Seagate Expansion or Maxtor M3?

[Jeff_120]

So I need a new external HDD as my WD Mypasseport is full now, mainly for Raw photos and movies, I have the choice between a brand new Seagate Expansion 1Tb or a Maxtor M 2Tb supposedly new (what the seller said) but sold in a used items website for just 10$ more.
Which HDD is known to last longer and to resist accidental drops?
Which one is faster for large files?
And of course which one has better chances to not fail?

 

[Jeff_120]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from Jeff_120 : "Reliability of the Samsung/Maxtor M3 HDD?"

There is an offer on the Maxtor M3 2Tb in a virtual shop in my country, though I wonder how reliable are the M3 over time as I saw many youtube videos showing head problems, also how good it is to resist accidental drops?
If it has a bad reliability then I will get a seagate Expansion 1tb

 

[rkzhao]

I believe both will have some sort of Seagate drive internally. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same internal product family, assuming both products are from the same generation. Since you don't know the underlying drive, personally, I'd just get the newer one as generally the technology improves every year and the safety margins increase for the same capacity.

External drives generally aren't going to have the best hardware either way.

 

[Jeff_120]

I believe both will have some sort of Seagate drive internally. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same internal product family, assuming both products are from the same generation. Since you don't know the underlying drive, personally, I'd just get the newer one as generally the technology improves every year and the safety margins increase for the same capacity.

External drives generally aren't going to have the best hardware either way.

What about accidental drops?
I have found some reports that the M3 is pretty bad for that while the expansion can resist more?
I know it's not supposed to resist shocks and drops but my WD my passport had 3 good drops (1m height) and still running like on 1st day

 

[rkzhao]

That's the thing, it's hard to offer a blanket statement about drops. Dropping a hard drive while it's operating is rough for even the best enterprise drives, but if you dropped it while the heads are not on the disk, (when the drive is in a low power state or powered off) then the likelihood of damage decreases significantly.

Internally, the two Seagate drives are going to be very similar and I would guess that the external casing is similar as well in terms of shock protection. They're likely not much different from the WD either. It's more how and when you drop the drives.

 

[Jeff_120]

That's the thing, it's hard to offer a blanket statement about drops. Dropping a hard drive while it's operating is rough for even the best enterprise drives, but if you dropped it while the heads are not on the disk, (when the drive is in a low power state or powered off) then the likelihood of damage decreases significantly.

Internally, the two Seagate drives are going to be very similar and I would guess that the external casing is similar as well in terms of shock protection. They're likely not much different from the WD either. It's more how and when you drop the drives.

Thanks for the explanation