Storage Solutions Best HDD Type for Desktop Storage

[axis.meister]

Not enough votes in so far.

To my surprise WD Blue has most votes at 5, with Seagate 7200 and WD Green with 3 each.
As far as I know the largest Blue drive is 1TB, so it doesn't really cut it as a storage drive. Dual purpose as boot+storage if you are on a shoestring budget ... yes sure. They also have the same warranty as Green = 2years.

Seeing the link provided by Eddy, HGST Deskstar looks like a real good option so I am separating it from Toshiba+Others in the poll

Update: Damn I cant update an existing option. So added Toshiba/Other as last option, but the second-last option looks weird now at HGST Deskstar/Toshiba/Other

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Hitachi's 3.5" HDD business is now owned by Toshiba (2.5" HDD business is with WD). Most likely the current Toshiba drives are just Deskstar rebadges, but can't be certain.
Can't find much info about the RMA process for Toshiba HDDs in India - does anyone have any clue?

 

[Rickyk]

^Possibly Rashi does.

http://www.rptechindia.com/Services.aspx

 

[dissel]

As Of now I thought WD are the best and getting impression all over the net that if any one can able to grab WD Red drives then they are safe.

After reading the 1st Black Blaze Blog Link, My thought was any 3TB is strict no no and 4TB is the way to go which is WD Red 4TB - but that change the last link where Black Blaze recommend Seagate 4TB are the best acording to their usage as well HGST.

Now I'm quite confused....

Is it wise to go for 4TB Seagate Backup Plus external drive ? such as this (instead WD Red 4TB) ?

http://www.flipkart.com/seagate-bac...rage_internalharddrive_&ppid=IHDE2GJTU7BSZUGS

 

[Mr.J]

I have WD Black HDDs but I'd go with Red if I can afford them.

No idea about Purple though. How are those?

 

[msankadi]

I am also looking for a storage extension option...somehow while searching prices I found that the 4tb external hard disks are much better priced and many options as well...they seem to have 3 years warranty vs 2 years for the internal hard disks...are there any specific advantages to buy the internal hdd since looking at these I am inclining towards an external hdd instead...

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

Hitachi's 3.5" HDD business is now owned by Toshiba ... Most likely the current Toshiba drives are just Deskstar rebadges

Correcting myself, it looks like only some 3.5" lines were sold to Toshiba.
A list of which drives are Hitachi rebadges : http://rml527.blogspot.ca/2010/12/hdd-platter-database-toshiba-35.html
Only the 1TB and below drives are actual Hitachi rebadges, and none of those are mentioned in the backblaze article. Some are 'Hitachi designed', but it's anyone's guess how those will be.

4TB is the way to go which is WD Red 4TB - but that change the last link where Black Blaze recommend Seagate 4TB are the best acording to their usage as well HGST.

They explained that as a backup storage company, they have to go with drives that offer the best price per GB. The WD drives (and Red series in particular) came at a much higher premium, so they either did not buy those drives or the ones they bought were too few to actually derive any results from.

Is it wise to go for 4TB Seagate Backup Plus external drive ?

Their recommendation is for a specific 4TB Seagate model. I don't think you can apply their findings to all 4TB Seagates, unless the external drives are using the same drive.

 

[axis.meister]

Correcting myself, it looks like only some 3.5" lines were sold to Toshiba.
A list of which drives are Hitachi rebadges : http://rml527.blogspot.ca/2010/12/hdd-platter-database-toshiba-35.html
Only the 1TB and below drives are actual Hitachi rebadges, and none of those are mentioned in the backblaze article. Some are 'Hitachi designed', but it's anyone's guess how those will be.


They explained that as a backup storage company, they have to go with drives that offer the best price per GB. The WD drives (and Red series in particular) came at a much higher premium, so they either did not buy those drives or the ones they bought were too few to actually derive any results from.


Their recommendation is for a specific 4TB Seagate model. I don't think you can apply their findings to all 4TB Seagates, unless the external drives are using the same drive.

Well the HGST website lists the Deskstar, the NAS series, and megascale 3.5" drives in the product section. And the Wikipedia entry says its a company wholly owned by WD and it was decided to retain HGST as a seperate competing brand. Then it goes on to say that based on regulator suggestions HGST divested in Toshiba. I really dont know what that all is supposed to mean

Now as per the backblaze article, the worst drives seem to be Barracuda 3TB 7200.14 and WD Red 6TB, closely followed by WD Red 3TB and Barracuda 1.5TB 7200.11.
I say the WD Red drives look bad because they havent even been used for a year and already the failure rates are at 6.9 and 3.1.

