Hard Disk recommendation

[mara-]

Hi guys,

I want to get myself 1TB HDD, but I'm not sure which brand to choose. I mainly plan to use it for backup and movie storage. For that, external drive would be better, but internal could be an option, too. I always had Wester Digital drives, and they were pretty much reliable. I was looking at WD 1TB Desktop Elements, but I see a lot of bad reviews. Then I looked at Seagate 1.5TB Internal, but I also see bad reviews. Some mention that problems are fixed with firmware update, but I'm not sure now how those disk are reliable. Other brads which I could buy are Hitachi (I also see bad reviews) and LG (which I don't like at all). So, anyone can recommend some brand here: WD, Seagate, Hitachi, LG? Speed is not so much important, as it is reliability. I need objective opinions, not subjective. Thanks.

Cheers ;)

[bwop]

I'd avoid anything larger than 750gb.

There seems to be something inherently wrong with 1TB and larger sized HDDs.

Stick with WD, at least for now.

[The Pope]

I have had the best luck with the WD 1TB Black drives... Never had any issues with performance and the prices have come down considerably.

Just built a customers machine a week ago with 4 of them and they seem to move with windows 7.

Wouldn't recommend there blue drives or there green drives as your primary drive. There ok for storage, I use them in a lot of builds to keep the cost down. There fine for the average user cause there slow and inexpensive but if moving data and performance is what you want then stick with black. I made the mistake of slapping 6 blue drives in my personal movie sever and there just slow when it comes to writing data.

Seagate drives are fine as well but there loud and get pretty hot, never measured the heat but too the touch they seem to get a lot hotter the the WD.

Both WD and Seagate are good companies to work with as well there warranty and RMA process is second to none other than Intel...

I would stay away from Fujitsu, Hitachi, Samsung & Toshiba they are used a lot in OEM manufacturing cause there so cheap... I have to replace them all the time in customers machines. :(

[Night Owl]

I've got two Western Digital external hard drives and both of them have been working great. One is the 1 TB My Book Essential Edition (USB only) and it's almost two years old. The other is the 1.5 TB Home Edition (eSATA and USB) and it's very close to one year old.

[spootnack]

For

objective opinions, not subjective

1) Start by don't say something like that :

LG (which I don't like at all)

2) Don't choose your product for the brand but for the model !

:glare:

Cheers.

++

[Sonar]

Western Digital are one of the best ones to get.

Seagate also do a good ones :)

[mara-]

Thanks everybody for your input. More opinions are welcome. Anyone has experience with WD 1TB Desktop Elements?

@Night Owl

What's the diffrerence between Desktop Elements and My Book Essential Edition?

For

objective opinions, not subjective

1) Start by don't say something like that :

LG (which I don't like at all)

2) Don't choose your product for the brand but for the model !

:glare:

Cheers.

++

1) I never had good experience with LG, and that's why I said that.

2) Why wouldn't I choose by the brand? If it's known to be reliable, why wouldn't I choose it?

Cheers ;)

[HX1]

I will mention here one thing.. I have had to run a program called NoSleep HD constantly for my Seagate Drive ( EHD ).. Why would I have to do this you say? Well built into the firmware of these drives ( which yes you are correct about Firmware problems.. which have to be fixed... and a long history of it - I was lucky with this one ) is the fact that they go to sleep... no matter what settings you have and/or what system you have.. if you try to rely on a program to wake it up.. Like say it goes to sleep and you want to download with your browser to the drive.. You have to sit and wait for the drive to respond.. this can take up to two or more minutes - without your interaction of unplugging.. ( this is with the right firmware ) and this process can actually lock everything down.. as far as running or doing anything in your currently open programs... The only way to break out of it.. is to unplug the device.. then plug it back in and try to start it again.. same for transferring files in Explorer... It may not seem to be asleep but after the cached directories are out.. and you have to access the disk to go farther by the system.. there you go with the wait time again...and the problem.. so the only way around it is to write a file to the drive.. so it doesn't go to sleep.. ever-so-often.. requiring the extra application.. because an oversight and flaw in the design ...

If you go with an Iomega.. BTW.. your buying something else inside.. so be well informed on that note.. My Laptop uses a Fujitsu...Internal.. 4500 RPM.. 5-6 years old.. and it has been one of the best HD's I have ever had... The Maxtor I had Crashed...( Physical damage on the disk after 10 years of daily use.. ) The Western Digital which has replaced the Maxtor ... seems to do okay... but its older and not of the same caliber or class as the Seagate..( which is a pain in the ...) and inside of the Iomega I have had so many intriguing and mysterious issues with.. is a Barracuda ( Seagate )...

