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Thread: Recommend me some HDDs

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    Recommend me some HDDs

    So;i I got tired of my Seagate 3TBs failing repeatedly (another 1 today), and am now on the hunt for some drives to replace my Seagate 3TB Barracudas as they die:

    I would like:
    Price at around ~£30quid/TB (Personally I think 3-4TB drives are the sweetspot for this)
    Reliable - Getting really annoying having to post them back every 2 months!
    Reasonably quiet would be good (but not super important)

    What drives are people recommending these days? WDs or HGSTs or?

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Some relatively recent data here and http://www.hardware.fr/articles/927-8/conclusion.html on HDD returns (the latest installment is due anytime soon). It looks like 3/4TB drives are returned more often than 2TB generally, some Enterprise class models don't have any returns logged.

    If you're getting recurring failures, I'd suggest checking the PSU, power cable(s) and their connectors carefully.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by satrow View Post
    If you're getting recurring failures, I'd suggest checking the PSU, power cable(s) and their connectors carefully.
    This.

    But apart from that, HGST without a doubt. Only drives which have never given me any kind of grief. That's out of 20-25 specimens, which obviously isn't statistically significant in any way. Still, similar numbers of WDs and Seagates have seen typically 2 or 3 drives die, either immediately or along the way.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by Agrippa View Post
    This.

    But apart from that, HGST without a doubt. Only drives which have never given me any kind of grief. That's out of 20-25 specimens, which obviously isn't statistically significant in any way. Still, similar numbers of WDs and Seagates have seen typically 2 or 3 drives die, either immediately or along the way.
    Note the 3.5in HGST drives are now made by Toshiba, so check both names out when buying.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    The fact that WD had to offload some 3.5" manufacturing capability and intellectual property to Toshiba in 2012, some 3 years ago, does not mean that all HGST drives are made by Toshiba and will be made by them in perpetuity. That's a misconception held by (too) many, but it's not actually true.

    That's not to say that Toshiba may not be producing some HGST-labelled models, but HGST does in indeed manufacture their own hard drives. Ultrastar and Ultrastar He drives for instance, are certainly manufactured by HGST themselves in Thailand. Deskstars I haven't seen in the flesh for a while, but I'd happily put money on them being made by HGST in Thailand too. The remainder (Travelstar, Endurastar and Cinemastar) I neither know anything about, nor care much about.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    For what reason?

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by Agrippa View Post
    The fact that WD had to offload some 3.5" manufacturing capability and intellectual property to Toshiba in 2012, some 3 years ago, does not mean that all HGST drives are made by Toshiba and will be made by them in perpetuity. That's a misconception held by (too) many, but it's not actually true.

    That's not to say that Toshiba may not be producing some HGST-labelled models, but HGST does in indeed manufacture their own hard drives. Ultrastar and Ultrastar He drives for instance, are certainly manufactured by HGST themselves in Thailand. Deskstars I haven't seen in the flesh for a while, but I'd happily put money on them being made by HGST in Thailand too. The remainder (Travelstar, Endurastar and Cinemastar) I neither know anything about, nor care much about.
    I was talking labels rather than who made them as honestly I have no idea just which drives come from which factories, hence I said to look for both.

    AIUI Toshiba only made 2.5in drives before the deal, so any 3.5in Toshiba drives are from the old HGST factory and can for now at least be considered HGST drives with a Toshiba label on. I think that is where the DeskStar and CinemaStar range went.

    There are indeed still HGST labelled 3.5in drives around, but I think that is mostly enterprise class stuff that they are making now.

    I would love to see a nice Venn diagram to explain exactly which bits ended up where, but I am pretty sure the DeskStar range that I expect the OP would be interested in would be a Toshiba labelled drive now.

    OTOH, if the Seagates rattled themselves apart from being in a RAID array, then paying a bit more for HGST UltraStar or WD RE (Raid Edition, not a typo of RED) might be a better bet.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by satrow View Post
    Some relatively recent data here and http://www.hardware.fr/articles/927-8/conclusion.html on HDD returns (the latest installment is due anytime soon). It looks like 3/4TB drives are returned more often than 2TB generally, some Enterprise class models don't have any returns logged.

    If you're getting recurring failures, I'd suggest checking the PSU, power cable(s) and their connectors carefully.
    Nah it isnt the PSU; the STD3000M001s have a "feature" of horrendous deathrates:

    See here: They sampled ~41000 drives.

    https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    WD Purple?

    Also, in what condition where the previous HDDs kept if they are happy to go to the silicon heaven?

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Personal experience is key with hard drives as generally they're roughly the same so it's whatever has happened to you that's important, for me I avoid seagate like the plague as I have a 2 drives die on me which is unacceptable to me.

    Western digital drives have never broke for me, still got one that is going from when I first built my own PC ha.

    What is the hdd for? The WD red I have now in my main machine is great, quiet(as humanly possible with hdd) and still performs solidly. WD blue would be next choice.

