What is the Best Hard Drive?

It was one year ago that I first blogged about the failure rates of specific models of hard drives, so now is a good time for an update.

At Backblaze, as of December 31, 2014, we had 41,213 disk drives spinning in our data center, storing all of the data for our unlimited backup service. That is up from 27,134 at the end of 2013. This year, most of the new drives are 4 TB drives, and a few are the new 6 TB drives.

Read more: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
 
Going back 35 years, in my own computer experience, I've found Seagate to be the most reliable drives, at very reasonable prices.
Although, my first 30 Megabyte HD, the Seagate ST4038, was selling back then for $799, in the Computer Shopper magazine.

Of all the HD's I've had to replace since then, the one that stands out in my mind as the most frequent to fail has been the Western Digital.
I know, some guys (probably not technicians) will swear that the WD's are just great, but as a working tech, that's not been my own experience, having to repair hundreds of PC's.
I currently have two 1TB Seagates in my own Desktop PC, as well as one Samsung 500GB as a storage drive.
And I'm currently testing Windows 10 on a Seagate SATA II, 360GB drive, that I got in a failed system.

So all in all, I have to say that my favorite brand of hard drive, after 35 years, is still the Seagate.

Cheers mates!
TechnoMage :cool:
 

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Thats funny because WD's are the only HDDs I buy now, they tend to be a little cheaper for what you get in terms of storage and performance. I haven't had a WD drive go bad on me, but I am just a home user and not an IT tech.

Some years ago I heard that Seagate suffered from bad quality control - could have been BS, could be something they have long since fixed - and I've just sort of steered clear of the brand since.
 

My Computer

System One

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    Win 8.1 Pro
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    PC/Desktop
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    Home Built
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    Intel i5-4590
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    MSI h97 PC Mate
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    Kingston Valu Ram 2 x 8 gb
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    Viewsonic 22" flat display
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    Samsung 250 gb 840 evo SSD,
    WD Blue 1 TB HD,
    Fantom 2 TB ext HD
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    stock CPU cooler, 4 x case fans, GPU fan and P/S fan
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    HP ps/2 keyboard
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    50 mb/s
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Going back 35 years, in my own computer experience, I've found Seagate to be the most reliable drives, at very reasonable prices.
Although, my first 30 Megabyte HD, the Seagate ST4038, was selling back then for $799, in the Computer Shopper magazine.

Of all the HD's I've had to replace since then, the one that stands out in my mind as the most frequent to fail has been the Western Digital.
I know, some guys (probably not technicians) will swear that the WD's are just great, but as a working tech, that's not been my own experience, having to repair hundreds of PC's.
I currently have two 1TB Seagates in my own Desktop PC, as well as one Samsung 500GB as a storage drive.
And I'm currently testing Windows 10 on a Seagate SATA II, 360GB drive, that I got in a failed system.

So all in all, I have to say that my favorite brand of hard drive, after 35 years, is still the Seagate.

Cheers mates!
TechnoMage :cool:

My laptop Seagate 250GB, which I use as my primary PC, will be 7 y/o this year, and made in China too (who would have thought)! The only HDD that I ever had failed on me was a WD desktop drive.
 

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Well my experience is that WD are good if you get a good one. If not their warranty is great. I've has good luck with Hitachi in notebook but I'm now moving to SSD With 10 year warranty's there going to be hard to complete with. I don't think I've ever had any brand of disk fail that wasn't a OS Drive Seems Data only drive just hang in there till there obsolete. Binks data is undefeatable most of us will never run a hard drive to that extant.
 

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    Asus G75VW / Z97 Pro
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    Intel Core i7-3610QM / I7-4790K
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    Z97 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Hyundai HTM315156CFR8C-PB PC3-12800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (GF114M)
    Sound Card
    VIA 6.0.10.1600
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    1080
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    Samsung 850 Pro 256, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB
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. Binks data is undefeatable most of us will never run a hard drive to that extant.

Yes, you can't argue when the sample size is that big.
 

