1. #1

    Does it really matter what brand HDD I buy?

    One of my 2 media drives is on its way out so I am looking at new hard drives to replace it. Currently I have 2 500GB HDD"s for my media and some steam games. One is about 5 years old and the one that is failing is 6 years old. I was thinking about just replacing the both of them with a 3TB HDD. My question is does it matter what brand I buy(specifically Seagate vs. Western Digital). This is the drive I am looking at: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148844

    Thanks

  2. #2
    Dreadlord Zippoflames's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2011
    Location
    Devon, England
    Posts
    754
    If all you are going to do is store stuff on it then it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things what one you buy.

  3. #3
    Ive owned all brands of HDD never had one fail. I will say i do have a 15 year old 80gb wd black thats still running in my sisters PC and thats pretty impressive.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Fascinate View Post
    Ive owned all brands of HDD never had one fail. I will say i do have a 15 year old 80gb wd black thats still running in my sisters PC and thats pretty impressive.
    That's because the smaller HDDs are much more reliable. The bigger they've gotten, cramming more info in a limited form factor, the less reliable they've become. I've got WD drives that are 10 - 15 years old and still work.

    500GB seems to be a good stopping point as all the drives I have around that size are still working.

    OP: When it comes to HDDs, never put all your eggs in one basket.
    Last edited by Cerus; 2013-10-12 at 04:48 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lansworthy
    Deathwing will come and go RAWR RAWR IM A DWAGON
    Quote Originally Posted by DirtyCasual View Post
    There's no point in saying this, even if you slap them upside down and inside out with the truth, the tin foil hat brigade will continue to believe the opposite.

  5. #5
    The chances of one failing are pretty slim, but it only needs to happen once. Is the increased risk worth the money saved to you? Your choice.
    Fluorescent - Fluo - currently retired, playing other stuff

    i5-4670k @ 4.5 / Thermalright Silver Arrow Extreme / Gigabyte Z87X-D3H / 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM / Gigabyte GTX 760

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Cerus View Post
    OP: When it comes to HDDs, never put all your eggs in one basket.
    This will just replace 2 of my 4 hard drives where I would not mind if I lost everything on it. Its just a drive I store random shit on that I can always redownload. I have my most vital files stored on my 50GB Dropbox account and all my locally stored important files are stored on both of my SSD's.

  7. #7
    Moderator chazus's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Las Vegas
    Posts
    17,222
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippoflames View Post
    If all you are going to do is store stuff on it then it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things what one you buy.
    Actually it does. On average, Western Digital currently seems to have the lowest failure rates in general for lower tier drives. Seagate used to be really good as well, however ever since they bought Maxtor, things haven't been so great. Samsung is usually decent, but more expensive with no real benefit. WD is usually the most popular because the drives are often cheaper, better, and faster.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cerus View Post
    That's because the smaller HDDs are much more reliable. The bigger they've gotten, cramming more info in a limited form factor, the less reliable they've become. I've got WD drives that are 10 - 15 years old and still work.
    500GB seems to be a good stopping point as all the drives I have around that size are still working. .
    Incorrect. Drive size has no relation to failure rate. "More data" on a drive does not increase its failure rate. There's no reason to 'stop' at 500gb. While a larger drive certainly has more data to lose, and if you wanted to compare "MTBF to Data Capacity ratio" perhaps... But no, just no.
    Gaming: Dual Intel Pentium III Coppermine @ 1400mhz + Blue Orb | Asus CUV266-D | GeForce 2 Ti + ZF700-Cu | 1024mb Crucial PC-133 | Whistler Build 2267
    Media: Dual Intel Drake Xeon @ 600mhz | Intel Marlinspike MS440GX | Matrox G440 | 1024mb Crucial PC-133 @ 166mhz | Windows 2000 Pro

    IT'S ALWAYS BEEN WANKERSHIM | Did you mean: Fhqwhgads
    "Three days on a tree. Hardly enough time for a prelude. When it came to visiting agony, the Romans were hobbyists." -Mab

  8. #8
    Actually he is right, but not for the reasons he listed.

    500gb has lower failure rates because it has less platters on the drive. Above that you usually have multiple platters thus more things with the potential to fail.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Fascinate View Post
    Actually he is right, but not for the reasons he listed.

    500gb has lower failure rates because it has less platters on the drive. Above that you usually have multiple platters thus more things with the potential to fail.
    The WD5000AZDX-00SC2B0 500GB which is a blue drive has a single 1 TB platter and the WD10EZEX 1000GB has a 1TB platter too so I wouldn't know how that 500GB would less likely fail.

    But you possibly just meant for example a 500GB drive with 2x 250GB platters would have higher failure rates than a 500GB with 1x500GB because it has more platters.

    Drives that use platters that are smaller than 500GB are most likely discontinued, can be wrong here since it's not a market I follow.

    I would take a Western digital RED WD30EFRX which is amazingly fast and obviously the most quiet. The performance of a red drive & green drive is very similar, my WD10EZRX which uses the same platter size as the red one performs like this:



    A seagate 7200.14 3TB would be a great choice too if you want a bit more performance and sacrifice some minor noise, but the speed the red/green drives offer is more than enough for gaming etc.

  10. #10
    The Insane apepi's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Mostly harmless
    Posts
    19,388
    I had a hdd that randomly seemed to reformat itself and deleted all my music(and porn...). It still works great, I error checked it and nothing.
    Time...line? Time isn't made out of lines. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round. ~ Caboose

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Faithh View Post
    A seagate 7200.14 3TB would be a great choice too if you want a bit more performance and sacrifice some minor noise, but the speed the red/green drives offer is more than enough for gaming etc.
    Its not for gaming. My games are on an SSD, this drive is mainly for music/pictures/compressed HD video.

