Which hard drive should you buy?



I get this question all the time. Of course, the answer is never definitive, and depends on all sorts of things, but there’s a new analysis from data storage/backup firm Backblaze that talks about the reliability of their hard drives in 2015. It’s a very broad analysis: by the end of the year, they had 56,224 hard drives in use.
Highlights:

• HGST, in general, had the lowest failure rate.
• Seagate’s 1.5 TB drive has problems, the 3 TB model ST3000DM001 was so bad (28.34% failure rate) that it was retired in 2015, but its 4 TB and larger drives do well, with an average 3% failure rate per year.
• Western Digital’s 2 TB and 3 TB drives aren’t particularly reliable, but the 4 TB drive has high reliability.

For precise model numbers (which are important), you can read the report.
This comment seems to sum up where things stand for those who need to store a lot of data:

All of the 4TB drives have acceptable failure rates, but we’ve purchased primarily Seagate drives. Why? The HGST 4TB drives, while showing exceptionally low failure rates, are no longer available having been replaced with higher priced, higher performing models. The readily available and highly competitive price of the Seagate 4TB drives, along with their solid performance and respectable failure rates, have made them our drive of choice.
A relevant observation from our Operations team on the Seagate drives is that they generally signal their impending failure via their SMART stats. Since we monitor several SMART stats, we are often warned of trouble before a pending failure and can take appropriate action. Drive failures from the other manufacturers appear to be less predictable via SMART stats.​

Just in case you haven’t priced them lately, Newegg sells the HGST H3IKNAS40003272SN 4 TB for $159, the Seagate ST4000DM000 4 TB for $122, and the Western Digital Red WD40EFRX for $150. If you want an external drive, look here, and pay attention to the ratings.

Source
askwoody.com

 

Last edited: Feb 22, 2016

Great and appreciated info mate. I see you are in Italy like me, did you buy anything from Newegg, and if so, what about shipping quality and vat payment?

 

@Pereira

Newegg is not in my dealers list but I trust it for technical info. I think there are mates which can help you better than me about quality and prices (Vat is 22% for Italy...sigh).

 

I know, unfortunately, I was referring to its payment formality, in case.....
Thanks anyway

 

Seagate ST3000DM001 (Three TBs) I can confirm it's complete crap, it took two weeks before starting making weird noises (plock, plock) when I tried to access it.

 

western digital 5TB green failed on me after 6 months!

 

I used Backblaze https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/ to help me determine which hard drives would replace my Seagate DM001's. I chose to cannibalize 8 of these http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GDriveG1-3TB which have HGST hard drives in them. Couldnt be happier knowing when my Seagates die (3 already have) I'll have proper backup drives with low failure rates...

 

At this point, I am seriously thinking to purchase the 1TB version of this:



It is super small, USB-C and the price is at the moment on the pricey side, but with a little effort it's "buyable"

www.amazon.de/dp/B01AAKZRMK/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl

 

Western Digital Black Drives....

 

I've had issues with Maxtor and Seagate drives.

Now, WD Black, so far so good.

Long time I haven't bought a HDD. HGST, Toshiba and Samsung drives seem interesting.

 

Last edited: Feb 22, 2016

Stay away from anything green and eco,no matter which company,just dont do it.

 

1 tb WD Black, best choice for me, fast, reliable only a little bit noisy

 

what are your thoughts about seagate archive 8tb reliability ? it is quite cheap here in Greece 233 euros ,
and im in need of backup due to the 3tb seagate suicide model , it still works but im afraid it might die....
i am considering also the 6 tb wd black but is quite expensive at 330 euros...

 

I've only ever had problems with Seagate mechanical drives and first gen SSDs.

Never had problems with any WD, Samsung, Hitachi/IBM/Toshiba. Oh and even my IBM 60gxp "deathstar" worked perfectly running for about 5-6 years until I no longer had space for it (often used constantly as a torrent drive).

It might be a luck of the draw type thing, but I've never liked Seagate drives since they tended to be much more noisy (head seeking noise is the worst!).

There's a long list of defunct manufacturers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_hard_disk_manufacturers

 

Give a chance to Toshiba and HGST HDDs. I've been looking for an alternative to unreliable Seagate drives lately and went with Toshiba. It seems like an excellent choice so far. Of course the same old rule still applies [at least for me] - buying only one platter HDDs, which means up to 1TB drives now. Two platters at the most.

 

In my experience Seagate drives are the most unrealiable, no matter if we're talking about laptop, desktop of external drives. WD Blue are a bit better and WD Black are very good. Samsung HDDs are fine and their SSDs are great! I have a budget Toshiba "Canvio" 1 TB ext. HDD and it is alright, if a bit slow at writing. Back in Windows Vista days I had a desktop HGST that lasted 5 years of constant use and it never failed, I just got rid it.