Which HDD brand do you recommend?

[jgchaval]

Hey there!

I'm building a new gaming system Which HDD brand would you recommend me? My brother bought an external HDD from Western Digital, a MyBook, and it died after 3 months :S i'm a little scared about going with WD. Some people have told me to go with Seagate, but i have seen great prices on the WD drives.

Im looking for a drive with these features:
* 16mb cache
* SATAII interface
* 320, 400, or 500 gb capacity

Which brand should i go for? Is there any special feature i must look for in a drive?

Thanks!

 

[royalcrown]

All brands fail, if all is the same or close pricewise, why not go for the best warranty ?

 

[jgchaval]

Well...in my case, warranty won't help much. :S I live in Costa Rica, and in here, the warranty depends on which store you bought a product. But most of the stores, will give you a 1 year warranty, after that, you are on your own.

Even though I have a way of sending something to USA, via a special mail service, its kinda expensive and with all the money you invest on sendin' something to the states, and then payin' for getting it back to Costa Rica, well at the end, with all the money invested, you may already have like half the money to buy a new drive.

It's easier to bring stuff from the US to CR, but the other way around is kinda expensive. I'm probably goin' to buy the hdd in the states, and have it brought here. It's cheaper than buying the drive directly here.

But well, that's not the point. So, as you see, warranty isn't gonna help me choose. I need to focus on reliability, and performance to make a decision here.

 

[SEALBoy]

Western Digital, Seagate, Samsung, and Hitachi are all top brands. Maxtor was slightly worse in terms of reliability, but I suppose they're the same as Seagate's now since Seagate bought them.

 

[enewmen]

Hitachi was good when it was IBM. Now sure now.
Seagate was surely the best not long ago. But it seem Digital got better after the release of the Raptor.
Anyway, you can't go wrong with a new WD or Segate. Or Samsung for non-RAID5 work.
What kind of work is jgchaval doing? Or just general home use?
These are all very generized.

 

[croc]

Hey there!

I'm building a new gaming system Which HDD brand would you recommend me? My brother bought an external HDD from Western Digital, a MyBook, and it died after 3 months :S i'm a little scared about going with WD. Some people have told me to go with Seagate, but i have seen great prices on the WD drives.

Im looking for a drive with these features:
* 16mb cache
* SATAII interface
* 320, 400, or 500 gb capacity

Which brand should i go for? Is there any special feature i must look for in a drive?

Thanks!

Seagates meet your requirements, and generally have a better MTBF than WD... Hence the longer warranty. Hitachi has really improved the IBM 'Deathstar' image, and would also not be a bad choice. Horses for courses, I guess. In your case, given the situation of replacing cheaper than getting an RMA, I'd get the best bang for the buck and some good back-up strategies...

As to the external drive not lasting... one drop kick would've done it. IMO, the MTBF on external drives is guaranteed to be almost 0. They're convenient, but I'd not trust them.

 

[eric54]

Well, just personally speaking. If you want to get a more reliable drive I'd get the WD Raid Edition HDD's as they are rated to 1.2million hours of use and come with a good warrenty (even though you wont use it). Check them out, they are a littel more than a regular but are tested more extensively for reliability, top binned for sure.

 

[systemlord]

Western Digital, Western Digital and Western Digital. The Raptor 150GB drive is so fast at loading Windows in under 20 seconds. The hard drive is by far the weakest link in the chain, data flows from the HDD to the ram and then to the CPU.

When I started playing Oblivion a year ago at first I had a plain old sata Maxtor HD that was ok, then I bought a Raptor 150GB HDD and while in-game I noticed that the tree's that used to pop into view late did not happen with the Raptor drive. Many will tell you that others brands are good to, but not faster than a Raptor drive. Whenever your CPU has to wait for data, you'll get a in game pause or shuttering. Thats one of the reasons people use a raid 0 config.

 

[Whiznot]

The best high capacity drive currently available is the Samsung HD501LJ. You get a fast, silent and cool running 500GB drive for only $110. If you doubt my opinion, do a forum search for HD501LJ on silentpcreview.com. I own four of these great inaudible units.

