Looking to buy a new HDD hard disk
- Thread starter boss1983
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quilciri
Splendid
- Mar 16, 2012
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I'd stay away from Seagate drives, especially the barracuda line. Studies on HDD failure rates are few and far between, but the latest major one looks really bad for Seagate.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089464/three-year-27-000-drive-study-reveals-the-most-reliable-hard-drive-makers.html
I've also personally had a barracuda not only fail on me, but the refurb'd warranty replacement Seagate sent failed also within 2 months.
Western digital are the go-to drives around these forums, but I've started using Hitachi drives based on their evident reliability in that study. Hitachi drives are also generally cheaper.
Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($65.74 @ Amazon)
Cheers!
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089464/three-year-27-000-drive-study-reveals-the-most-reliable-hard-drive-makers.html
I've also personally had a barracuda not only fail on me, but the refurb'd warranty replacement Seagate sent failed also within 2 months.
Western digital are the go-to drives around these forums, but I've started using Hitachi drives based on their evident reliability in that study. Hitachi drives are also generally cheaper.
Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($65.74 @ Amazon)
Cheers!
- Oct 30, 2004
- 32,252
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I wouldn't say the above study is flawed but the conclusions oft drawn from it contradict the study's stated conclusions. It focused on a small range of model numbers (3) and is skewed by particular problems of one individual Green model. Storagereview.com shows a more balanced presentation whereby they found that Seagate had produced both the most reliable drive of all time and the least reliable drive of all time which should drive home the point highlighted by the above article that reliability varies more by model number than by brand name.
Note what the article actually states:
Furthermore a careful read of the article had the company who did the testing take a direction opposite to what was taken above.
Buying based upon that article is relevant ONLY if buying the exact model in question and from the same "stepping". The problems in the study were limited to the Green model and therefore has no applicability to and gives zero indication with regard to the other lines which are of a different design .... and you would never stick a green drive in a gaming or enthusiast box anyway..... a decision the article author also made
Here is a recent analysis of HD failures of current models over last two sales periods as measured by the number of returns.
2012 was last english translation
http://www.behardware.com/articles/881-6/components-returns-rates-7.html
Other than Hitachi, everyone is in the same ballpark overall .... but now let's look at the individual model failure rates for the OPs 2 TB drives .... 6 of the worse 7 are WD drives:
Moving to the latest sales periods we have to go to the original french site
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-6/disques-durs.html
Again, for the OP's desired 2TB, the individual model return rates are listed below by model number from worse to best. WD has 3 of the worse 4 and 5 of the worse 7, but like Seagate that also have a model with 0.00 % returns tho I'd venture to guess this is driven as much by actual reliability as limited number of actual sales.
We have 10 boxes here (5 desktops / 5 laptops) almost all have multiple HDs and I'd say 2/3 Seagate and 1/3 WD ..... In the last 3 years, we have purchased nothing but SSHDs. I have not had a "HD fail in a machine" in over 11 years.... as machines get retired (typically 4-5 years), we use the old drives for backups or for moving data between machines and the only one that did fail was an old WD black that was over 7 years old.
While everyone worries about CPU and GPU heat, peeps rarely think about HD heat. IBM's study showed that an increase of 10C will halve HD life but repeated and wide thermal cycling is probably their biggest enemy. After transporting your PC to college and leaving it in your cold car for a few hours, don't bring it into the dorm and fire it up before it warms to room temp.. Also vibration is something HD's don't like .... Quality cases with rubber feet and vibration isolators on the HD trays help reduce wear and tear.
For performance evaluation and ranking on a gaming box look here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
Anytime you pick a PC component by brand name, you are running a fools errand.
"Corsair makes great PSU's"....yes, they do make some excellent PSUs (Axi / HXi Series) .... they also make some really crappy PSUs (CX / CSM).
"Asus makes great MoBos" .... yes they have some great model lines and some that are "not so" much", quality is declining judging by % of negative review % in past years.
"Seagate has bad quality and high failure rates" .... yes, their 7200.11 had a firmware issue and the Green line has had it's issues, but their enthusiasts drives and SSDs perform better and have comparable reliability rates as anyone else.
"WD has great drives with great performance ".... yes the WD Black is a great drive, though it's performance isn't keeping up with newer models from the competition and it's high price (no doubt significantly associated with warranty costs for the excellent 5 year warranty). There are other good model lines, however, the reliability and performance of some other models has proved to be quite dismal.