Now for the practical perspective, anyone here using HGST Deskstars or WD Reds?[DOUBLEPOST=1428382357][/DOUBLEPOST]

I have WD Black HDDs but I'd go with Red if I can afford them.

No idea about Purple though. How are those?

Your Statement doesnt make any sense. Blacks cost more than Reds.

 

[Mr.J]

Your Statement doesnt make any sense. Blacks cost more than Reds.

Well, when I bought them, the opposite was true. Mostly because Reds were new and unavailable in India.

 

[booo]

the choice f hdd depends on lot of factors. things like amount of storage, type of usage, filesystem etc... for example, you want the hdd to store things like videos and photos (archival stuff) then build a raid 1 with wd greens. if you want very fast storage for things like installing games etc... go for wd blacks (or any other drive which has higher speed and more cache). if you want to use file systems like zfs or btrfs then go for hybrid raid with an ssd (these filesystems know how to use it).

if you want the ultimate extreme storage without any compromises, then go for non volatile memory. (basically flash storage on pci bus which can hit upto a million iops)

Using a raid card like LSI megaraid with onboard cache with super caps also helps the throughput.

 

[rdst_1]

I have been using external HDDs to store all my data. One of my Seagate 3TB is over 2.5 years old so decided to buy a new WD 4TB My Book Essential. Transferred over all the data and then after 2 months it failed. The Seagate meanwhile is working flawlessly. Ended up losing all my collected TV Series. I was wondering if we can employ BR drives as cheap duplicate storage to complement these external hard drives.
I remember that I used to buy DVDs for Rs. 7 each during the days of aXXo and those DVDs are still working fine.

 

[ithehappy]

I still use DVDs to store my downloaded movies and all that. They are reliable, I don't know how long they will keep the data intact, but it's been almost 8-9 years and there's absolutely no problem. Most DVDs are Sony and rest are MoserBaer or something like that.

I do NOT trust these external hard drives. My Transcend lost around 100 gigs of data just few weeks ago, and I will jump from a short height building before trusting Seagate. One or two Seagate has been running okay doesn't mean that they are not the most failure prone drives out there, be it internal or external.

So get the WD Blue or if your data are really important then get the Hitachi, cause they are the most reliable.

 

[axis.meister]

I will jump from a short height building before trusting Seagate.

So get the WD Blue or if your data are really important then get the Hitachi, cause they are the most reliable.

Literally LOL'd at your statement about Seagate.

Are you using Hitachi Drives? And doesnt storing a large amount of DVDs get cumbersome? I have over a 1000 DVDs with me, because I have kept every DVD/CD I ever bought. I am slowly transferring all the data from the DVDs onto my WD externals because it is difficult to even search for specific data when you have a large amount of disks. One 4TB HDD can store about the same data as a 1000 DVDs, and it would take much more physical space to store those 1000 DVDs. I get your point about shelf life, but you could replace the HDDs every 3-4 years with higher capacity disks.

Personally I prefer HDDs cos it is much better than getting pestered by the wife over the amount of space my DVDs take up in the cupboard

 

[ithehappy]

Well who likes to store a lot of DVDs mate? I mean I too have at least 500-600 of them (not one thousand), I have kept them safe, in those plastic rounded baskets (which usually come with one hundred pack), and some are in bags, but the inside of the bags are peeled off, so that's bad, needed to pour some power or something. The thing is, as I said with reliability, those movies and games or shows I have stored in those DVDs, well they don't mean anything, but I downloaded them even when my net speed was 512 kbps, so I don't want to lose them, and as I said, my Transcend has lost 100 gigs of data, so I can't trust that. My first Seagate stopped running after one and a half year, so lost all the data of that drive, my current Seagate is almost dying too, it comes back and goes in Windows, this one is pretty old though, more than three years or something.

I don't own a Hitachi now, but my next drive will be a Hitachi, or maybe just another WD Black. However I had a 80 GB Hitachi, which was bought with my second desktop, that Pentium 4 HT era, and the hard drive was sold to the person who took the rig. It was back in 2007, when the HDD was bought, and that person called just few months ago, the hard drive is still working, so how long is that? 8+ years. Then again, my very first Samsung 40 GB hard drive, which was bought with my very first desktop back in 2003, is still working, how long is that? 12 years and running.