 

[croc]

Well, just personally speaking. If you want to get a more reliable drive I'd get the WD Raid Edition HDD's as they are rated to 1.2million hours of use and come with a good warrenty (even though you wont use it). Check them out, they are a littel more than a regular but are tested more extensively for reliability, top binned for sure.

Western Digital, Western Digital and Western Digital. The Raptor 150GB drive is so fast at loading Windows in under 20 seconds. The hard drive is by far the weakest link in the chain, data flows from the HDD to the ram and then to the CPU.

When I started playing Oblivion a year ago at first I had a plain old sata Maxtor HD that was ok, then I bought a Raptor 150GB HDD and while in-game I noticed that the tree's that used to pop into view late did not happen with the Raptor drive. Many will tell you that others brands are good to, but not faster than a Raptor drive. Whenever your CPU has to wait for data, you'll get a in game pause or shuttering. Thats one of the reasons people use a raid 0 config.

The best high capacity drive currently available is the Samsung HD501LJ. You get a fast, silent and cool running 500GB drive for only $110. If you doubt my opinion, do a forum search for HD501LJ on silentpcreview.com. I own four of these great inaudible units.

Looks good, but awfully new to the market. Still, Samsung have been trying to claw their way in to the top three for a few years now.

I may try one, but I don't live in Costa Rica...

 

[Whiznot]

Samsung OEM hard drives carry a three year manufacturer's warranty. For the last three years I have been buying Samsung Spinpoints exclusively because they are so quiet. In total I have purchased seven SATA Spinpoints including two 160GB units then one 400GB unit followed by four 500GB units. At silentpcreview.com forum members who have both Samsung and WD or Seagate drives seem to prefer the Spinpoints.

 

[croc]

Samsung OEM hard drives carry a three year manufacturer's warranty. For the last three years I have been buying Samsung Spinpoints exclusively because they are so quiet. In total I have purchased seven SATA Spinpoints including two 160GB units then one 400GB unit followed by four 500GB units. At silentpcreview.com forum members who have both Samsung and WD or Seagate drives seem to prefer the Spinpoints.

I may try one, but I don't live in Costa Rica...

Do any of you ever pay any attention to whatever special needs the OP may have? Or are you all so US-centric that you think that the rest of the world will just do whatever you say...

I live in AUS... The OP lives in Costa Rica. Got it? Have you ever tried to get parts from / to Costa Rica? Aus? Do you even have a passport? Aaargh... Frickin' yankees.

 

[systemlord]

Looks good, but awfully new to the market. Still, Samsung have been trying to claw their way in to the top three for a few years now.

I may try one, but I don't live in Costa Rica...

Where have you been lately croc? The Raptor HDD have been on the market for over 3 years and the FACT that there some of the fastest HDD out there. You can't knock a Raptor drive no matter what you say. The speed of these HDD can't be beat and the fact that almost all (including Tom's Hardware) reviews lots of other products right here using the Raptor 150GB ADFD. Regardless of how new they are to the market they have proven them selfs time and time again. Samsung can keep clawing because its a long way up.

 

[Hatman]

Other drives are begining to catch though.

If you dont want a Raptor, go for something like a western digital WD3200AAKS. They are still very good performance next to most drives. 16mb Cache helps a lot.

 

[koolaidkitten]

I vote WD
Not 1 has died on me yet.
I have over 10 WD drives, some date back to 1998.
All of them going strong in the fileserver.
Only other drives I have found just as reliable are Quantum Fireballs *which is weird cause they are the craptastic drives that seem to always show up in cheap manufacturer built computers*

 

[aevm]

Another vote for WD. Using them since they were 20 MB in size. They never died, I just threw them away when models with 10 or 15 times the size became available. The 3 year warranty is plenty - in 2010 you'll just get a new 5 TB disk for $100.

 

[enlightenment]

The Raptor HDD have been on the market for over 3 years and the FACT that there some of the fastest HDD out there. You can't knock a Raptor drive no matter what you say. The speed of these HDD can't be beat and the fact that almost all (including Tom's Hardware) reviews lots of other products right here using the Raptor 150GB ADFD. Regardless of how new they are to the market they have proven them selfs time and time again. Samsung can keep clawing because its a long way up.