    I have 2 Hitachi / toshiba 3tb drives in my nas and they perform excellently, it's another company I'm happy to buy drives from (only one Hitachi drive died on me and it was a very old deathstar, forgiven them as of 2007). However these drives are pretty loud, the spindle speed seems rather off so that's why they're in my nas in my loft away from me, if noise was a factor I'd avoid them personally.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    I have always had mainly WD and only ever had 1 fail on me.
    Better to Burn out than Fade Away
    Check out my Youtube channel - Crispy Crisperson

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    I was talking labels rather than who made them as honestly I have no idea just which drives come from which factories, hence I said to look for both.

    AIUI Toshiba only made 2.5in drives before the deal, so any 3.5in Toshiba drives are from the old HGST factory and can for now at least be considered HGST drives with a Toshiba label on. I think that is where the DeskStar and CinemaStar range went.

    There are indeed still HGST labelled 3.5in drives around, but I think that is mostly enterprise class stuff that they are making now.

    I would love to see a nice Venn diagram to explain exactly which bits ended up where, but I am pretty sure the DeskStar range that I expect the OP would be interested in would be a Toshiba labelled drive now.

    OTOH, if the Seagates rattled themselves apart from being in a RAID array, then paying a bit more for HGST UltraStar or WD RE (Raid Edition, not a typo of RED) might be a better bet.
    Conditions wise;

    Around 20-25C Ambient; with 2x 120Mm fans in push pull over them
    Some were in raid arrays; some werent. Though I wouldnt have said they had exceptionally heavy use - maybe 20Terabytes written (AT most, likely 6-8) before they died. - Which is an exceptionally short lifespan for a 3tb Drive (tho I am aware TBW has little effect on HDDs)

    At the moment the HGSTs look tempting. - Possibly will go with 4tb drives.

    EDIT: Had another one fail today and as they are out of warranty I took them apart; both the dead drives showed heavy scratching on the top and bottom platters.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcvs View Post
    Conditions wise;

    Around 20-25C Ambient; with 2x 120Mm fans in push pull over them
    Some were in raid arrays; some werent. Though I wouldnt have said they had exceptionally heavy use - maybe 20Terabytes written (AT most, likely 6-8) before they died. - Which is an exceptionally short lifespan for a 3tb Drive (tho I am aware TBW has little effect on HDDs)

    At the moment the HGSTs look tempting. - Possibly will go with 4tb drives.

    EDIT: Had another one fail today and as they are out of warranty I took them apart; both the dead drives showed heavy scratching on the top and bottom platters.
    That is quite cold for hard drives, but should be OK. They don't like vibration though, just shouting at one can cause read errors and slow them down. The vibration of nearby drives can shake a drive apart, so raid/enterprise rated drives have uprated bearings to cope better.

    Out of interest, did you buy the Seagate drives all at the same time from the same place such that they all would have been made in the same batch? The truly paranoid buy from multiple sources.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    ... The truly paranoid buy from multiple sources.
    How do you know where I buy? Is it you that's been rummaging through my bins at night? Or you that's .... oh wait, you didn't mean me, did you?

    Or, or .... did you?

    DID YOU...??

    It's you, isn't it?

    You're the one hiding my medication, too, I bet.

    I'm going to lay down now. After I've checked for hidden cameras.


    PS. Yes, I do tend to buy from different sources.

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix View Post
    That is quite cold for hard drives, but should be OK. They don't like vibration though, just shouting at one can cause read errors and slow them down. The vibration of nearby drives can shake a drive apart, so raid/enterprise rated drives have uprated bearings to cope better.

    Out of interest, did you buy the Seagate drives all at the same time from the same place such that they all would have been made in the same batch? The truly paranoid buy from multiple sources.
    Over a period of 1-1.5 years from 6 different retailers.. (Scan, OCUK, Aria, Amazon, Novatech and NewEgg)

    They have different batch numbers and firmware for the most part.

    The one that failed today; has resized itself down to 4gb and threw ~250k read erors in 5mins .

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    Re: Recommend me some HDDs

    Quote Originally Posted by Marcvs View Post
    Over a period of 1-1.5 years from 6 different retailers.. (Scan, OCUK, Aria, Amazon, Novatech and NewEgg)

    They have different batch numbers and firmware for the most part.

    The one that failed today; has resized itself down to 4gb and threw ~250k read erors in 5mins .
    Ow, that's pretty bad. I admit I have a personal dislike for Seagate but it comes from a string of failures a couple of decades ago so I try and give them some benefit of the doubt. I do have a few Seagates in the house, but they are 5 years old ones thrown out from work after being used in test raid arrays, so enterprise drives and whilst infernally noisy seem fairly robust (and at 5 years old I don't put any data I care about on them).

    As you have taken the drive apart though, have you noticed how powerful the magnets are for the head servo? Fun things if you strip them out of the drive, but treat them with some care

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