Is WD really that much better than Seagate?

[FoxxyRin]

My dad worked at Seagate for years, and had a lot to do with the initial Barracuda lines way back when they launched, so I kind of fangirl over Seagate typically. My Seagate external drive has lasted me for nearly 6 years, and it's the only HDD I've bought that wasn't pre-installed in a system (just now to the point in my life where I can choose a PC over a laptop). Well, I'm about to be buying two HDDs (upgrading my boyfriend's PC as well as buying my own), and right now my current plan is to go with the Seagate SSHDs (one standard 2TB, and one 2.5" 1TB). However, I see so many people in various forums that will instantly jump on someone who plans to buy a Seagate, and tell them "You need a Western Digital Black instead! Seagates just die in a month!" How true is this really? When I look at reviews, they seem to be about on par with how many people complain about failures, but I'm really not sure if this is all a case of bandwagoning, or if Seagates really are that bad.

 

Also, as a bonus question, will an SSHD add much performance in storage situations? I know they make a decent difference with boot times compared to a traditional HDD, but I'm planning to get SSDs for my boot/applications drive, so I don't know how much I'd realistically benefit with the SSHD over a standard HDD.

 

EDIT: Thank you guys for the help and discussions. I'm likely going to go ahead and switch my plans from Seagate and go over to Western Digital. They just seem to be a smarter choice in the end. ♥

[comicsansms]

Seagates are fine and WDs are fine.

I wouldn't get a Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, Maxtor or Quantum, just because I have never experienced them.

[Paralectic]

Western Digital has fewer failure rates than Seagate, that's it.

[Nexxus]

I cant say I have exprence with SSHDs but the general consensus ive gathered is they are dumb and not to bother.

As for SG over WD I prefer WD cause its easier with their naming system to know the "grade" of drive im getting.

[WereCat]

Not really. I would just avoid 1.5TB and 3TB Seagate drives as they tend to have most fail rates.

[sobe]

Seagate simply tend to have a higher failure rate than comparable HGST or WD drives, but your chance of failure when buying a drive is really low. If going for reliability HGST/Hitachi, the WD sub-brand, seems to have the highest reliability according to BackBlaze and Seagate had the highest failure rate.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/

 

I'm partial to WD myself, but I've picked up some HGST drives as of late and have had no issues. For me personally, a long time ago I purchased some Seagate drives and while the RMA process was relatively painless, they kept dying on me, regardless of Seagate's willingness to keep replacing drives. It was only for 2 of the 4 Seagate drives that I had to RMA several times, but it left a sour taste in my mouth and I've just had great luck with WD and Hitachi over the years.

[DJESMOND]

I have had a Seagate SSHD a few years back and it served me quite well. However in my current rig i went for WD Blacks. I never experienced any problems with Seagate, but WD has a really good rep and their drives are really reliable. But in the end i don't think it will matter all that much. Only the speed and the capacity.

[SeanAngelo]

My dad worked at Seagate for years, and had a lot to do with the initial Barracuda lines way back when they launched, so I kind of fangirl over Seagate typically. My Seagate external drive has lasted me for nearly 6 years, and it's the only HDD I've bought that wasn't pre-installed in a system (just now to the point in my life where I can choose a PC over a laptop). Well, I'm about to be buying two HDDs (upgrading my boyfriend's PC as well as buying my own), and right now my current plan is to go with the Seagate SSHDs (one standard 2TB, and one 2.5" 1TB). However, I see so many people in various forums that will instantly jump on someone who plans to buy a Seagate, and tell them "You need a Western Digital Black instead! Seagates just die in a month!" How true is this really? When I look at reviews, they seem to be about on par with how many people complain about failures, but I'm really not sure if this is all a case of bandwagoning, or if Seagates really are that bad.

 

Also, as a bonus question, will an SSHD add much performance in storage situations? I know they make a decent difference with boot times compared to a traditional HDD, but I'm planning to get SSDs for my boot/applications drive, so I don't know how much I'd realistically benefit with the SSHD over a standard HDD.

Seagates are fine. But they have a higher fail rate compared to WD.

 

Personally, I don't go for Seagate products as I have had previous products from them fail on my within the last 5 years or so. So personally, I tend to go for WD.

[Bob Jim]

Seagates are fine and WDs are fine.

I wouldn't get a Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, Maxtor or Quantum, just because I have never experienced them.

Hitachi are owned by WD and have a lower failure rate than WD. Toshiba is slightly worse than Seagate.

[Mujteba]

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/

My God, people need to stop referencing this so-called "study". It barely gives any details on the methodology used for testing and has been discredited so many times. Linus even crapped all over it on the WAN show many months back. 

[FoxxyRin]

I cant say I have exprence with SSHDs but the general consensus ive gathered is they are dumb and not to bother.

As for SG over WD I prefer WD cause its easier with their naming system to know the "grade" of drive im getting.

 

I've heard they're kind of a dumb gimmick as well, but Linus seemed to have good things to say about them in a video, and I've seen a few comparisons with Win7 boot times on SSD vs HDD vs SSHD, and the SSHD landed in the middle. Like I said, though, I plan to get an SSD for my boot drive, and I'm really unsure if for other general uses, if it would be a noticeable difference.

 

Also, since you seem to understand, what order do the drives go in terms of performance? I'm wanting to get a 2TB standard HDD for around $100, and the biggest, best 1TB 2.5" drive for around the same. One downside to WD I've noticed is the fact that they don't offer anything larger than 750GB for a 2.5" drive.