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    Windows 8.1 with Bing x64
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    Acer Aspire ES1-512-CSYW
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    Intel Celeron N2840 @ 2.16GHz
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    Acer Aspire ES1-512 BIOS: Insyde Corps V1.07
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    4GB DDR3L SDRAM
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    Intel HD
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    10Mb/s 3 Network HSPA+
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I've been a PC "tech" for 25 years and the best drives I've ever used are the WD drives and the worst have been Seagate and the original IBM Deskstars... Quantum drives were pretty bad, too....
 

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    Home built Intel i7-3770k-based system
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    Intel i7-3770k, Overclocked to 4.6GHz (46x100) with Corsair H110i GT cooler
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    ASRock Z77 OC Formula 2.30 BIOS
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    32GB DDR3 2133 Corsair Vengeance Pro
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    GeForce GTX 980ti SC ACS 6GB DDR5 by EVGA
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    Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD, Corsair SP2500 speakers and subwoofer
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    1GBps Ethernet ports

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I'm thinking of ordering a Crucial MX100 SSD 500GB And You shouldn't use hard drives. They don't last as long as SSD's and can even crash before its life period ends. Get SSD's. It'll be worth it
 

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    Inspiron M731R (5735, Late 2013)
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    1.70 GHz AMD A8 5545M Elite Quad Core
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    8GB DDR3
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    500GB 6GB/s Crucial BX100 SSD
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I'm thinking of ordering a Crucial MX100 SSD 500GB And You shouldn't use hard drives. They don't last as long as SSD's and can even crash before its life period ends. Get SSD's. It'll be worth it

I guess brand name Is personal choice. But Samsung 10 year warranty is very hard to argue against especial when you look at how many defective drives each company has returned. I stuck with WD and Hitachi for hard drives and I'll stay with Samsung SSD for 2 reasons Quality and Great Warranty service.
I'll continue to use Hard Drives for DATA for some time. My Notebook does have a 1TB DATA drive buy my work stations will continue to use Hard drive for DATA storage.

As far as hard drives being unreliable that's a false statement, we have been using hard drives for many many years I have the computer I'm working on right now that has a replacement HD Black 1 TB yes the first one failed within the first month I had it running. The replacement has be running 24-7 since Feb 2009 mmm that 1 year more than the warranty which was 5 years
 
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My Computer

System One

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    Windows 8.1 Pro MC
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    Laptop
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    Asus G75VW / Z97 Pro
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    Intel Core i7-3610QM / I7-4790K
    Motherboard
    Z97 Pro
    Memory
    16 GB Hyundai HTM315156CFR8C-PB PC3-12800
    Graphics Card(s)
    nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (GF114M)
    Sound Card
    VIA 6.0.10.1600
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    1080
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    Samsung 850 Pro 256, Samsung 850 Pro 1TB
    Internet Speed
    30 down 3 up
    Browser
    Explorer 11
    Antivirus
    NIS and Malwarebytes
When I built my desktop PC, I payed ~ $55 for a 1TB HDD, and ~$120 for a 250GB SSD. So, by those numbers, SSD storage runs about 8x the expense of HDD storage. For desktop users, I think HDDs make perfect sense.

Could be a different story for laptops, since a certain amount of 'jostling' (bumping, dropping, etc.) is inevitable with laptops and this can cause problems for HDDs, but I don't think is a problem for SSDs
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Built
    CPU
    Intel i5-4590
    Motherboard
    MSI h97 PC Mate
    Memory
    Kingston Valu Ram 2 x 8 gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    Radeon r7 265
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Viewsonic 22" flat display
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Samsung 250 gb 840 evo SSD,
    WD Blue 1 TB HD,
    Fantom 2 TB ext HD
    PSU
    Corsair 600 W
    Case
    Antec 1
    Cooling
    stock CPU cooler, 4 x case fans, GPU fan and P/S fan
    Keyboard
    HP ps/2 keyboard
    Mouse
    Logitech Trackman Marble
    Internet Speed
    50 mb/s
    Browser
    Chrome
    Antivirus
    Norton Security Suite

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
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    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
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    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
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    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
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    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
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