Good HDD for HEAVY use.

[Limbothefirst]

Im building a new pc and and have yet to choice a HDD, My build is for gaming and a few other things.

It will have a 250gb samsung 840 evo for OS and a few games and other programs.
But I need a HDD for all my other stuff, a large chunk will be RAW and JPEG photos, of which I will be moving/transferring a lot.

My lap top that just died (spilt water on it) had two 500gb HDD's in it, Iv had to replace one or the other about 3 times now. Was this due to heavy usage, moving data, etc?

So what are some good brands?

Whats the sweet spot for GB/$?

From what iv been reading WD seems the best, Would you agree?

 

[ToiletMaestro]

I've used nothing but Western Digital for years now, they're great and can take a beating for sure, I had a 1 TB external from them that survived a 2 year deployment. I think they have 1 TB HDDs for like $60, which is a pretty damn good price. I've heard 50/50 things about Seagate as well, so maybe do some research for that as well.

 

[someguynamedmatt]

Laptop HDD's have it rough - with all of the physical movement and shock they usually experience, they just fail more often. At least that's what my experience has shown.

For HEAVY hard drive use, I'd recommend a Western Digital RE4, but you're paying a serious premium for more enterprise-class reliability - this takes away a lot from $/GB since you pay more for reliability.

For more average 'heavy' use, I'd go with a WD Black - they're just a bit more robust (and faster) than the Blue. I believe they have a longer waranty, too? I'll have to check on that... if so, it goes to show what WD thinks of the drives' respective lifespans. Edit: It appears so, by more than I even imagined - most of the Blacks are covered for 5 years, Blues only for 2. Some differ, but that's the general trend. The Green series is just out of the question in terms of both speed and reliability. Seagate has kind of withered away in recent years; it seems that their older drives from <2004 refuse to die, yet their newer drives from 2008+ have an alarmingly high failure rate... at least that's what I've observed.

Good choice on getting an SSD, by the way - I use an Asus G75 laptop myself with a Crucial M4 256GB SSD alongside a 1TB HDD, and the thing absolutely flies. There's no going back to booting from a hard drive once you've had one; it literally cuts your load time in quarters, if not smaller.

 

[aevm]

Both WD and Seagate have their fans and their haters. I wouldn't start a discussion on which brand is best, really... Personally I use WD but Seagate has some good stuff too.

Normally, storing photos is a job for "green" drives, e.g. the WD Green series. However, I have been disappointed with those. I ended up replacing 1.5 TB green drives with 2 TB Black drives and getting 3 times more speed. If you expect heavy usage, stick with the Black series, even if they cost more/GB.

 

[Limbothefirst]

Thanks for the fast response guys, I was looking at the green for the price and cooler temps... and my favourite colour is green
but not sure now, don't mind the slower speeds; as its just for storage, but lower life spans you say? thats no good.
I guess Id need to go with black then, as blue only go's to 1TB. Don't have the budget for the red ones.
lol would it be worth getting a pre 2004 green if i could find one?
The price/GB is still tempting.

 

[Limbothefirst]

Iv read that there is problems with 3TB and more drives, is that true? If so, why?