Storage Solutions New hard drive selection confusion

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vyral_143

vyral_143

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Hello pals,

I need total of 2TB of internal storage. To minimize risk of data loss in case of HDD failure i m considering 4 drives of 500GB.

Already I m using WD blue 500 GB (september 2008purchase) and 1TB Green drive(april 2009 purchase). I m satisfied with Blue drive but Green drive is showing some jhols. It is detected in BIOS and can be seen when PC is started but in couple of mins it would disappear. :annoyed:
Hence for now I need total 2TB of new HDD space.

I need most reliable drives to avert data loss.

Open to suggestions of different types. Few things might help while suggesting 1) Around 1200GB of data is used ocassionaly only and 2) For system drive I m having a 60GB SSD 3) In my mind image of WD is better than Seagate because I dint have to RMA WD drive in last 6-7 years, which might be just an illusion 4) In current product line of WD i m inclined towards WD Black drives but totally clueless of their reliability or failure rate.:unsure:

PS: in my mind I was thinking to get 4 x WD black 500GB drives but not able to find any.

Any self experience with this type of situation will also be helpful.

Tagging @ALPHA17
 
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vyral_143 said:
Already I m using WD blue 500 GB (september 2008purchase) and 1TB Green drive(april 2009 purchase). I m satisfied with Blue drive but Green drive is showing some jhols. It is detected in BIOS and can be seen when PC is started but in couple of mins it would disappear. :annoyed:
Hence for now I need total 2TB of new HDD space.

I need most reliable drives to avert data loss.
Click to expand...

Green drives are notorious and there are certain batches which show exacerbated symptoms of failure.

Firstly I suggest that you use a S.M.A.R.T. detection application like HD Sentinel / Crystal Disk Info and find out how is the health of both your drives. Depending on that, save the requisite data on the drive with better health statistics and RMA the other one (if covered under warranty).

Hard Disk Sentinel - HDD health and temperature monitoring / CrystalDiskInfo - Software - Crystal Dew World.

Finally about hard-drive failure, there is no hard and fast rule although Black edition drives should be less prone to failure, I suggest that you look at TB sized drives as too many drives means higher power draw (per-drive). Look at Seagate's Barracuda 7200.14 series, Western Digital's Blue edition drives and Black edition drives if the premium is acceptable to you; because real-world performance will be uniform on all drives when stacked against each other.

Hope this helps. Cheerio!
 
If Black drives offer most reliability among all I can pay premium demanded for quality.
Also from where i can get them at decent price ?

Ever WD returns Black drive in RMA of green drive ?
 
vyral_143 said:
Ever WD returns Black drive in RMA of green drive ?
Click to expand...

Yes, they sometimes do.. I got a 1TB black WD10FALS HDD in return to rma of my 1TB Wd10eads HDD,... but the black drive they sent was again returned back due to certain problem! So always expect the unexpected! ;)
 
^ I do see the point in 'Not putting all the eggs in one single Grand basket'.
Very rare to see somebody going in for a 500 x 4 HDD to reduce the amount of data loss.. and i think its commendable.
 
^but as vivek mentioned, why not raid 1??
saves power. probably cheaper and most reliable. if even one 500gb fails, he looses that data, but if one drive in the raid array fails, he has a complete backup
 
^ That depends on whether the person is aware of RAID, and secondly.. how comfortable he/she would be later on handling it.
If its an option which one can consider.. surely yes.
 
I m open to RAID, feeling its not big complex deal to do. But 2TB black drives are costing a bomb at 10.3K per drive, hence doin RAID will cost me around 20.5K which is way out ofmy budget. Max I can stretch is around 14K.I m aware that 4 x 500GB is rare combo. But i felt its a safest combo when RAID is not affordable to me.Still open to suggestions. Minimum cost found of Black 1TB is 5491 and that of 2TB is 10266, bothat Flipkart.
 
vyral_143 said:
Minimum cost found of Black 1TB is 5491 and that of 2TB is 10266, bothat Flipkart.
Click to expand...

What are the prices for the same hard-drives on street? There will be a neat difference in the pricing and I think you will be capable of grabbing two Western Digital Blue's / Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB drives under ~15000/- (again speculating here).

Due to the manufacturing process getting mature over-time I doubt that you will 500 GB Black edition drives in circulation. Most chances they have been phased out in favour of the larger capacity drives.
 
You dont need to get WD Black's if you're open to raid. You don't require raid to duplicate contents on two drives in the first place. Just get a free program to synchronize files across drives and you're good to go. I'd suggest you to get the 2TB WD Red NAS drives. They have a good track record.

edit: i searched online and didn't find anyone selling the red drives. i know for sure someone here on TE had put up these red drives in showoff section though.
 
I am still reluctant to go for a Seagate drive. Also WD Black is in consideration for 5 years warranty period, though performance not significantly different from Blue drives. Please correct me if I m wrong somewhere.
 
vyral_143 said:
Also WD Black is in consideration for 5 years warranty period, though performance not significantly different from Blue drives. Please correct me if I m wrong somewhere.
Click to expand...

Absolutely true, the real-world performance of the two 7200RPM drives will be more-less the same. If you really feel investing in a Black Edition drive is worth it, please go ahead but do not factor that = less chances of failing guarantee.
 
I tried today to troubleshoot my HDDs. 500GB one is running fine and its health n SMART status is excellent in HD Sentinel but issue is with 1TB one. It gets detected in BIOS only when I reconnect cables to it. But by the time I boot its gayab. I m scared of data loss.:scared14:

In case this is jhol and HDD needs to RMAd how do i get my data ?
 
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