Seagate vs WD

[jgustin7b]

So, I’ve been looking into a second drive because at the beginning, I had a rather small SSD (120 gb) and a 500 GB HDD from an old system. I’ve been looking into 1 TB 7200 RPM drives. Looks like many seem to prefer WD and others suggest Seagate. However, a few people have said that Seagate drives die in less than a year.

Thoughts?

Ps: you don’t need to link any drives to this thread, I already know what I’m looking at.

 

[captaincharisma]

in my experience i do avoid seagate because from over the years i seen more seagate drives fail then any from western digital

 

[Gadhar]

I have had both over the years and did not find one to be any better than the other, but that is just my experience. I have heard good and bad about both. I would make a list of the ones you are considering then doe a lot of research by reading multiple reviews from different sources.

 

[jgustin7b]

Can’t quote on mobile, but I have been told that customer reviews from websites (amazon, Newegg, etc) aren’t the best place to get info.

 

[seagate_surfer]

Hi, jgustin7b. First off, we wanted to say thank you for considering Seagate.

As far as our options go, for a secondary drive where you've got an SSD already, your best bet is probably our 1TB BarraCuda. The 3.5" version is 7200 RPM (model ST1000DM010).

If you'd like more peace of mind on warranty, you could also go with a 3.5" FireCuda SSHD (1TB model ST1000DX002), which comes with a 5 year warranty versus the 2 years on the BarraCuda which is considered standard fare for desktop-grade drives. It's one of the few options without going more Pro/Enterprise grade drives for getting a 5 year warranty.

 

[King_V]

I can't say in my experience that I've had anything that indicates one or the other fails prematurely.

I did have ONE Seagate drive fail. It was a 4 GB unit that I had bought new, and it failed near the end of the warranty period (3 years) - and it was so out of date that Seagate didn't have any more of them and replaced it with a 20GB drive.

But, having gone through more hard drives in various systems, new and used, than I can remember (from current 1TB drives, to a pair of ancient drives, one of 150MB and the other 1GB, 5-1/4" wide and about as tall as 3 or 4 modern 3.5" HDDs and HEAVY as hell!) only that one ever failed me.

TL;DR - I'm not sure you can really go wrong with either WD or Seagate

 

[USAFRet]

in my experience i do avoid seagate because from over the years i seen more seagate drives fail then any from western digital

And I've seen the exact opposite.
The only drives I've had die this century were WD.

 

[madmatt30]

I stick with Toshiba drives now personally , running 6 or 7 & they've all been absolutely spot on .

 

[geofelt]

I find reliability statistics of any kind hard to come by.

Here is one report from 2015 that suggests WD is better. It is also interesting in that it describes the various WD rainbow options:

Understanding the WD Rainbow

WD has a very diverse hard drive product line that can be difficult to decipher at times. In this article we go over the various 3.5inch hard drive lines from WD to help you decide which is right for your system.

www.pugetsystems.com

Here is another reliability article. Of interest to me is that HGST(deskstar) seemed to be one of the best:

Hard Drive Failure: Analysis of 49,056 Hard Drives

We analyze the performance of 49,056 hard drives running everyday in our data center. Discover the best performing individual models and overall trends.

www.backblaze.com

Whatever the reliability, anything can fail.
Protect what you value with EXTERNAL backup.

 

[RealBeast]

For unbiased comparison of drive life expectations follow the Backblaze statistics, 2017, 2016, and 2015.

Note that these are for larger drives as 1TB would not suit their storage needs but it does give you a cross manufacturer comparison. Where head to head data is available since 2013 WDC does *not* have a lower failure rate than Seagate although some HGST models were really excellent.

The bottom line for 1TB drives to me is that they are all good now, unlike 10-15 years ago when we saw specific problem drives. The most likely cause of failure early is poor shipping by the seller.

 

[Solandri]

Most of the hearsay on drive brands comes from the reports put out by Backblaze every few months.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2017/

Unfortunately people read those reports wrong. They try to oversimplify by reducing it down to "which brand is more reliable?" The way you need to interpret those reports is "which model is more reliable?" Every drive model uses different and new technologies. Sometimes it works and you get a reliable model. Sometimes it doesn't and you get an unreliable model. All brands produce good models, all brands produce bad models.

In their latest report, two of the Seagate models are stinkers (actually only one is, the other hasn't been in use long enough to tell if the single failure was a fluke or indicative of bad things to come). If you subtract those two models, the remaining Seagate models are actually more reliable than most of the WD models. So there's very little correlation between brand and reliability, whereas there's a high correlation between model and reliability. Backblaze seems to have caught on to how their reports were being misused and stopped generating a chart which summarized reliability based on brand.

I've been steering people away from the 5400 RPM WD drives because of problems with an extremely short head parking timer. But as you're looking for a 7200 RPM drive, this is not an issue. I'd say look at the Backblaze report and make sure to avoid drive models they've found extremely unreliable. But otherwise, buy whatever brand you like or has the lowest price.

And most importantly, assume your drive will fail and be sure to keep good backups. An external backup drive for quick and easy access. A cloud backup in case your house burns down along with your backup drive.

 

[jgustin7b]

Apparently, reliability is rather mixed between the two companies looking at all of your comments. I’ll just end it here I suppose. I’ll just get the cheaper one in this case (Seagate wins).

Edit: about the backups, I have a relatively large usb in case all else fails

 

[dudeman509]

In my experience, Seagates are speedier and quieter, and WD's are slower, louder, and FAR more reliable. I went through 4 Seagate SSHDs (all started failing with bad sectors and read errors) before I gave up on them. Somehow my 3 TB Seagate has been rock-solid reliable.

 

[captaincharisma]

in my experience i do avoid seagate because from over the years i seen more seagate drives fail then any from western digital

And I've seen the exact opposite.
The only drives I've had die this century were WD.

yes, that is "my experience" with WD and seagate. of coarse some people will have the opposite kind of experience with both brands. i have also had some good luck with Toshiba HDD in the past

 

[jgustin7b]

My old laptop had a Toshiba hdd, and it was fine, but figured I’d try something new, therefore, this thread creation.

 

[dudeman509]

My old laptop had a Toshiba hdd, and it was fine, but figured I’d try something new, therefore, this thread creation.

I've found that Seagate laptop drives DO NOT like heat, and fail considerably faster than others in a laptop that doesn't dissipate heat from the bottom well (like my old Dell).

 

[jgustin7b]

This is a Desktop we’re talking here. Sorry for not stating earlier...

 

[Lexington101]

The best Marketing for Seagate is done by the Western Digital Tech Support Team.