I need a recommendation for a hard drive.

[Ripklawe]

As the title states, I am in need of a hard drive. I want it to be a dedicated Launchbox Drive that will only have launchbox on it or at the very least be a Launchbox majority. Does anyone have some ideas? I am looking for 7200 rpm minimum and 3Tb's is a nice size to start off.

So, whatcha got? Thanks in advance.

[Lordmonkus]

Western Digital has sort of become the standard hard drive manufacturer for most everyone.

The "black" models are more expensive but also more robust and reliable, it's what I use as my OS hard drive. The "blue" models are cheaper and reliable enough for storage and general use.

All mechanical drives of course can fail because of moving parts but overall I (and many others) have been using WD drives for years with very few failures.

[Ripklawe]

2 minutes ago, lordmonkus said:

Western Digital has sort of become the standard hard drive manufacturer for most everyone.

The "black" models are more expensive but also more robust and reliable, it's what I use as my OS hard drive. The "blue" models are cheaper and reliable enough for storage and general use.

All mechanical drives of course can fail because of moving parts but overall I (and many others) have been using WD drives for years with very few failures.

Hi Lordmonkus, thanks for the quick reply.

You think I would see a severe performance difference for Launchbox if I went with a Blue over a Black? Seems the difference is 5400rpm for Blues while Blacks are 7200rpm.

[Lordmonkus]

Nope, you shouldn't see much if any difference at all really. You aren't loading in large environments like in modern PC games.

[Ripklawe]

1 minute ago, lordmonkus said:

Nope, you shouldn't see much if any difference at all really. You aren't loading in large environments like in modern PC games.

Nice. Thank you for your help. I have a $20 off certificate at Best Buy. Think I am going to use it on a blue 2tb drive tomorrow.

Cheers!

[SentaiBrad]

I have an 8TB 5400RPM drive and it doesn't perform bad at all. So you should be good to go.

[cammelspit]

HGST Deskstar NAS drives are the only ones I will buy these days. They are faster than WDreds by FAR and are rated for 24/7 operation so in a normal PC environment they last forever. They have even been tested as the most durable drives you can buy without going into helium enterprise grade drives. I have bought a total of eight of the 4TB and two of the 8TB models. 5400RPM may not be bad for NAS systems where you have several in a ZFS pool for performance but a 7200RPM drive does make a rather big difference in seek times so you loading of games and other files will be snappier and your sustained transfer speeds will be noticeably higher. There is a reason that the only drives that have the lower spindle speed these days are NAS drives. Try copying a couple TB from one 5400RPM drive to another and then test the same with a high-quality 7200RPM drive and you will save literally a few hours on the transfer. HGST drives have also gone through a more recent price drop and can be had on Newegg for $20 cheaper than I paid for mine. ~$35 Per TB

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822146142&cm_re=hgst_8TB-_-22-146-142-_-Product

Back in my day, WD used to be the bargain basement crap you never wanted if you wanted your data to still be there the next morning when you powered your PC back on again. They are much better now since they actually bought HGST and are taking a tiny bit of their tech and using it. They are distinctly different, though, as they have to be considered separate companies due to legal concerns and so the sharing of designs and tech is not 100%. Fun fact, HGST 4TB drives are the fastest 4TB spinning consumer grade HDDs you can get and the only reason that doesn't apply to the >6TB drives is there are helium drives.  HGST are the clear better drives but cost a small bit more and I can not recommend them enough. Only get a 5400RPM drive if cost is the biggest concern with speed being a distant runner-up.   And that concludes my two cents.

[SentaiBrad]

WD has been good for the last 9 years to me, well before they bought HGST. But yea, HGST is someone that I also champion for their low failure rates and durability. That's what my 8TB drive is too (not a NAS drive though), and it's a beast. WD already costs a bit more, but then HGST usually costs a bit more than that. I say the price difference is worth it too. I will never buy another Seagate drive as long as I live, and I hope I am wrong about that, because their new series looks and sounds like it's holding up ok, but it's too early to tell. It's the same situation for me as AMD and Intel, Intel needs that push from another company (look at those recent announcements, whoa), so I don't want AMD to go away but I would still never buy an AMD.

[neil9000]

Well i just RMA'd my 5TB Seagate Expansion Desk drive today, so i would also say avoid Seagate.

[SentaiBrad]

I never have had to do that with my WD stuff. If you need to RMA, then that means the drive failed before it was supposed to. Actually, my very original 500GB WD drive is still going. I don't use it for anything important anymore for obvious reasons: It's almost 10 years old.

[neil9000]

My seagate was 8 months old and came with a two year warranty, so yeah it went back today. Only problem being is im obviously going to get a seagate replacement and im not sure if i have big enough balls to actually use it!!  

[g0d53nd]

1 hour ago, neil9000 said:

My seagate was 8 months old and came with a two year warranty, so yeah it went back today. Only problem being is im obviously going to get a seagate replacement and im not sure if i have big enough balls to actually use it!!  

