What to hdd to buy, Black, Blue or Barracuda?

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Pigus

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Apr 2, 2017
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My current 1Tb WD Blue is almost out of space, I also don't like installing games on my ssd that's why i'm looking for another hdd for my games and videos.

And, my choices on what hdd to buy:

4tb wd black (WD4004FZWX) 7200rpm
3tb seagate barracuda (ST3000DM008) 7200rpm

I've been thinking of buying the 3tb seagate barracuda (ST3000DM008), but i've read online that barracudas have high fail rate. That's why I'm also thinking of 4tb wd black which is faster than the barracuda (from what i've read) but more expensive.

Anyone can help me choose and enlighten me in some way. I can't seem to decide on what to buy.

Thanks.



 
Solution
I'd take the WD Black
- You'll have more room to grow.
- Much faster random read/write/mixed IO (games take long enough to load as is)

Failure rates have to be taken with a grain of salt. There is no industry standard reporting system for failures. The best source of data is Backblaze. In which case high failure rates are attributed to a few models. They had a few bad years. Newer models show much lower failure rates the ST3000DM008 appears to be newer but Backblaze is only buying 8TB to 12TB models now.

Seagate isn't the only ones. WD also has had some models with unnacceptably high failure rates. If reliability is your concern. Buy Toshiba or HGST (Hitachi). They have the best track records with Backblaze. For HGST they mainly...
hahaha nice profile picture man.

On the office we used seagates hard drives that ran 24/7 and yes some crashed.
it is going way better with WD gold series , I know it is not the same as black but I would give the black series a try.

And I know this is overkill but I love my 1tb ssd xD
 
I'd take the WD Black
- You'll have more room to grow.
- Much faster random read/write/mixed IO (games take long enough to load as is)

Failure rates have to be taken with a grain of salt. There is no industry standard reporting system for failures. The best source of data is Backblaze. In which case high failure rates are attributed to a few models. They had a few bad years. Newer models show much lower failure rates the ST3000DM008 appears to be newer but Backblaze is only buying 8TB to 12TB models now.

Seagate isn't the only ones. WD also has had some models with unnacceptably high failure rates. If reliability is your concern. Buy Toshiba or HGST (Hitachi). They have the best track records with Backblaze. For HGST they mainly use the Ultrastar line.

Most recent report linked. Note the 4TB WDC with a nearly 9% failure rate. But that is an older 4TB Red not your newer gen 4TB Black. Which could be more or less reliable. 4TB Seagate is also really bad. 4TB HGST is absolutely superb. Just get a specific model number with a great record. Not a newer model of the same size. The revised model could always be garbage.
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2017/
 
Solution
The problem with all the neat hard drive with full of space is reliability.
If you get a big hard drive, do backup and it fails, you are back to square one and even worse, lose everything.
I would go with black because of the warranty: 5 years.
By my experience, I have at least 5 500 gb WD black that are 10 years old and still running fine.
 
Here is a nice article on the WD "rainbow"
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Understanding-the-WD-Rainbow-674/
WD red might be a good choice.

That said, consider Hitachi. I have seen some favorable reliability statistics on them.
Here is one such older report:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

Actually, if price is not a big concern, use a large ssd.
A 1tb Samsung evo will be $350 or so.
If anything, they are more reliable than HDD , and there is also the performance benefit for games.
You get faster level loads, launches, and less delay for checkpoints and graphics texture loads.
 

Thanks for the reply. It is for gaming and editing files.
 




Thanks for the reply. I'd like to try that hitachi drives but unfortunately, I cant find one and probably not available in my country.
 


Thanks for the reply. I'd probably go with wd black.
 


LOL, thanks for the reply. I just use ssd as OS drive and installation folder for editing softwares. I find it a waste installing games on my ssd which is only 256gb. Current games takes so much storage space.
 
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