Best to forget brand names as the single arbiter of performance and reliability and pick your components by the specific model number using reputable indicators of performance / reliability. Note also, that manufacturers also sometimes make design changes after all the reviews are done (monitor manufacturers especially) so be on the look out for such shenanigans.
Note what the article actually states:
Furthermore a careful read of the article had the company who did the testing take a direction opposite to what was taken above.
Buying based upon that article is relevant ONLY if buying the exact model in question and from the same "stepping". The problems in the study were limited to the Green model and therefore has no applicability to and gives zero indication with regard to the other lines which are of a different design .... and you would never stick a green drive in a gaming or enthusiast box anyway..... a decision the article author also made
Here is a recent analysis of HD failures of current models over last two sales periods as measured by the number of returns.
2012 was last english translation
http://www.behardware.com/articles/881-6/components-returns-rates-7.html
Other than Hitachi, everyone is in the same ballpark overall .... but now let's look at the individual model failure rates for the OPs 2 TB drives .... 6 of the worse 7 are WD drives:
Moving to the latest sales periods we have to go to the original french site
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-6/disques-durs.html
Again, for the OP's desired 2TB, the individual model return rates are listed below by model number from worse to best. WD has 3 of the worse 4 and 5 of the worse 7, but like Seagate that also have a model with 0.00 % returns tho I'd venture to guess this is driven as much by actual reliability as limited number of actual sales.
We have 10 boxes here (5 desktops / 5 laptops) almost all have multiple HDs and I'd say 2/3 Seagate and 1/3 WD ..... In the last 3 years, we have purchased nothing but SSHDs. I have not had a "HD fail in a machine" in over 11 years.... as machines get retired (typically 4-5 years), we use the old drives for backups or for moving data between machines and the only one that did fail was an old WD black that was over 7 years old.
While everyone worries about CPU and GPU heat, peeps rarely think about HD heat. IBM's study showed that an increase of 10C will halve HD life but repeated and wide thermal cycling is probably their biggest enemy. After transporting your PC to college and leaving it in your cold car for a few hours, don't bring it into the dorm and fire it up before it warms to room temp.. Also vibration is something HD's don't like .... Quality cases with rubber feet and vibration isolators on the HD trays help reduce wear and tear.
For performance evaluation and ranking on a gaming box look here.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
Anytime you pick a PC component by brand name, you are running a fools errand.
"Corsair makes great PSU's"....yes, they do make some excellent PSUs (Axi / HXi Series) .... they also make some really crappy PSUs (CX / CSM).
"Asus makes great MoBos" .... yes they have some great model lines and some that are "not so" much", quality is declining judging by % of negative review % in past years.
"Seagate has bad quality and high failure rates" .... yes, their 7200.11 had a firmware issue and the Green line has had it's issues, but their enthusiasts drives and SSDs perform better and have comparable reliability rates as anyone else.
"WD has great drives with great performance ".... yes the WD Black is a great drive, though it's performance isn't keeping up with newer models from the competition and it's high price (no doubt significantly associated with warranty costs for the excellent 5 year warranty). There are other good model lines, however, the reliability and performance of some other models has proved to be quite dismal.
Best to forget brand names as the single arbiter of performance and reliability and pick your components by the specific model number using reputable indicators of performance / reliability. Note also, that manufacturers also sometimes make design changes after all the reviews are done (monitor manufacturers especially) so be on the look out for such shenanigans.
quilciri
Splendid
- Mar 16, 2012
- 4,104
- 4
- 23,965
The model the OP posted is a Barracuda drive. The Backblaze study is not the only large scale failure of a model in the barracuda line. The 7200.11 firmware issue you mentioned was a big fiasco for Seagate. This affected no less than thirty different models of Seagate drives.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracuda-7200-drives-failing
While that doesn't mean that other drives in the barracuda line are unreliable, that's two fairly recent (in consumer HDD terms) examples of failure in the same set that were so bad as to become newsworthy. To my knowledge, no other major HDD vendor in the U.S. has had multiple major failures on that scale in any line of HDD's in such a short period.
I'd like to also point out that once they knew about the faulty firmware causing 30-40% failure rates, Seagate made no move to recall the 7200.11 drives still on store shelves, nor did they offer anything beyond a warranty replacement of the same model to customers (which would also self-destruct because they sent a replacement drive with the same firmware). This was enough to tarnish Seagate's reputation in my eyes.
