neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trusty

Hi
i need to buy a new hard disk
i need a reliable, trustworthy, trusty drive

maybe 320gb or more


what should i buy ? and prize?

i would appreciate all feedbacks and advises about brand and model

thanks
have a nice day

 

Describe machine, interface type and OS?

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

p5gd1 mother board
i'm looking for a sata hard disk, windows xp

thanks

 

Go for WD 500GB or even 1TB or even 2TB.
Mrk

 

I just bought a hard drive for a laptop, so I'll defer to others for your desktop, I haven't bought one for ages.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

Wd makes 3 kind of drive green ,black and blue

wich are the more trusty?

 

WD and Seagate make reliable drives. Don't look at the blue/green stuff, look at the specs. It should be SATA-II, 7200 rpm, 16 MB buffer at least, lowest seek time/read/write times.

I tend to buy the retail hard drives as they tend to have the lowest risk of dying and are of better quality then the bulk OEMs. Bulk OEMs are on an average $20-30 cheaper then the retail drives.

Look at the the warranty. WD gives 3 years and Seagate 5 years when I last checked.

Warranty aside you really do not want the drive to die on you, as yes, you will get a new drive but you will still lose all your data.

Go to the WD and Seagate website and look at the different specs and find which drive fits your requirements and budget.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

thanks

how can i understand a retail or bulk version?
in the pc store they are without a box, for example a seagate 500gb are 65€ , what should it be a retail or bulk?

 

Retail hard Drives come in a retail box with all the accessories, like cables, screws, installation disks etc.

Bulk OEM drives come without a box or anything else. It is just a bare drive.

People do buy them and they work fine, as good as the retail drives, but the chances of a drive dying are greater with an OEM drive. They are hit or miss.

I place great value on my data, so for me the extra money is not an issue. people who need to buy a large number of drives usually go for the bulk drives and they usually use them in RAID combination, so even if one drive dies, the other still has the complete data on it.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

thanks
never seen a Retail hard disk , i should looking for a store that have them

by the way i guess you have not a wester digital , because the blue green and black are 3 model with different specification

and i'm scarry about wester digital because in the download page there are lot of firmware to download and update

but you have to erase your drive before flash with a new firmware? i mean should be empty?

 

I have 3 WD hard drives. The last one was bought 4 years ago. Either they did not have these green/blue/black categories at that time or I might not have paid attention to them. As I mentioned above I only look at the specs and the company. If the company is reliable and the specs meet my requirement I buy the drive.

In retail stores you can only buy retail drives. Bulk drives are usually available only online. Funny, things is that all the drives I have seen are the retail drives and I have never bought a bulk drive.

If you want to purchase drive online, make sure the online retailer properly packages the drive during shipping. A friend of mine ordered a drive from Amazon and the drive was just packed in a normal box (without fragile written on it) and some packing material made of air filled polythene bags and the drive was only enclosed in a electrostatic bag.

If the drive is shipped in this condition then whether it is a retail drive or a bulk drive its chances of being "DOA" (dead on Arrival) are huge. Even if it works for a while the chances are it will fail in the long run.

I therefore, usually buy my drives from trustworthy electronics stores like Bestbuy and don't get them shipped to me. I have never had a drive fail on me yet.

Like you I am a little paranoid when it comes to data safety.

I have never upgraded a drives firmware. I don't think you need to do it for retail drives or unless there is a problem with the working of your drive. So, I can't help you there. When you buy a new retail drive, it comes with firmware on it, not empty.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

actually i'm undecided about the new line seagate or wd

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

WD or Seagate.

Here's what you have to think about....just about all hard drive manufacturers (and computer makers for that matter)..make several different "quality/grades" of products.

The el cheapo versions for home users, with usually just a 1 year warranty.
A mid-range business grade edition...better quality, better components, yes more expensive, and a 3 year warranty
And..especially for hard drives...enterprise versions. 5 year warranty. Yes more expensive, but hey..you get what you pay for.

Now..with hard drives, focus on the warranty (go for 3 years or more...better yet..the enterprise grade with 5 year warranty)...and look for a hard drive rating called MTBF. That's how many hours of runtime can be expected from the drive. Cheaper drives usually under 300,000 hours, midrange drives 600-700,000 hours, and the enterprise grade..1,200,000 hours or more.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

thanks
i did not know about MTBF
should i trust about the data released by the manufacturer or there is a internet resource with statistics about more trusty drives?

 

I just ordered a new HD myself today, so here are my top 2 candidates. I wanted a 1 Terrabyte disk, as cheap and reliable as possible.


1. Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 1 TB
2. Samsung 1TB F1 7200rpm

Review here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hitachi-western-digital-terabyte,2017-2.html

You GOT to take a 1Terrabyte nowdays. I chose from the 2 above because they were the 2 cheapest in most online stores.

At the end i ordered the Hitachi, because although it is slower, it has a supposed lifespan of 300.000 load/unload cycles (at 40C) and is more power efficient. It's slower, hence cooler and thus lives longer. Comes with 5 year warranty.

The Samsung is better performer, but with 3 year warranty and "only" 50.000 start/stop cycles lifespan.


Happy buying! In the link i gave you can compare many models, including WD, Seagates...

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

thank you so much
what's about the seagate Barracuda® 7200.12

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

I've read many positive opinions about WD 6400aaks (640GB) disk from Western Digitals. I feel that my old Seagate 40GB disk it's not enough on these days so i also have been thinking about buying new hard disk. Probably i will choose 6400aaks

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

but the new line of seagate are great Barracuda® 7200.12

what i don't like about western digitals is there a lot of firmware that solve issues

i don't want to wake up , and be in the position to flash it (with a drive full or with lot of data)

i guess the drive should be empty and there is a risk to flash too

 

What issues? I bought a 6400AAKS last summer, it's been nothing short of outstanding, and I'm not aware of any issues (that would be resolved by a firmware update or otherwise).

I would recommend the AAKS without reservation except, at the current time, Newegg is selling all three 640 models (green, blue, and black) for $69.99 with free shipping. So, for anyone who was planning to buy a WD 640, might as well choose the AALS....assuming you're in the U.S.:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...06 103530113 1035507776 1035335532&name=640GB

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

by the way in support there for almost every model firmware to download

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

Without knowing whether the firmwares for download are newer than what's installed in the unit you may buy, that's not very useful information.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

Can you provide a link (or something more specific) for one or more of the later model drives?

I checked the download libraries for the AALS and AAKS series and there doesn't appear to be anything more than the Data Lifeguard Tools and Diagnostics which, of course, is not firmware.

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

for example http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=605&sid=57&lang=en

 

Thank you. However, take a look at the following page of WD SATA HDDs (link below). It appears as if you've managed to locate one of only two series that have firmware updates (i.e., RE and RE2). The rest do not and I was under the impression we were talking about the later model (SATA II) Caviar drives.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?level1=6&lang=en

 

Re: neeed new hard disk to buy, help me please, i need a reliable, trustworthy, trust

I do....specs are specs.