[SOLVED] Recommended 8 TB hard drive for Desktop machine

[El Topo]

So, I have been using two WD Blue drives of 4 TB each for years without any problem. Recently, though, I replaced one of the 4 TB WD drives with a Seagate Barracuda 8 TB (ST8000DM004) drive, because I needed more space. However, after only a few month, my new Seagate 8 TB is starting to show "pending sectors" as well as "uncorrectable sectors" errors via SMART. At the same time, my old WD Blue drive continous to work fine. So, even though I didn't notice any corrupted files yet, I fear the 8 TB drive might fail soon. My plan is to send the defective Seagate drive in and get a replacement. But, before I can do this, I will need to buy another 8 TB drive to save my data. I currently don't have a another drive large enough to copy all my data to.

I prefer not to buy another Seagate Barracuda 8 TB. So what would be a recommendation of 8 TB hard drive for Desktop machine?

WD Blue isn't available as 8 TB version, as far as I can tell. WD Red is intended for NAS and thus probably optimized for RAID, which I won't use. Probably not the best choice for Desktop machine. So, this means that WD Gold (expensive) and WD Black (even more expensive) are left. Is WD Gold good for Desktop machines?

What about Toshiba?

Thanks!

 

[USAFRet]

Your single instance of this drive is not necessarily representative of ALL instances of this drive.
Every make and model has outliers.

What does Seagate say about a warranty replacement?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Avoid Seagate Barracuda drives. Those are all SMR.

Get HGST Ultrastar 8TB.

BTW - NAS drives are really good for desktop use. Even better than ones marketed specifically for desktops.

 

[El Topo]

Your single instance of this drive is not necessarily representative of ALL instances of this drive.
Every make and model has outliers.

I understand. That is why I am interested in recommendations by other people.

What does Seagate say about a warranty replacement?

Did not response to my inquiry yet. Anyways, whatever they say, I will need another 8 TB drive to save my data, before I can send the defective one in.
And even if they refused to replace the defective disk, I cannot continue using safely...

 

[El Topo]

BTW - NAS drives are really good for desktop use. Even better than ones marketed specifically for desktops.

From what I have read, HDDs made specifically for NAS do not try to correct reading errors (or at least they spend way less time on trying to correct reading errors), because they are intended to run in a RAID, in which case long reading delays can be a problem. For a Desktop machine without RAID, this behavior of "NAS optimized" HDDs is a bad.

 

[neojack]

if your data is precious, you should'nt have it in only one place. always 2 places minimum.

so buy 2 drives, or subscribe to an unlimited online backup plan

the best drive depends of your usage. if you need to store files and read them form time to time, an "archive HDD" will do wonders. they run slowly (5000 rpm), make less noise, last longer. but they are slower at writting. and of course bad for running apps.

my current 8TB drive is this one : ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z
perfect for storing movies, pictures, ISOs, etc
as for the backup, i use spideroak's unlimited plan (not sold to the public), but i think crashplan or backblaze have unlimited plans

 

[USAFRet]

And I have an 8TB Seagate. Running just fine for a couple years now.

I also have a 8TB Toshiba X300. Also running just fine. 18 months now.

 

[El Topo]

if your data is precious, you should'nt have it in only one place. always 2 places minimum.

Of course all really important data (documents, photos, source code, etc) is saved on a separate USB-HDD as well as on BD-R.

But currently I don't have another drive large enough to create a full backup of my 8 TB drive. It contains my whole Steam library, which could be re-downloaded but would take many days to do so (DSL is kind of slow here). Also, I have quite a number of TV recordings on my HDD that I would like to keep but that are really big

 

[SkyNetRising]

From what I have read, HDDs made specifically for NAS do not try to correct reading errors (or at least they spend way less time on trying to correct reading errors), because they are intended to run in a RAID, in which case long reading delays can be a problem. For a Desktop machine without RAID, this behavior of "NAS optimized" HDDs is a bad.

You have read wrong.
Drives designed for NAS means - they can withstand 24/7 operation continuous reading/writing. Desktop drives in such mode don't last very long and simply die.

That thing, you have read about error correction is attributed to enterprise grade server drives.

 

[USAFRet]

Bottom line - Reliability difference between various make and model is only a percentage point or two. Except for one or two outliers over the years, all current drives are pretty similar.

You can read through Backblaze reports. They use consumer level drives.
https://www.backblaze.com/b2/hard-drive-test-data.html

 

[El Topo]

Get HGST Ultrastar 8TB.

HGST drives seem to be hard to find these days. Is it the same as Western Digital Ultrastar DC?

(apparently HGST is a subsidiary of WD now)

Drives designed for NAS means - they can withstand 24/7 operation continuous reading/writing. Desktop drives in such mode don't last very long and simply die.

But are NAS drives, that are designed for "always on" (24/7) operation, robust for Desktop systems, where they will need to deal with several spin-ups every day?

 

[SkyNetRising]

But are NAS drives, that are designed for "always on" (24/7) operation, robust for Desktop systems, where they will need to deal with several spin-ups every day?

Are you restarting your pc several times per day?
If your pc is always on, then set to never turn off HDDs in power options.

 

[El Topo]

Are you restarting your pc several times per day?
If your pc is always on, then set to never turn off HDDs in power options.

The "Power On Count" of my older HDD is 2109 now. The drive is in use for roughly 4 years. So, I get ~1.4 power-ons per day.

 

[King_V]

Avoid Seagate Barracuda drives. Those are all SMR.

Minor nitpick. All Barracuda drives greater than 1TB are SMR. And all Barracuda Pro drives are CMR.

Festplatten mit CMR und SMR | Seagate Deutschland

Liste unserer internen Festplatten mit dem jeweiligen Aufzeichnungsverfahren

www.seagate.com

 

[mdd1963]

I'd go WD Red....the 6 and 8 TB models (and all larger models) are SMR, so are quite reasonably fast at bulk batches writes...

 

[El Topo]

I'd go WD Red....the 6 and 8 TB models (and all larger models) are SMR, so are quite reasonably fast at bulk batches writes...

Thanks. I wonder, how do the WD Red drivers compare to the WD Ultrastar DC drives?

 

[lordmogul]

Your single instance of this drive is not necessarily representative of ALL instances of this drive.
Every make and model has outliers.

What does Seagate say about a warranty replacement?

Exactly that. I've had a 3TB Seagate (one of the famous ST3000M001) running for nearly 8 years and >40k hrs without any issues and then it only went out of service because the DRAM cache started dying. It got replaced by another Seagate drive. After all, the old one did fine way beyond expectations. I got another 1 TB WD Green that ran fine for about 3 years with 1 pending sector on.
In the end there is little difference between the drives of all 3 remaining manufacturers, so go by what offers the best solution for what is needed.
And don't be fooled WD got almost identical drives in their Blue (the 5400 rpm ones, formerly Green), Red, Gold, Purple. All of them are 5400 rpm drives with slightly different firmwares.

 

[Nikon1234]

My experience with backup data is:

I have bought some very cheap 2nd hand HDD from ebay, at the price of 1TB/~10$. I made three duplicate of my data ~7TB. I wholly backup my data every 2 months. I used external docking station to connect the HDD to my laptop.

Thanks.