You're not being nuanced. First, you are comparing 7200rpm versus 10k rpm drives - a whole different class of disks for different purposes and different market segments.

Second, the Raptor isn't the fastest desktop drive anymore when it comes to STR - even a simple Samsung T166 500GB whipps the Raptor in this regard, let alone the new Samsung F1 drives with up to 1TB capacity using 334GB platters. Not to mention they are more than a couple of notches less noisy, actually Samsung focusses on silent disks which is very nice. Their S250 disk will be even more silent, suited for a completely passive cooling solution.

 

[aevm]

I searched newegg for "Samsung F1" but didn't find anything. Are these things already available for sale? They sound very promising...

 

[enlightenment]

They are the most modern drives today, utilizing 334GB per platter. That means 1TB with just 3 platters, while Hitachi needs 5 platters to achieve that capacity. They also rock in terms of performance and capacity-per-watt.

Here are prices (germany):
http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/a260325.html

Here is the announcement from Samsung:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/newsView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id= 93

I expect the F1 to be available in a few weeks in Europe, don't know about the US.

 

[enlightenment]

I recommend any of the western digital re series.

Telling why you recommend this disk is more useful to readers, especially in comparison with competing products. Why does WD stand out?

In the HDD industry there is a lot of "two of my seagate drives crashed so i'll never take seagate again" talk, which is crap ofcourse unless you are considering a huge number of disks and draw conclusions out of those statistics.

 

[jaguarskx]

In the HDD industry there is a lot of "two of my seagate drives crashed so i'll never take seagate again" talk, which is crap ofcourse unless you are considering a huge number of disks and draw conclusions out of those statistics.

I had 3 Maxtors that died in a span of 4 years. I will never touch a Maxtor ever again.

The only brand that has never failed on me was my IBM Deskstar 75GXP which I finally retired after 7 years of continual usage.

 

[goldragon_70]

WD, Maxtor, and IBM (if they still make drives), I have all used, and none have gone bad on me. I've used a MyBook Pro for about 5 months now, and I've had no problems with it either.

 

[systemlord]

You're not being nuanced. First, you are comparing 7200rpm versus 10k rpm drives - a whole different class of disks for different purposes and different market segments.

Second, the Raptor isn't the fastest desktop drive anymore when it comes to STR - even a simple Samsung T166 500GB whipps the Raptor in this regard, let alone the new Samsung F1 drives with up to 1TB capacity using 334GB platters. Not to mention they are more than a couple of notches less noisy, actually Samsung focusses on silent disks which is very nice. Their S250 disk will be even more silent, suited for a completely passive cooling solution.

Weather I'm comparing a Raptor 10k rpm versus a 7200rpm Seagate, it doesn't change the fact that the Raptor is faster and who cares about what spec's they have that changes nothing. Second I'd like to see some proof that a Samsung T166 500GB is faster than a Raptor, some benchmarks maybe. I took some time and used Tom's Hardware HDD charts and what I saw doesn't support you claims. Also how loud a HDD is has a lot to do with you PC case to. I can't understand why people complain about Raptor's being noisey, because in my experience there pretty quiet at least for my ear's.

 

[Zorg]

Second, the Raptor isn't the fastest desktop drive anymore when it comes to STR - even a simple Samsung T166 500GB whipps the Raptor in this regard, let alone the new Samsung F1 drives with up to 1TB capacity using 334GB platters.

That's great if you are doing video editing with mainly sequential reads and writes but in every day desktop use the Raptor slaughters.

Figures taken from THG HD Charts

Workstation I/O Benchmark Pattern
Relative difference between Raptor and SpinPoint T166: -41.01 %

Random Access Time
Relative difference between Raptor and SpinPoint T166: 76.25 %

That's abysmal isn't it?

Samsung F1 is still very new and I can't find any benching, THG doesn't have it yet, but I doubt it will fare too much better. It's also optimized for enterprise RAID applications.

 

[Hatman]

Hey, if ya feeling really mad, get a coupla SCSI cheatah's. They're pretty fast