Maybe that's not enough to steer you away from the Barracuda drives, but I will not recommend them.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracuda-7200-drives-failing
While that doesn't mean that other drives in the barracuda line are unreliable, that's two fairly recent (in consumer HDD terms) examples of failure in the same set that were so bad as to become newsworthy. To my knowledge, no other major HDD vendor in the U.S. has had multiple major failures on that scale in any line of HDD's in such a short period.
I'd like to also point out that once they knew about the faulty firmware causing 30-40% failure rates, Seagate made no move to recall the 7200.11 drives still on store shelves, nor did they offer anything beyond a warranty replacement of the same model to customers (which would also self-destruct because they sent a replacement drive with the same firmware). This was enough to tarnish Seagate's reputation in my eyes.
Maybe that's not enough to steer you away from the Barracuda drives, but I will not recommend them.
- Oct 30, 2004
- 32,252
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- 99,960
Exactly my point. You can never make a judgement on brand name for HDs no more than you can for PSUs. But the author of your reference specifically contradicted your recommendation which is why one needs to take pains to read beyond the headlines. It's also important to check the reliability of sources. As for the Inquirer article, besides their well know status for junk journalism, the author has an apparent axe to grind since Seagate didn't return his calls and he's off base as usual,.... if you search around, you will find that Seagate responded to other sites with a bit different story presented.....including the offer for free data recovery services.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/18/barracuda_firmware_upgrade_and_recovery/
And, no the OPs post did NOT include a Green drive, 7200 rpm drives are NOT green drives. Green drives are 5900 so off base again .... the OPs drive is not Green as the one / the one in the test is and therefore has no nothing about said test is relevant here.
What does have relevance to the issue is that with current drives the WD Green has the highest failure rate on the market today and it would be logical to compare it with the Seagate Green in your test as they are the same category of drive tho significantly different in production date. looking that way, you might as well say the the NY Giants are the best team today because they won the 2012 Super Bowl. You test was for drives bought starting in 2011.... drives you can't buy today the relevance would be questionable even comparing Green and Green.
The fact remains that today , WD has 3 of the 4 least reliable drives (2 of them Green) and 5 of the least 7 reliable drives on the market but that has nothing to do with the fact the WD WD2002FAEX like the Seagate ST2000VN000 are the top two most reliable drives on the market today. Seagate has made some real crappy drives in its day, as I said they hold the record for both the most and least reliable drives ever made. WD has had it's failures most notably the reliability of their enthusiast raptor line.
I have personally owned close to 60 HDs, not counting builds done for others. Some drives lasted me almost 8 years in 24/7 active server use (15,000 rpm Seagates before I retired the box..... 1 outta 4 failed in 8 years). When the one failed after 4.5 years Seagate cross shipped a replacement drive and I asked for and footed the bill for overnight delivery. With WD, I have had to send the drive in wait for them to check it before they would send out a replacement.... that kinda ticked me off... took about 2 weeks. Don't know if the policy has changed since.
Go on newegg, pick any manufacturer and you will find a fair number of DOAs for every drive out there. Others fail after short time and a good portion of those reviews are written by the same guys who write "My MoBo had bent Socket pins when I took it outta the box'. But to argue that one leading brand is significantly worse than another ... there's simply no evidence to support that. This is what we do have:
- Seagate - latest 2 term failure rate = 9.05 per 1,000
- Hitachi - latest 2 term failure rate = 11.2 per 1,000
- Western - latest 2 term failure rate = 11.6 per 1,000
- Toshiba - latest 2 term failure rate = 12.8 per 1,000
The difference is statistically insignificant
- Oct 30, 2004
- 32,252
- 14
- 99,960
The WD Black is a reliable drive .... used to be considered a performance drive also but performance has slacked off in recent years. As a gaming drive, it sits in 18th place on THGs charts, about 2/3 as fast as the top dog. Bit it's one of the few drives left that comes with a 5 year warranty.... worth noting but you pay quite a price premium for it tho.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
But yes the WD drives are very loud. I have a few and in some cases they can be the loudest thing in the box when ya system is water cooled. THG stopped doing testing but the 2 TB Black was third loudest back when THG did noise testing. In fact WD drives took the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th on the noisiest drives list
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/Sound-Level,1032.html
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