Anyone says Seagate makes good drives should simply bugger off and need to check facts, unless they are storing porn in those. This doesn't mean there aren't exceptions as I said before, so if your luck is there then go on, get a Seagate, but me, well you know what I'd do

It's my time to move to those dual layer DVDs I think, cause nowadays the movies are around 15-18 gigs and writing that to four DVDs or more is simply very weird. I wish those BluRay discs were of less cost

 

[rdst_1]

Well who likes to store a lot of DVDs mate? I mean I too have at least 500-600 of them (not one thousand), I have kept them safe, in those plastic rounded baskets (which usually come with one hundred pack), and some are in bags, but the inside of the bags are peeled off, so that's bad, needed to pour some power or something. The thing is, as I said with reliability, those movies and games or shows I have stored in those DVDs, well they don't mean anything, but I downloaded them even when my net speed was 512 kbps, so I don't want to lose them, and as I said, my Transcend has lost 100 gigs of data, so I can't trust that. My first Seagate stopped running after one and a half year, so lost all the data of that drive, my current Seagate is almost dying too, it comes back and goes in Windows, this one is pretty old though, more than three years or something.

I don't own a Hitachi now, but my next drive will be a Hitachi, or maybe just another WD Black. However I had a 80 GB Hitachi, which was bought with my second desktop, that Pentium 4 HT era, and the hard drive was sold to the person who took the rig. It was back in 2007, when the HDD was bought, and that person called just few months ago, the hard drive is still working, so how long is that? 8+ years. Then again, my very first Samsung 40 GB hard drive, which was bought with my very first desktop back in 2003, is still working, how long is that? 12 years and running.

Anyone says Seagate makes good drives should simply bugger off and need to check facts, unless they are storing porn in those. This doesn't mean there aren't exceptions as I said before, so if your luck is there then go on, get a Seagate, but me, well you know what I'd do

It's my time to move to those dual layer DVDs I think, cause nowadays the movies are around 15-18 gigs and writing that to four DVDs or more is simply very weird. I wish those BluRay discs were of less cost

If we were to buy Blurays from China, we can get them for as low as Rs. 13 each.

 

[nRiTeCh]

Well who likes to store a lot of DVDs mate? I mean I too have at least 500-600 of them (not one thousand), I have kept them safe, in those plastic rounded baskets (which usually come with one hundred pack), and some are in bags, but the inside of the bags are peeled off, so that's bad, needed to pour some power or something. The thing is, as I said with reliability, those movies and games or shows I have stored in those DVDs, well they don't mean anything, but I downloaded them even when my net speed was 512 kbps, so I don't want to lose them, and as I said, my Transcend has lost 100 gigs of data, so I can't trust that. My first Seagate stopped running after one and a half year, so lost all the data of that drive, my current Seagate is almost dying too, it comes back and goes in Windows, this one is pretty old though, more than three years or something.

I don't own a Hitachi now, but my next drive will be a Hitachi, or maybe just another WD Black. However I had a 80 GB Hitachi, which was bought with my second desktop, that Pentium 4 HT era, and the hard drive was sold to the person who took the rig. It was back in 2007, when the HDD was bought, and that person called just few months ago, the hard drive is still working, so how long is that? 8+ years. Then again, my very first Samsung 40 GB hard drive, which was bought with my very first desktop back in 2003, is still working, how long is that? 12 years and running.

Anyone says Seagate makes good drives should simply bugger off and need to check facts, unless they are storing porn in those. This doesn't mean there aren't exceptions as I said before, so if your luck is there then go on, get a Seagate, but me, well you know what I'd do

It's my time to move to those dual layer DVDs I think, cause nowadays the movies are around 15-18 gigs and writing that to four DVDs or more is simply very weird. I wish those BluRay discs were of less cost

Again I will say it goes all by your experience. I have been using Seagates since my first pc in yr 2k. In fact 80% of my drives have been Seagates.
Started using Samsung and Maxtors since yr 2k5-6. They too rocked like anything. But sadly I blowed the samsungs and Maxtors with my own mistakes...while trying to connect them in a dark room.

In 2k9 bought another set of Seagate 500gb*2. New ones.
In 2k10 bought WD blue. Used one.
2k11 Hitachi. Used one
And 2k14 Toshiba. Used one

I use my drives for all purposes- dumping data randomly, store music, vids, games, ISOs, torrent stuff and what not. But I make it a point to sort and arrange all my dumped data properly from time-time.
And no I don't defrag or do any such thing.

