HGST Deskstar NAS 3TB vs WD red 3TB

[Snorlord]

Hey Tomshardware community,

I am looking for a harddrive for my nas / mediaserver and consider buying one of these harddrives HGST Deskstar NAS 3TB or WD red 3TB.

They both are priced the same so I am not sure which one is the better option.

Other alternatives are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dgingeri]

The HGST drive is a 7200rpm drive, so it will definitely have lower latency and may have higher transfer rates compared to the WD drive. If you want a WD 7200rpm NAS drive, you have to go with a Red Pro or a Gold drive.

In all, I'd actually recommend the HGST Ultrastar line. They are a bit pricier, but they are enterprise level drives with very high reliability and a resistance to vibrational disruption.

 

[mcconkeymike]

Well right off the bat I can tell you the HGST will be a little faster because it is a 7200RPM and the WD Red is 5400RPM. Other than that I believe that they are pretty similar and have the same length warranty. I've used some WD Reds at work and they seem fine in a RAID5 setup and I've used some Seagate NAS 5900RPM 2TB drives at home and they work very well. I have not used any of the HGST drives personally so I can't comment on them. I do know that the Seagate drives, though not 7200RPM are still pretty damn quick for a mechanical drive.

 

[faalin]

I have a 6tb red drive in my computer and i cant tell the difference between it and the 2 7200rpm blue drive. On the other hand HGST is owned by WD so ether way your getting a WD drive 😀

 

[Snorlord]

Hmm so there is no smarter option here? Both got about the same lifetime?

HGST ultrastar is a bit expensive for me 400 euro for 3tb is a lot of money for that size. xd

 

[dgingeri]

Oddly, the 4TB is cheaper than the 3TB in most markets. Make sure to get the SATA model, too. There is a SAS (SED) model that is more expensive, and not worth it, for end user purposes.

 

[Snorlord]

Oddly, the 4TB is cheaper than the 3TB in most markets. Make sure to get the SATA model, too. There is a SAS (SED) model that is more expensive, and not worth it, for end user purposes.

290 euro for 4TB model, cheaper than the 3TB one but still a lot of money

 

[dgingeri]

Yeah, your market is a bit different than ours. On Amazon, I can get the 4TB for $150 and the 3TB ran $200 last week, and is down to $90 now. The 4TB has been sitting at $150 for over three years now, not dropping at all. Kind of annoying.

The Deskstar NAS 4TB is running $119 here, and rates really well. I've had really good luck with Hitachis for a long, long time now. In my last job, I had 7 FC RAID trays (LSI/Engenio) of 500GB Hitachis, 16 drives in each tray, that were over 8 years old, and not one failure. I had more of the 1TB drives, with no failures, while of over 7000 1TB Seagates, after 8 years over half had failed, and I was replacing them at about a dozen per week. That's why I recommend Hitachi/HGST.

 

[rkzhao]

Hmm interesting. I never noticed that 3TB can be more expensive than 4TB drives of the same generation. With HDDs, generally, the higher capacity drives are higher end products in their portfolio, with more features and better hardware. Maybe that isn't the case with these drives?

Traditionally speaking, HGST drives have been more expensive but were more reliable as a population. They tended to put high quallity/expensive features into even their lower end drives. After being acquired by WD a few years ago though, whether their reliability is still that good remains to be seen. However, they're definitely still more expensive.

As for Seagate, their reliability has been continuously improving and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a IronWolf over the HGST or WD for NAS use. The thing with Seagate is they didn't used to over engineer their drives like HGST did so the reliability rates went down dramatically when used "improperly" (ie client drives in enterprise environments). They also happen to be one of the most widely used brands, likely due to cost, so reports of failures eventually happened and hurt their reputation. Their HDDs from the past couple of years though have all been very good from my experience in the industry.

 

[Snorlord]

Yeah, your market is a bit different than ours. On Amazon, I can get the 4TB for $150 and the 3TB ran $200 last week, and is down to $90 now. The 4TB has been sitting at $150 for over three years now, not dropping at all. Kind of annoying.

The Deskstar NAS 4TB is running $119 here, and rates really well. I've had really good luck with Hitachis for a long, long time now. In my last job, I had 7 FC RAID trays (LSI/Engenio) of 500GB Hitachis, 16 drives in each tray, that were over 8 years old, and not one failure. I had more of the 1TB drives, with no failures, while of over 7000 1TB Seagates, after 8 years over half had failed, and I was replacing them at about a dozen per week. That's why I recommend Hitachi/HGST.

Wow big price difference. I see why it is worth considering ultrastar disks in your market. But here you pay €123 - 130 for the nas dekstar 3TB, the ultrastar 3TB is like double the price. The wd red 3TB are same price as the nas desktars.

Hmm interesting. I never noticed that 3TB can be more expensive than 4TB drives of the same generation. With HDDs, generally, the higher capacity drives are higher end products in their portfolio, with more features and better hardware. Maybe that isn't the case with these drives?

Traditionally speaking, HGST drives have been more expensive but were more reliable as a population. They tended to put high quallity/expensive features into even their lower end drives. After being acquired by WD a few years ago though, whether their reliability is still that good remains to be seen. However, they're definitely still more expensive.

As for Seagate, their reliability has been continuously improving and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a IronWolf over the HGST or WD for NAS use. The thing with Seagate is they didn't used to over engineer their drives like HGST did so the reliability rates went down dramatically when used "improperly" (ie client drives in enterprise environments). They also happen to be one of the most widely used brands, likely due to cost, so reports of failures eventually happened and hurt their reputation. Their HDDs from the past couple of years though have all been very good from my experience in the industry.

The Iron wolf from seagate is also interesting. I can get it for 10 euro more with 4TB. But can I expect similar endurance / lifetime?