Ya man, not trying to scare anyone, but I have had 3 seagates fail in 3 years, all about a year or so old only. WD still going for me in my HTPC which is going on about 5 years old now. 

 

Hopefully I am not jynxing you!

[spectral]

On 05/06/2017 at 8:05 PM, neil9000 said:

My seagate was 8 months old and came with a two year warranty, so yeah it went back today. Only problem being is im obviously going to get a seagate replacement and im not sure if i have big enough balls to actually use it!!  

To be fair every day someone somewhere will be RMAing a drive from every manufacturer. There are also the horror stories about people who have had many fail for every brand too, for products in general not specifically HDD's. You got unlucky but unless there is a specific reliability issue with the model (like the old deathstars) then I'd say use it.

[SentaiBrad]

While I agree, I do honestly hear more horror stories from Seagate drives. It's one thing to get a defective product, that can happen from anyone, anywhere, but when it's consistently Seagate that I only hear crap about, and I also have hard data to backup their failure rates, then I am led to believe their drives are not worth the money and I would rather pay the extra bit of money for peace of mind. I still have every Western Digital drive I've ever bought, and none of the Seagate ones, and I've owned several over the years.

[spectral]

True but even with the horror stories its still a massive minority of the drives they sell otherwise they would have long since gone out of business. Its also often certain models that have the high failure rates not the brand itself. Pretty sure every manufacturer have released a questionable model. But you're right, right now I wouldn't buy one. However that RMA happening so one way or the other he's getting the new drive. May aswell use it, even if its just for some game installs. The other option is waste it or sell it and it'd be even worse if he sold it and it crapped out on the buyer.

[neil9000]

7 hours ago, spectral said:

True but even with the horror stories its still a massive minority of the drives they sell otherwise they would have long since gone out of business. Its also often certain models that have the high failure rates not the brand itself. Pretty sure every manufacturer have released a questionable model. But you're right, right now I wouldn't buy one. However that RMA happening so one way or the other he's getting the new drive. May aswell use it, even if its just for some game installs. The other option is waste it or sell it and it'd be even worse if he sold it and it crapped out on the buyer.

Well the replacement drive was dispatched yesterday so time will tell on whether it holds up this time. As i said this was the second Seagate Expansion Desk in a row that has died on me, first a 2TB then this 5TB, so let's just say i am a little wary about them now.

[cammelspit]

1-year warranty. What happened was they thought they could save some money by contracting a low-grade third party to manufacture them and it backfired badly. I hear they are back to normal as long as you don't get 3TB drives but they still have the highest failure rate out of all the major HDD brands on the market so I would avoid like the plague. I have an HGST 4TB NAS drive that is now older than my son, well over 4 years now, and it is purring like a kitten. I like the NAS versions because of that million hours Mean time before failure and that is in a 24/7 server application. When you use it with a home workload, they just last for ages and that 3-year warranty can really stretch out.

I think the real problem these days is there are only two actual companies making drives, WD/HGST and Seagate. There is little reason for them to innovate and make a better drive because there is so little competition. I take the same tact with drives as I take with CPUs and video cards, I will buy the best I possibly can within my budget range so I kinda flip flop between AMD/Intel, AMD/nVidia, HGST/WD. It's just right now, you can't get a better drive, which is why I would get an HGST NAS drive. @spectral Even though you are right about failures and the worst is certain models from Seagate, they still have a higher failure rate on average above any other drive manufacturer on the market. I don't think anyone is unaware of the fact that a spinning hunk of metal with lots of moving parts will fail eventually and you will have some small percentage of premature drive failures, it just shouldn't be as bad as it is.

[neil9000]

Well i have just taken receipt of my replacement drive, hopefully this one last's a bit longer. They have also extended my warranty on it so i have another 18 months on it Up to December 10 2018, so fingers crossed. 

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, I agree, their failure rates are still much higher than anyone else's. Toshiba drives are good too, if you can still find them. I'm not sure they're making them anymore, or WD bought that as well. I have 2 Toshiba drives that are champions, an HGST drive, and the rest are WD. I have debated going with the Red drives myself, but the black ones have a high life and are faster too, so it's a toss up, but that price difference is fairly big from blue to red / black. Also above, when I said I have none of my Seagate drives anymore, I do mean they all failed.

[cammelspit]

@SentaiBrad LOL, I also have a Toshiba drive. It is only a 1TB drive but it has been in multiple machines for so long and still works so I don't have the heart to retire it yet. If I do, I will only replace it with an 8TB, the space difference would make it worth doing. I can't speak to any of the more recent models, though. I have also owned many Seagate drives in the past and every drive has failed so far long before the rated MTBF, usually just past the warranty period. I also have owned a bunch of WDs, even a few more recent ones and I tend to think of them as the middle of the road in terms of both price and reliability, still lightyears beyond Seagate for sure. My security system is currently using a 4TB WD Purple and so far it has been on and recording 8 camera streams for about a year now with pure 100% uptime so I can't complain.