So really at this point the only positive thing I have to say would be about my Fujitsu...in my laptop.. The Iomega is fine now.. but still has something crazy with the light on it.. The Seagate.. drives me buts and makes me run extra applications.. The Maxtor was probably at the end of life.. and the Western Digital has yet to show me anything better..

One last piece of advise would be to look for something that actually is feasible to return the piece to.. in case something happens and your under warranty.. and Support of course..

Forgot to mention one thing.. transfer speeds and access times on these disks.. I cannot really test well without USB 3.0 to be forward thinking on them.. and comparison of use between by HD and the EHD's is not really a good one.. BUT.. it is a point to consider when your looking at the specs...( and they will will be limited by the version of USB you have if you go with an external..

[mara-]

@heath28m

Thanks for suggestions. The thing is, I need reliable drive. I don't want to think about the warranty. It's easy to get new drive while under warranty, but usually all data is lost. Brands which I wrote in first post are the only ones available for me to buy. So, it's seems it will be WD 1TB Desktop Elements. What is bothering me here is a lot of mixed reviews. Some say it's great and works fine, while other says it failed them within the year or so. I have two WD HDD's now and they are working for 3-4 years just fine. I had before some 200GB WD HDD, but some malfunction appeared on it. Windows slowed down terribly and re-installation also failed. It was like HDD was partially damaged, because when I got new WD HDD and when I installed Windows, I could get back all my data from other partition I had on that drive.

Cheers ;)

[HX1]

What you described in the last paragraph sounds about like what happens when using XP and you have a drive problem... The Maxtor I had degraded the response times and data so much it wasn't even funny... and at the time there were no warnings or anything.. In Windows 7 and Vista you know what it is..

From what you have found it would look to be WD as the best choice... odd thing is in what I have read and seen myself.. is that .. LOL.. ALL OF THEM have had some sort of bad review... Objectively speaking I would say that this could be a result of the loss of data and a drive regardless of the cause.. Its hard to find someone who has actually tested a drive and considered reliability, down to the sector.. and within the electronics on the device as well... and really in some cases it is hard to tell which would made with better consideration to materials and life expectancy.. because you have to use one everyday until it dies.. and know why... ( or be an engineer with a couple of degrees.. who has the time to take one apart... ) by then 200 or more models have been produced...

For me.. my decisions always been based ( when shopping ) on something only large enough to keep my OS and programs.. and within the top 20% fastest area on the drive... with high RPM's.. on a good system... and storage on something else that can be removable... and/or portable... Read/Write Cycles and life expectancy have a lot to do with it... the way you use them can also help with degradation.. for instance when I download I put everything including the temp files on the external.. no caching to disk.. or constant writes and reads, and moving.. I save that for the newer ones.. LOL.. and only when necessary.. Problem is that I Erase/Shred everything I get rid of as well... I think this may protect from one type of problem but may actually be a downside when it comes to read/write cycle..

[mara-]

OK. I'm also thinking to get some drive which is internal and to get a HDD case. What do you think about that?

Cheers ;)

[HX1]

I think it will be a better choice for data transfer.. and when you say case .. do you mean internal cooling/noise case.. or an external case for portable use? Either one is a good choice.. Portable use sounds cool.. and gives you best of both worlds.. I would just make sure its all compatible... The internal case can kelp with noise created by the new drive.. which most are quiet but it can still get noisy.. If it a cooler as well.. then you can get around the extra heat generated... which can effect the unit ( especially if you have a warm system to begin with ).. but if it might be something to look at cost wise and on the implication level as far as installing a cooling option... if it is found that you need it.. Most don't NEED it but sometimes it just better..

I would definitely do some finalized investigation.. in to everything you get.. Never know when the only drive left on the shelf is THERE for a reason.. LOL

[mara-]

I'm thinking on external case. And yes, it would be better for transfer speed.

Cheers ;)

[PurplebeanZ]

Just from personal experience -

I've had 3 WD drives fail on me personally and 6 fail on servers at work.

1 Failure from a Seagate (although I think the raid controller was to blame) and

0 failures from Maxtor (we have more of these installed on sites than anything else)

0 failures from Fujitsu

:)

[Night Owl]

@Night Owl

What's the diffrerence between Desktop Elements and My Book Essential Edition?

