.

Are you talking about replacing the hard drive in your Macbook Pro? Apple uses Samsung and Toshiba SSD's, I'd choose one of those or an OWC SSD if you go the SSD route. Samsung SATA II SSD's are dropping in price because the Samsung SSD III drives just came out last month. Take a look at Newegg.

 

[rekhyt]

The 1TB Seagate Barracuda's have had extremely high failure rates for about 3 years. Seagate has issued firmware updates that they claim fixed whatever the problem was, but just a few months ago (3-4?) Apple recalled some recent iMac's to replace the Seagate drives in them.

I haven't bought a Seagate in a few years because of that mess.

I've actually had good luck with WD drives, but I've also used Samsung, Hitachi, and one Toshiba without any problems. And for SSD's I've used OWC and Samsung again without problems.

It seems though that if you keep reading reviews you'll find people complain about all HD manufacturer's. I always make sure I have an external backup of whatever Mac (or Windows for everyone else I know) I have. It's much less likely two separate drives are going to fail at the same time.

Are you talking about replacing the hard drive in your Macbook Pro? Apple uses Samsung and Toshiba SSD's, I'd choose one of those or an OWC SSD if you go the SSD route. Samsung SATA II SSD's are dropping in price because the Samsung SSD III drives just came out last month. Take a look at Newegg.

I'm planning to get the WD5000BPKT when my current hard drive fails. For some reason, when I had replaced the stock drive in my MacBook Pro (Late '08) to a Scorpio Black, it had already some defects in it and had clicking noises. :|

Throughout the year it hasn't died (yet) but I'm still very cautious of it right now, and the clicking noises have increased recently so I usually back up everyday and most of my data is replicated online or in online web apps so they're mostly safe.

I need 320GB for hard drive so SSDs won't do for now.

 

[chrono1081]

Are there any specific Samsung or seagate drives that you particularly recommend? Regarding Seagate - I thought people disliked Seagate in the Mac community because of their high failure rates

We have a whole slew of models (Samsung and Seagate) at work and they have all worked great. I wasn't aware of the most recent Seagate failures that another poster mentioned so you may want to avoid them. Manufacturers have good years and bad years so what is good now, may not be good next year. I also forgot to mention Hitatchi in my previous post, Hitatchi makes VERY good drives as well. I have four of them in one of my external enclosures.

 

[Vantage Point]

My oldest WD drive is a 3.5" drive which was my main drive in my PC before I switched to Mac. I now use it as a external and is still going strong, purchased in June 06 so its about 5 1/2 years old. I also have a 1 and 2 TB WD drives, the 1 TB is 3 years old and the 2tb is 1 year old. All the above at 3/5" drives

In my MBP is a 750gb 7200 rpm scorpio black which is whisper quiet and has the best warranty, 5 years. It's was purchases last April so its only about six months or so.

So far, WD has never failed me. I just hope I didn't jinx myself

 

[Mr. McMac]

I have several internal and external Western Digital drives in both my Macs and PC's. I haven't had a failure with any of them

 

[chrono1081]

I have several internal and external Western Digital drives in both my Macs and PC's. I haven't had a failure with any of them

Internal WD drives do fare better than externals. The MyBooks are complete garbage. I have an office full of dead ones. Most of the time it is just the enclosure that goes, not the drive itself (but the drives are very hard to get out without breaking the enclosure).

I'd still pick Hitatchi, Samsung or Toshiba over WD any day. WD's have a fairly high failure rate (including internals) at work and we have over 5000 of them.

 

[rekhyt]

Internal WD drives do fare better than externals. The MyBooks are complete garbage. I have an office full of dead ones. Most of the time it is just the enclosure that goes, not the drive itself (but the drives are very hard to get out without breaking the enclosure).

I'd still pick Hitatchi, Samsung or Toshiba over WD any day. WD's have a fairly high failure rate (including internals) at work and we have over 5000 of them.

I'm so surprised that you mentioned Hitachi as reliable. I had a Hitachi drive and it failed within 8 months. :|

Which Hitachi model do you recommend for 2.5" / MacBook Pros?

 

[thekev]

I haven't really used Hitachi, Samsung, or Toshiba personally. The "deathstar" reputation from Hitachi seems to be remembered, but I've heard very little about them in recent years. They might be great but just retaining an old stigma. I just really do not know.

Strictly speaking about internal drives here, Seagate isn't one of my favorites. They have died on me at weird times where a newer drive would just crash with a spinning wheel and then no longer be visible in the bios or spin up after that point. Hard drives in general just aren't that reliable. My Western Digital Caviar Black drives have done okay. They are some of the least buggy drives I've personally used, but they are expensive.

Wherever you're buying from, take a look at comments on the product as shipped from that vendor as some have gotten a lot of complaints on packaging. Drives are much more durable when they aren't in use, but lightly packed drives being kicked around by UPS for days is something that does make me nervous.

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I'm so surprised that you mentioned Hitachi as reliable. I had a Hitachi drive and it failed within 8 months. :|

Which Hitachi model do you recommend for 2.5" / MacBook Pros?

I've had it happen with Seagate in four or five months (something like that). I had a buggy and extremely noisy Western Digital drive (really noisy) that came with one of my old macs. I haven't had any complaints with the caviar black drives that I've purchased but as I mentioned they cost more.

 

[chrono1081]

I'm so surprised that you mentioned Hitachi as reliable. I had a Hitachi drive and it failed within 8 months. :|

Which Hitachi model do you recommend for 2.5" / MacBook Pros?

Well, the thing with hard drives is they can go at any time for any reason. I'm in a fortunate position that where I work (I work in IT) I have access to hundreds and often thousands of the same brands of hardware so I use my best judgement on my own purchases from what I see failing at work.

As for the deskstar/deathstar someone above mentioned, that was an issue a long time ago but its been since rectified.

As far as models I'd grab whichever suits your needs really. I prefer 7200 RPM drives for laptops myself. Check out Newegg.com, they will be able to give you reviews on specific models. We have too many different models at work so I generalize by brand.

 

[johnhw]

WD Drives worked great for me (have a 160GB External from '07 and still going strong). For Seagate my Early 2009 has a 320GB Seagate Drive which is very quiet. I don't know about the failure rates since that was my first Seagate drive.

 

[alstrike]

I have a Scorpio Black 500Gb 2,5" and I can´t complain about either performance or issues, so far it´s been great.

I use it on a Windows Pc though so I can´t really comment about the performance it could offer on a Mac.