What is the best 2TB drive for under £70??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am looking for a replacement for my Samsung F2 1.5TB which I bought last year. Basically the SMART info is reporting the spin up time for the drive has dropped to around 61. The drive still seems fine but I think I will return it back to the DAS I had it in for secondary storage.

The drive has to be around the same speed at least,but more importantly I would prefer a drive which does not run too hot and is relatively quiet as it will be going in a SFF PC. Reliability is also important.

There is a 1.5TB 7200RPM Caviar Black HDD which I have seen but it seems to run very hot.

[kalniel]

There is a 1.5TB 7200RPM Caviar Black HDD which I have seen but it seems to run very hot.

What's your definition of very hot?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What's your definition of very hot?

40C to 50C at idle. There is not much info on the 1.5TB Caviar Black but one chap had their one idling at 46C!!!

[kalniel]

40C to 50C at idle. There is not much info on the 1.5TB Caviar Black but one chap had their one idling at 46C!!!

Did it get any hotter under load?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Did it get any hotter under load?

He did not post any more info but it was in a larger case.

I need something which runs cooler than that as it is in a SFF PC. The drives I have currently use idle at well under 40C even during the summer.

[kalniel]

He did not post any more info but it was in a larger case.

I need something which runs cooler than that as it is in a SFF PC. The drives I have currently use idle at well under 40C even during the summer.

'High' idle temperature isn't a factor for reliability, it's more the variation in temperature that affects that, according to Google's datacentre research anyway.

I have a seagate 2tb 5400rpm drive. It's fine, quietish. Sustained transfer speeds are good.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

'High' idle temperature isn't a factor for reliability, it's more the variation in temperature that affects that, according to Google's datacentre research anyway.

I have a seagate 2tb 5400rpm drive. It's fine, quietish. Sustained transfer speeds are good.

What model number is the Seagate??

BTW,I never said high temperatures meant less reliability. I have an 80GB IDE WD Caviar 7200RPM drive which is nearly 10 years old and runs very hot. It also meant that I could feel the heat through the whole case in my old Shuttle. I changed to a 160GB IDE Samsung and the system ran cooler.

However,a hotter running drive means it dumps much more heat into the case too. It also means it heats up the drive next to it. I have a 250GB Spinpoint P immediately on top of it. The F2 actually runs quite cool which is nice. However,I think I might have had a faulty drive from the beginning as it used to sometimes freeze with very file large transfers using e-sata when I first bought it but the SMART data was fine. It was fine with USB2 though. I only decided to move it over to the current system from the DAS recently(last week) and checked the SMART data again. I got it from Microdirect so I suspect I might as well forget about a replacement!

[kalniel]

Barracuda green (ST2000DL003). 64mb cache and 5900rpm (slightly up from 5400, sorry).
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.js...D&locale=en-US

[phurbs]

For what it's worth, I have 4x2TB Western Digital (Model: WD20EARS) in my NAS and they all run at 28ish idle and 36ish under load.

That said, those temps are with an uprated fan. Using the crappy/loud standard fan, the temps were maybe 5 degrees higher, especially idle.

[peterb]

I have a server with both a Samsung and a WD drive in it, and the Samsung runs about 7 to 10 degrees cooler than the WD.

[danbt]

Samsung drives are getting a lot of good press. Thanks guys, looks like Ive found a hard drive to order!

[WESSIE]

Wow, Samsung 2Tb drive is now £71 at Scan - bought my last one for £48 in June!

[Tim_UK1]

can only see the prices going up more - if you are going to need one before christmas I would pay the £70 odd now.

not much on the news here but the flooding in thailand (birthplace of most hard drives) is really bad - have a look at the w/digital place in the pic below - stick in www instead of xxx!

xxx.thisismynext.com/2011/10/22/world-hard-drive-shortage-predicted-floodi/

[Saracen]

What is the best 2TB drive for under £70??

How effective is cooling in your SFF case, and what type of environment is that case in?

Could you, for instance, be affecting temps by where that case is located, or could you improve air flow by changing fans?

What I'm getting at is that, as I'm sure you know, the temp of any drive is affected by the ambient temperature around it (as heat transfers from warm to cold and the bigger the differential the larger the transfer).

If you've got the case in a place with limited airflow, can you (within the bounds of convenience and aesthetics) move it to give better airflow? Or improve airflow and decrease case internal temps?

If so, you might be able to get away with drives that you might otherwise be put off of, like the Caviar Black. Also, of course, be cautious about what other people report on such temps because unless you know the environment, or have a large body of people saying it, high drive temps could be down to ambient air temp or poor case cooling in their system.

As for drives, I can't really help. I'm currently using Caviar Blues without any problems, but they're in an Antec 1200, which is not exactly SFF and has fans giving more lift than the average helicopter. I swear if they all ran at full speed, I'd spend most of my time chasing my PC round the room trying to catch it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I should have mentioned I got a Samsung F4EG 2TB last week for around £53. There is no active cooling for the hard drives which is the same for all Shuttle cases. However,the case is alumnium which does help a bit.

Temperature is around 29C ATM but of course the weather is colder now.

As mentioned in post 13 hard drive prices will be high for a while:

http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/...ew-months.html

[errata]

Current stupid prices are mostly due to FUD fear uncertainty and doubt

Nobody really knows how quickly the issues will be resolved either by measures in thailand or moving to other suppliers. In this window substantial stockists will have a windfall at first then have to respond to continuing demand.

Things will take a week or two to shake out