Solved Which is best make / model of hard drive for my HP 15 NB

Hi,

I have been using an HP 15 Notebook for about 16 months now. Recently, Windows started "hanging" for no reason. On diagnosis with HP UEFI Diagnostics Tool on bootup, it shows Short DST Failure on my internal HDD. I believe I need to replace my hard drive, which is likely to fail soon. The one installed is an HGST one of 500Gb 5400RPM. I would like to know which hard drive model/make I should buy of same capacity, which will be more reliable. Thank you.

Cheers
Ramesh

Hitachi (or HGST) seem to still have the best (lowest) failure rates even though Hitachi is now owned by Western Digital which has one of the worst failure rates.

But if reliability is really your concern, get an SSD instead of a hard drive. With no moving parts in an SSD, reliability can be expected to be considerably longer. This is why many SSDs now come with 10 year warranties. Plus, SSDs tend to generate less heat (always good with notebooks), they consume less power (for longer battery run times) and they don't weigh near as much (very nice if you have to lug your notebook around a lot). And of course, even the slowest SSD can run circles around the fastest hard drive.

Yes, an SSD costs more, but when you spread that cost over the life of the computer, factor in the less heat and power consumption, then the significant performance gains, I feel SSDs are well worth it. Check how much free space you have left now. If you currently are consuming ~200GB or less, you can save money getting a 250GB SSD.

Regardless, and in the meantime, that error message you are getting does typically indicate the drive is failing. Therefore, you need to IMMEDIATELY back up any data you don't want to lose.

Thanks @Itaregid, for your detailed response to my query. I agree that SSDs are far better than conventional hard drives, both in performance and power-saving. But they are prohibitively expensive even now (in India). I did consider that option when my IT Admin suggested it, but chose to opt for a Seagate Momentus 500Gb HDD due to cost constraints. Besides, I normally use my laptop for about 3 years not more. So, spending too much on parts / accessories isn't cost-effective for me.
Yes, as you have confirmed too, I have backed up all my data to an external HDD as well as a 32Gb Sandisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive.
Update: Got the Recovery Media for my laptop from HP (cost me extra !) yesterday and took me over 8 hours just to get Windows 8.1 64-bit SL, and Supplementary S/w installed. Have updated all Windows Updates overnight (yes, broadband internet speeds suck in India). But, now I have another issue. Wanted to create a D: drive as in earlier HDD, by keeping 100Gb for C: drive meant only for OS & S/w installed. I always keep my own data on D: drive. But, now the system doesn't allow me to shrink C: volume to less than some 222Gb, which means I will end up with a huge (and unnecessary) 240Gb for C: drive, which I don't want.
Can you help sort this one out ? I need to restrict C; drive to just 100Gb, and allocate the rest to D: drive to store my 150Gb odd data. Thanks !

What are you using to partition the drive? I use and recommend EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition. It is free for home, non-commercial use.

Thanks Itaregid. I too used the same EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition. As Windows' built-in Disk Management didn't allow me to restrict C: partition to 100Gb used EaseUS, which did the job perfectly.

Great! Glad it worked. Thanks for posting your followup.