    Chazus do you suggest WD over Seagate for a 3TB HDD?

  12. #12
    Brewmaster Biernot's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,431
    Quote Originally Posted by reohh View Post
    My question is does it matter what brand I buy(specifically Seagate vs. Western Digital).
    Short answer: No

    Long Answer: NOOOOOOOOOoooooooo.....

    Explanation:
    HDDs are old tech. That doesn't mean that they are outdated, it means that the underlying technology is well understood and tested and refined over the years. Even if one manufacturer might have had troubles in the beginning, they had a long time to fix them (and they did). The few manufacturers that are still active today (Seagate, WD, Toshiba) are all old players and have a sufficient experience to look back on.
    If you look at similar models from different manufacturers (e.g. Consumer Line, 7200rpm, 1TB: Seagate ST1000DM003 vs. Western Digital Blue WD10EZEX), then the failure rates are very similar. Typical failure rates in the first year are about 2-3% for consumer lines and a bit lower for the "better" models.


    Quote Originally Posted by chazus View Post
    Actually it does. On average, Western Digital currently seems to have the lowest failure rates in general for lower tier drives. Seagate used to be really good as well, however ever since they bought Maxtor, things haven't been so great. Samsung is usually decent, but more expensive with no real benefit. WD is usually the most popular because the drives are often cheaper, better, and faster.
    The difference in reliability is so small, that it doesn't really matter. It depends more on the model than the manufacturer. I hate to admit that, but the only reason i prefer WD over Seagate is the nicer looking label on the hard drive And the fact, that the naming scheme is more intuitive:
    - Blue = standard consumer model
    - Green = "eco" consumer model (a bit slower, but also less power draw and quieter)
    - Black = quality model (marginally faster than Blue, better reliability and warranty)
    - Red = quality eco model
    (- RE4 = Black with extended warranty and better quality control.)


    And last but not least: Samsung no longer produces hard drives. They sold their hdd branch to Seagate about 2 years ago. The Samsung drives that you see in stores now are leftover stock. They are decent drives though. Especially the SpinPoint F3 1TB (HD103SJ, also sold as Seagate ST1000DM005) and the SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB (HD204UI) were/are very good. And at the time they were absolutely competitive in pricing. (My NAS has 2x HD204UI running and when i bought them they were cheaper than Seagate or WD)
    Why do something simple, when there is a complicated way?
    Ryzen 7 2700X | BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 | 16GB DDR4-3200 | MSI X470 Gaming Pro | MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G | 500GB / 750GB Crucial SSD
    Fractal Define C | LG 32UK550 | Das Model S Professional Silent | CM Storm Xornet

  13. #13
    The brand itself usually doesn't matter, but sometimes the particular models do. Take the Seagate ST2000DM001 and STBD3000100 2TB/3TB models for instance. There are many people who have bought these drives that have reported them making a "chirping" sound, yet Seagate hasn't come up with a fix for the issue, and newer batches of these drives still have this problem. So rather than researching a particular brand when deciding on a hard drive purchase, research for any ongoing issues with a particular model.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by reohh View Post
    Its not for gaming. My games are on an SSD, this drive is mainly for music/pictures/compressed HD video.

    Chazus do you suggest WD over Seagate for a 3TB HDD?
    Just stay away from 7200RPM drives, they're totally useless for your use. It's either gonna be either a WD30EZRX (green) or a WD30EFRX (red), I would take the red one over the green one because it's like 5 decibels quieter.

  15. #15
    Brewmaster Biernot's Avatar
    15+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    1,431
    Quote Originally Posted by Faithh View Post
    Just stay away from 7200RPM drives, they're totally useless for your use. It's either gonna be either a WD30EZRX (green) or a WD30EFRX (red), I would take the red one over the green one because it's like 5 decibels quieter.
    While i also would pick the Red, it's not because of noise. Both should be about the same here.
    I would pick the Red because of it's better reliability and the extended warranty.
    Why do something simple, when there is a complicated way?
    Ryzen 7 2700X | BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 | 16GB DDR4-3200 | MSI X470 Gaming Pro | MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X 8G | 500GB / 750GB Crucial SSD
    Fractal Define C | LG 32UK550 | Das Model S Professional Silent | CM Storm Xornet

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Biernot View Post
    While i also would pick the Red, it's not because of noise. Both should be about the same here.
    I would pick the Red because of it's better reliability and the extended warranty.
    3-5dBa is a noticeable difference http://i.imgur.com/it7PVXL.png

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Faithh View Post
    3-5dBa is a noticeable difference http://i.imgur.com/it7PVXL.png
    He didn't say it isn't noticeable, he just said it wouldn't be the main selling point for him.
    Fluorescent - Fluo - currently retired, playing other stuff

    i5-4670k @ 4.5 / Thermalright Silver Arrow Extreme / Gigabyte Z87X-D3H / 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM / Gigabyte GTX 760

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Fluorescent0 View Post
    He didn't say it isn't noticeable, he just said it wouldn't be the main selling point for him.
    I didn't try to correct him. 3-5 decibels difference is pretty much subjective in this case, some people can hear something that's running 3-5 decibels louder and some even don't mind or won't hear it at all. I had a WD10EZEX before this drive which I regretted & returned since it was way too loud for me (36db from hardware.info).

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •