Best 1TB HDD

[smeders]

Hi,

could anyone help link me to the best 1TB HDD i can get for under £45? Looking at a WD 1TB Blue at the moment but any other suggestions would be great rather than limiting myself to one choice.

Thanks!

[DanceswithUnix]

WD Blue is a fine choice with an OK warranty (which I always think is important, if the people that make the drive don't trust it then why should I?).

Best warranty is WD black, they are also fast but sadly expensive and the performance makes them noisy.

I have been looking at the Toshiba drives: http://www.ebuyer.com/393828-toshiba...ive-dt01aca100 as they are cheap and basically a re-labelled Hitachi drive so should be good. One year warranty puts me off, but it is only so I can play with SteamOS so doesn't much matter if it goes bang in 18 months for me so I suspect I will go for that one.

If you want a really quiet drive and don't care so much for performance, then laptop drives are nice & cheap at 1TB.

[Agrippa]

Hitachi/HGST gets my vote. Only drives I've never had die on me and generally cheaper than comparable drives from other brands. They also perform well, although you'll never notice a real life difference between hard drives with the same rotational speed unless they feature heavily in your work.

[smeders]

Thanks for the suggestions. This is the most similar priced one I can find:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-h...0rpm-8mb-cache

It's only a 5400rpm drive and 8mb compared to the WD drive at 7200 and 64mb.

Will that make a major difference between the 2 drives?

[Agrippa]

Sadly that will make a sizeable difference, as the Travelstar is a 2.5" laptop drive and both the slow rotational speed and the small cache will make it under-perform in a desktop scenario. Given your budget restrictions and the fact that I'm unaware of what's available in the UK, and at which prices, I'd say go with the WD Blue.

There aren't really any "bad" hard drives these days anyway, except once in a blue moon when a particular line of drives proves problematic for one reason or another. Other than that it's much of a muchness what you choose to buy, within a given price range. Hitachi/HGST does, however, seem to be the exception, if my own experience and years of forum discussions are anything to go by. Unfortunately their Deskstar and Ultrastar models are both generally much harder to come by than similar offerings from other brands.

[DanceswithUnix]

Unfortunately their Deskstar and Ultrastar models are both generally much harder to come by than similar offerings from other brands.

Erm, I linked to it earlier.

The 3.5in drive HGST factories were sold, they are now basically Toshiba. From reviews it sounds like the Toshiba drives even still have an HGST logo on them.

[smeders]

I've found this one on Scan. Is the extra £10 worth it with a 32mb drop in cache compared to the WD? This is the only one I can find from a rep source that isn't used.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-h...b-s-32mb-cache

[DanceswithUnix]

That is an enterprise drive for data centre use. If you want the best reliability possible at the expense of noise and don't care how much you pay, then that is an excellent drive. For home use, the Toshiba drive I linked earlier that came out of the exact same factory is the one to go for.

Hitachi do not make 3.5in drives. They haven't for some time.

Or the WD Blue. I use them, they are quieter than the WD Black drives and nearly as good.

[Agrippa]

smeders: if the Ultrastar you linked to is within the budget, then that's certainly the one I'd go for. It's fast, it's quiet and it's one of the most reliable drives available.

Erm, I linked to it earlier.

Not really. You linked to a Toshiba drive, which may or may not be a HGST drive depending on its age.

The 3.5in drive HGST factories were sold, they are now basically Toshiba.

Hitachi do not make 3.5in drives. They haven't for some time.

Well, for a company which doesn't make any 3.5" drives, HGST certainly lists a lot of them on their web site. Not to mention the fact that they release new 3.5" drives even if they "do not make 3.5" drives".

While it's well known that Hitachi's 3.5" production line was divested to Toshiba in 2012, I fail to see why you think that means HGST no longer manufactures 3.5" drives today?

[watercooled]

HGST is now owned by WDC. A condition of the sale was to sell off the 3.5" sector - to Toshiba.

HGST no longer has anything to do with Hitachi.

[DanceswithUnix]

smeders: if the Ultrastar you linked to is within the budget, then that's certainly the one I'd go for. It's fast, it's quiet and it's one of the most reliable drives available.




Not really. You linked to a Toshiba drive, which may or may not be a HGST drive depending on its age.


Well, for a company which doesn't make any 3.5" drives, HGST certainly lists a lot of them on their web site. Not to mention the fact that they release new 3.5" drives even if they "do not make 3.5" drives".

While it's well known that Hitachi's 3.5" production line was divested to Toshiba in 2012, I fail to see why you think that means HGST no longer manufactures 3.5" drives today?

I didn't say that, I said that Hitachi no longer make 3.5in drives. In fact I could have said that they no longer make any rotating media given the 2.5in stuff is owned by WD.

Toshiba used to make 2.5in drives. AFAIK they did not make any 3.5in drives until they bought HGST. I even stated that according to reviews I have read the Toshiba 3.5in drives even have HGST written on the label. But, HGST is I believe now a WD brand not a Toshiba brand so labelling is going to get complicated.

But really, I did make quite the effort here. The link was to a DT01ACA100 which is an HGST derived part.

Here is a review: http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3559...inch-hard-disk

[Agrippa]

Apologies, entirely my fault for conflating HGST and Hitachi. Silly, silly. HGST is not merely another WD "brand" in the general sense though, but rather a wholly independent subsidiary of WD. A separate company with separate manufacturing, at least according to what I've read. Certainly they use separate technologies compared to the WD branded drives.

PS: oh, and kudos on the research. ;-)

[shaithis]

There aren't really any "bad" hard drives these days anyway, except once in a blue moon when a particular line of drives proves problematic for one reason or another.

Er, yes there are.... SEAGATE STx000DM00x drives (i.e. ST3000DM001). They are absolutely terrible and have seen every single unit of them either completely die or develop a slew of bad sectors within 18 months.

[DanceswithUnix]

Certainly they use separate technologies compared to the WD branded drives.

I thought that was forced on them for a period of time as part of the anti monopoly agreement, but I can't find anything to back that up so starting to wonder if I dreamt that now

The whole sale/resale thing did seem to end up overly complicated. Still, the drives seem very good.

So back to the original question: I still recommend that Toshiba drive if you want cheap. The enterprise drive is the ultimate but outside your original price range, and probably noisier as it won't care for things like powering down or quietly seeking if it is expected to be in a 60 drive storage bay.

WD Blue is also somewhere I would (and have) put my own money, though I usually buy smaller hard drives and hence go for laptop WD Black drives but again I think going that route will go over your original price range.

[Agrippa]

Er, yes there are.... SEAGATE STx000DM00x drives (i.e. ST3000DM001). They are absolutely terrible and have seen every single unit of them either completely die or develop a slew of bad sectors within 18 months.

Ref: "except once in a blue moon when a particular line of drives proves problematic for one reason or another."

[Agrippa]

I thought that was forced on them for a period of time as part of the anti monopoly agreement, but I can't find anything to back that up so starting to wonder if I dreamt that now

If I remember correctly they were forced to licence the relevant technologies to Toshiba and also to produce Toshiba's drives in the interim period between the sale and Toshiba being ready to take over manufacturing. I can't say I remember any other terms related to HGST's technologies.

In any case I believe WD always wanted to keep HGST a separate entity with separate technologies, so as to broaden their market coverage and appeal. To buy HGST only to do away with it as a manufacturing entity would have made no sense financially, particularly since HGSTs drives were and are generally considered better than WDs own.