In fact still lots of my friends got their Seagates as old as 9+ yrs 80-160gb still going strong. I still got a 40gb Seagate which is 13yr old. Retired it in 2k13. Still works good.

It depends how you use your drives and in what environment.

You give me any drive and i'll make sure it works good for next 4yrs with me.

 

[dissel]

Well...

I'm nearing 2000 (total) to Single Layer 4.7gb DVD with 8.5gb DVD here and there...and now searching/getting anything from them are almost impossible. Some of them are stored in the CD Bags (and the bags are now hard to find) so they are stored DVD cake box (container that come with).

My Internal drive history : 3.5"
1.Samsung 40GB PATA (2001) - Dead.
2.Samsung 80GB PATA (2003) - Not sure it is Dead or not - Lying unused
3.Seagate 160 GB (2005) Dead
4.Seagate 250 GB (2006) - Running with lot of noise - OS Boot Drive
3.WD Green 500 GB (2009) - Running peacefully.
4.Seagate 1TB (2010) - Dead Last year.
4.WD Blue 1TB (Jan 2015) - OS boot Drive (replacement for above)

My External Drive History : 2.5" (USB Powered)
1.Seagate Free Agent Go - 320GB (2008 -09) - Running without enclosure.
2.-----SAME------- 500GB (2010) - Backup as Time Machine
3. Seagate Free Agent Go Flex - 500GB (2011) - Running
4. ADATA 1 TB (2012) - Running (Normal Backup)
5. Verbatim 1 TB (2013) - USB 3.0 (Moving Stuff around) - Running
6. ADATA 2 TB (2014) - USB 3.0 Running. (Normal Secondary Backup)

7. Vantec NexStar HDD Dock - 500 GB 2.5" Hitachi Drive from my Dead Laptop with bad sector. (Additional 3rd Backup Drive).

I'm looking for single large 4TB reliable HDD to replace some of these.

 

[ithehappy]

You give me any drive and i'll make sure it works good for next 4yrs with me.

This is a very stupid statement, for anything, be it technical or non technical, I will have to say.

And no, my personal experience with Seagate doesn't count here. What counts is the technical data.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

The thing is, I don't understand why people get Seagate drives, are they cheap or what? By how much percentage? 10% if not less? The question is how much value one's data has, if you don't care about your data then go on buy Seagate, buy even worse brands if those exist. But more or less everyone knows that WD and Hitachi drives are more reliable than Seagates, yet people buy them. I am sorry my money is more than hard earned to try my luck with that, it's already trying luck with even WD or Hitachi, let alone something like Seagate.[DOUBLEPOST=1428791019][/DOUBLEPOST]

If we were to buy Blurays from China, we can get them for as low as Rs. 13 each.

LOL I guess shipping will be more than those discs' rate

 

[rdst_1]

This is a very stupid statement, for anything, be it technical or non technical, I will have to say.

And no, my personal experience with Seagate doesn't count here. What counts is the technical data.

View attachment 56290

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

The thing is, I don't understand why people get Seagate drives, are they cheap or what? By how much percentage? 10% if not less? The question is how much value one's data has, if you don't care about your data then go on buy Seagate, buy even worse brands if those exist. But more or less everyone knows that WD and Hitachi drives are more reliable than Seagates, yet people buy them. I am sorry my money is more than hard earned to try my luck with that, it's already trying luck with even WD or Hitachi, let alone something like Seagate.[DOUBLEPOST=1428791019][/DOUBLEPOST]
LOL I guess shipping will be more than those discs' rate [emoji14]

I just lost a brand new WD My Book and that too just after I had transferred over all the data from my older Seagate external drive. So I think we can agree that there is no right answer to this problem. Earlier I was contemplating buying 4TB WD Reds and putting them in a 4-Drive External enclosure, but now I really think bluray is the way to go this time. And shipping is usually included in those prices on Aliexpress. Catch is one has to buy around 500-1000 pieces to get that price. Still worth a shot.

 

[Crazy_Eddy]

I like how everyone's confidently talking about Hitachi, except addressing the main issue - where do you get these drives in India?

Indians prefer WD drives for one main reason - "I have up for sale a brand new RMAd WD/Corsair/insert-other-brand-that-offers-new-replacements".

And no, my personal experience with Seagate doesn't count here. What counts is the technical data.

Then you might want to check their latest technical data from 2015. Also check the table where the majority of their drives are Seagates. And finally the conclusion where they recommend the Seagate 4TB (ST4000DM000). I'm not saying Seagate is great, but deciding based on brand instead of evaluating each model is a poor approach.