Most reliable hard drives today

Discussion in 'hardware' started by jdd58, Feb 16, 2016.

  1. jdd58

    jdd58 Registered Member

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    Just wondering if anyone who has installed more than a few hard drives has seen a pattern with recent manufacturers. Also in your opinion is a desktop or laptop drive more reliable than the other? I'm sure there are other factors to take in consideration such as RPMs, or cooling, or mounting type.

    I'm looking for a good 1 or 2 TB drive to be used for storage in a desktop machine.

    As a note I am aware of the Backblaze study.
     
  2. dogbite

    dogbite Registered Member

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  3. trott3r

    trott3r Registered Member

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    Doesn't seem to be any other surveys than back blaze

    So avoid seagate
     
  4. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    I can only give you some info post about my own experience:

    - Maxtor 250GB HDD lasted 10 years without problems (old PC)
    - Toshiba 128GB SSD 1 year old, no problems yet
    - Western Digital 1GB HDD 1 year old, no problems yet
     
  5. Amanda

    Amanda Registered Member

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    I don't buy Seagate anymore, they fail too often with me.

    I have a WD Green for 2 years with no bad sectors yet, and I sometimes torture my computer.
     
  6. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    SSD all the way.

    Beyond that, I always go for "enterprise" class HDs. They are typically identifiable by the fact they have a 5 year warranty instead of 3 or 2 (or 1!). I have not seen one brand fail (percentage-wise) more than any other.
    No. Their really is no difference once you get inside. It all depends on the specific drive and the environment it is operated in - though some intended for notebooks may be more rugged as they are exposed to bumps, hits and drops.

    Most notebook drives do operate at a slower RPM so in theory, the motors may last longer - but not sure that plays out in the real world.
     
  7. jdd58

    jdd58 Registered Member

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    I think the biggest factor could be whether United Parcel Smashers could deliver it without dropping it too many times.
     
  8. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    They are not the problem. The problem is the retailers/packers. I just received a package from Amazon containing a new CPU and HP ink cartridge. Inside the box was two of those air pillow things that were sitting on the side of the other two items providing absolutely no protection whatsoever. There was enough room in the box for 6 or 7 more of those pillow things to totally encompass the CPU and ink. But instead, the CPU and ink were allowed to bounce all over the place with no restraint at all.
     
  9. wat0114

    wat0114 Registered Member

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    Ditto for me on Seagate. Avoid them like the plague. I like Western Digital Black drives.
     
  10. max2

    max2 Registered Member

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    Exactly.
     
  11. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Me too. I note they weren't tested in the above Backblaze study.
     
  12. max2

    max2 Registered Member

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    Me three!
     
  13. TS4H

    TS4H Registered Member

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    Western Digital black drives are the way to go imo. I have bought many for family and friends over the last 10 years. On my storage drive WD1TB easily 7 years old now and is a black drive, many reads and writes took place as a result of system images and restores, many virtual machine volumes and iso volumes, game data files loading. Not one bad sector yet. Although S.M.A.R.T identified a couple problems with the read write heads in its lifetime as of date. The drive status is deemed as okay/safe in all the smart attributes. My Drive before the WD was a Toshiba. It was at least 10 years old and still functioning. The motherboard on that PC gave up before the hard drive.
     
  14. Krusty

    Krusty Registered Member

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    SSD for me - Crucial if you need a brand name. WD HDDs have been good to me too, but Seagate... Nope!
     
  15. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Regular SSD's have come a long way since the early days. They're very reliable and durable. And the mSATA variety... even more-so. I mean, they're just a chip with no moving parts. Hard to mess that up. They'll last indefinitely. Longer than a traditional IDE/SATA.
     
  16. EASTER

    EASTER Registered Member

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    Same here although I consider myself lucky that the Seagate in a production laptop that replaced a desktop rig is still cranking after 3 years almost nonstop. I have pressured it to the max with all the heavy flash/video work done on it as well as doubled as my malware tester unit between times.

    It gets so hot sometimes where you can't hold your hand next to the fan vent on it but the thing just won't die and it's still showing good health on SMART stats. But i'm not naïve. I since replaced all other rigs running Seagate HHD's with Toshiba 1TB+ on advice from a local computer repair store who seem quite confident from his experiences before.

    Toshiba's for me seem to be the way to go. I haven't tried WD's in a long time.
     
  17. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    Not only that. But poor packing by the retailers is another reason I don't pay a lot of attention to "user reviews".

    It is really sad that someone will downgrade a review of a product because Amazon or Newegg did not put enough padding in the box and it was damaged upon delivery. Or because FedEx delivered it next door and not their house. Or the Post Office delivered it a day late. Or it was the wrong color! :(
     
  18. jdd58

    jdd58 Registered Member

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    User reviews was one of the reasons I posted this question here. I see so many reviews talking about drives that are DOA. I thought has something changed recently in the quality of the drives? Poor packing would be a very reasonable explanation for this. I just consider myself lucky in that I have not experienced any drive failures over the years.
     
  19. Bill_Bright

    Bill_Bright Registered Member

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    Yeah, DOA, while sort of descriptive, does not really indicate exactly what is wrong with it. To me, DOA means the motor would not spin up, no lights, nothing. To others, it may just mean their computer did not see it - which may or may not (and often does not) indicate an actual problem with the drive. I think this is why manufactures often have so many "refurbished" drives to turn around with RMAs. The ones they get in on RMAs are NTF (no trouble found).

    The only time I really pay attention to user reviews is when there many that are fairly recent that say the exact same thing.
     
  20. xxJackxx

    xxJackxx Registered Member

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    I've had great luck with the Western Digital Blacks. Not so much with SSDs. The pair had I for a couple years (Mushkin) died. We received 2 (Crucial) that were dead out of the box. Love the speed but I am still hesitant to trust the reliability. I would be more trusting of the high end Intel, but not much of any others, at least yet.
     
  21. whitedragon551

    whitedragon551 Registered Member

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    Hitachi drives are terrible. I have a corporate environment with about 300 PC's. Half of those came with Hitachi HSGT laptop or desktop HDD"s. Every one of them has failed withing 1 year of use with very minimal reads/writes.

    You can get a 250Gb Samsung Evo 850 for less than $90 and its much more reliable.
     
  22. Hadron

    Hadron Registered Member

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    Western Digital (WD)
     
  23. whitedragon551

    whitedragon551 Registered Member

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    The Western Digital RE4's or the Seagate Constellation drives will be your best bet for reliability. They are enterprise grade server drives. You can pick these drives up for $50-$60 new on eBay from people who buy servers with them and dont need them.
     
  24. dogfish666

    dogfish666 Registered Member

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    I use 2 wd blue 2years old no bad sectors and 1 Crucial ssd all working fine seagate 1tb died grid grid dead
     
  25. Mrkvonic

    Mrkvonic Linux Systems Expert

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    Me four!

    Mrk
     
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