WD Desktop Elements is just the external hard drive. The My Book Essential Edition and My Book Elite Edition have a special partition with Western Digital's crappy backup software. I have read that it's a nightmare to get rid of this special partition since you cannot format it. The two Western Digital external hard drives that I own came out before Western Digital introduced their special partition. Phew!!

The WD Desktop Elements sits flat on a desk with no opening to let any heat out. I wonder if this would allow the heat to build up over time. The My Book Essential and Elite editions both stand upright like books in a bookshelf. They have vents on the top that allow the heat to escape. My two external WD My Books also stand upright with vents on the top.

[mara-]

@PurplebeanZ

It seems everybody has different experience. I have positive experience with WD for now.

@Night Owl

OK, so no major difference in specifications. I'll probably go with internal drive and external case. Thanks everybody for the input.

Cheers ;)

[LeetPirate]

You might want to get the one with the least platters. Samsung has 3 platter 1TB drives. Others may have as well but the only way to know is to do research and read the expert reviews, not the regular lame reviews.

Less platters = lesser chance of mechanical failure.

As for my experience, my best with WD and my worst with Seagate. I had the honour of having to flash firmware update on a 1TB Seagate because it had a massive bug that prevented the drive from spinning up. After the firmware update many of the files on the drive became corrupted. That's not the kind of thing I would want to wish for anyone to experience.

I should add that I've been trying out Hitachi and though I was sceptical at first my experiences with them have been good so far.

[Duzaki]

I can't say much about the other brands (external), because I haven't really tried them. But, definitely stay away from HITACHI, mate! :fist: Ever since I first bought the 1TB Hitachi external HDD; all it's done is cause problems. I've lost quite a bit of important data because of it screwing up all the time. :badmood:

[bwop]

A lot of good advice here. As someone else said, the fewer platters the better.

Anyone who makes good claims about Maxtor drives, however, almost certainly has older drives from before maybe five years ago, when Maxtor drives went from being rock solid dependable to total junk.

Ironically, shortly after Seagate purchased Maxtor, they started having massive problems with their larger drives. I read that at one point, their 1TB drives had a 40% failure rate!!!

How can they possibly release a drive with firmware that has such a catastrophically high failure rate? I say it's because they started adopting Maxtor business practices!

I own a computer shop, and I know other shop owners in my area, and we all religiously avoid any drives that are 1TB or more. Much too high a failure rate compared to 750GB or smaller drives.

Avoid Seagate, and definitely avoid Hitachi and Fujjitsu. I've personally had good luck with Samsung, but some people I know have not. Everyone I know prefers Western Digital.

You are much safer with two 750gb drives than you are with a 1.5TB drive.

[mara-]

OK, guys. Thank you for input. WD will be.

Cheers ;)

[spootnack]

Between, objectively, I have actually 6 HDD WD. They work well.

- 2x Desktop Elements (500 GB and 640 GB, USB 2.0 (rates really sux in USB < 3 !!!))

- 2x Caviar Black (2x 640 GB) (Great for system drives, good response time, good rates)

- 2x Caviar Green (2x 1.0 To) (They are....... green :D )

Cheers.

++

[myidisbb]

@PurplebeanZ

It seems everybody has different experience. I have positive experience with WD for now.

@Night Owl

OK, so no major difference in specifications. I'll probably go with internal drive and external case. Thanks everybody for the input.

Cheers ;)

it also matter what country the person is in. products tend not to be the same for all areas and i think some areas in up with repair ones being sold as new.

[speedpedal]

SEAGATE Free Agent 1.5 TB Drives Come with proprietary software. Most users who just use these big storage drives for movie music and photo files. the cumbersome-troublesome software that installs is a REAL PAIN if you don't need it. I keep hearing you can't uninstall it etc. etc. BEST WAY - Fire up your PC connect the power plug in the back of the Seagate FreeAgent drive connect the USB to the Drive - Not to the Computer - On WIN XP Boxes HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY and PLUG IN THE Seagates USB CABLE - this bypasses the AUTORUN it should now be recognized by Windows as just another mass storage device. Open the drive and you should see the All the software files - Copy and move them to a file Named Seagate Freeagent Software on your Internal hard drive for safe keeping just in case you need it someday. You should also back it up to CD and store where you can find it . On some of the New Western My books You ARE GIVEN CHOICE as to weather you want to install software. WARNING IF YOU RE-FORMAT it won't work. You will have to download it from westerns site. Best do it sooner than later while it's still downloadable. Maybe this will help a few of you. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[avmad]

mara did you get a new drive yet? I've been looking for a while at the WD Elements and still not sure. Just wondered how your search got on. :)