[Grrizz]

Seagate had a bad run particularly with their 3TB range which really tarnished their image, I hear their 4TB drives are very good though (better than WD) its just when it comes to something that stores large amounts of your data a bad track record doesn't instill confidence.

As much as I am very tempted to try their 4TB drives I personally had about a 50% failure rate on their 1TB drives over a 2-3 year period, add to that the 3TB troubles and it just makes me think why risk it when WD is an option.

On the flip side WD greens are also supposed to be pretty terrible.

[TheMcSame]

Seagate is fine tbh, a lot of the failure stuff is people believing everything they see on the internet. Can't say I can speak for brands like Maxtor, but the big players (WD, Seagate, Toshiba and HGST) in the market are fine

 

Personally, I'd just avoid drives with 1 year warranties. Though if I'm looking for a drive my preference is:

 

HGST> Toshiba > WD > Seagate

 

Why Toshiba before WD? A lot of Toshiba's drives are HGST rebrands.

[sobe]

My God, people need to stop referencing this so-called "study". It barely gives any details on the methodology used for testing and has been discredited so many times. Linus even crapped all over it on the WAN show many months back. 

 

Already stated by Backblaze, but then again, people who would rather jump up and complain won't do any reading. How exactly does one discredit a 24/7 server environment that no typical user will be near doing? No matter what your bias, you can get a look at how different drives hold up in such an environment.

[Nexxus]

I've heard they're kind of a dumb gimmick as well, but Linus seemed to have good things to say about them in a video, and I've seen a few comparisons with Win7 boot times on SSD vs HDD vs SSHD, and the SSHD landed in the middle. Like I said, though, I plan to get an SSD for my boot drive, and I'm really unsure if for other general uses, if it would be a noticeable difference.

 

Also, since you seem to understand, what order do the drives go in terms of performance? I'm wanting to get a 2TB standard HDD for around $100, and the biggest, best 1TB 2.5" drive for around the same. One downside to WD I've noticed is the fact that they don't offer anything larger than 750GB for a 2.5" drive.

My knowlage about them is a bit outdated since I havent bought a HDD in years but..

Blacks are the top end They are fast, and they are more dependable drive in terms of dependability but they are pretty overkill for consumers 

Blues are high speed, last I checked I think their performance is a smidge better then blacks, but they are not rated as well for longevity 

Greens are low speed/low power drives, generally used for mass storage.

Reds I think are intended for RAID use

and I think they have Purples, which are intended for surveillance use but I cant remember, they are fairly new and irrelevant to me.

 

Seagate had a bad run particularly with their 3TB range which really tarnished their image, I hear their 4TB drives are very good though (better than WD) its just when it comes to something that stores large amounts of your data a bad track record doesn't instill confidence.

As much as I am very tempted to try their 4TB drives I personally had about a 50% failure rate on their 1TB drives over a 2-3 year period, add to that the 3TB troubles and it just makes me think why risk it when WD is an option.

On the flip side WD greens are also supposed to be pretty terrible.

Ive had a green for years without issue. It might be...I dunno if this is still an issue but they had a eco friendly feature that was known to make the drives fail but it was easy to disable it and make them perfectly fine, cant remember what that thing was though.

[Grrizz]

Ive had a green for years without issue. It might be...I dunno if this is still an issue but they had a eco friendly feature that was known to make the drives fail but it was easy to disable it and make them perfectly fine, cant remember what that thing was though.

As with everything not every one will have bad experiences, its a percentages game but the problem with the greens was the aggressive head parking algorithm, I'm not sure if it was something you could change but might have been the eco friendly feature you refer to.

Greens and blues are getting combined into one range now anyway so hopefully it wont be an issue in the future.

[Nexxus]

 

As with everything not every one will have bad experiences, its a percentages game but the problem with the greens was the aggressive head parking algorithm, I'm not sure if it was something you could change but might have been the eco friendly feature you refer to.

I cant remember the details as to what it was, my buddy told me about it when we bought it, we fixed it upon getting it and its not been something I thought of since, just texted to see if he remembered

 

 

As with everything not every one will have bad experiences, its a percentages game but the problem with the greens was the aggressive head parking algorithm, I'm not sure if it was something you could change but might have been the eco friendly feature you refer to.

 

Greens and blues are getting combined into one range now anyway so hopefully it wont be an issue in the future.

Yup that was it, his reply "The heads would park to quickly, theres a command line utility to turn the feature off."

[Mujteba]

Already stated by Backblaze, but then again, people who would rather jump up and complain won't do any reading. How exactly does one discredit a 24/7 server environment that no typical user will be near doing? No matter what your bias, you can get a look at how different drives hold up in such an environment.

24/7 server environment does not reflect the intended use scenario of a consumer-based desktop drive. If anything the conditions are incredibly unrealistic and unfair due to the significant increase in heat and vibrations from the drives being rack-mounted so closely together. 

 

If anything it just shows that Seagate desktop drives do not perform good in a server environment which is, once again, not the environment intended for such drives.

[FoxxyRin]

Thank you all so much for your input. I've decided to go ahead and go with Western Digital for these drives, as after looking at some speed tests as well as failure rates, I think they will just work a bit better. ♥

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Newer Seagates seem okay, but they had a REALLY bad batch.

 

@AnonymousGuy would be the right person to tell you about the reliability of the 3TB Seagate drives.  See his posts on page 64 and page 66 of the 10TB+ thread.

He literally couldn't keep up with the pace they were dying at.

 

@handruin's story isn't much better.  4 of them bought as individual drives, all 4 dead.  All on page 64 too.

[AnonymousGuy]

What I've noticed with the Seagate 3TBs having had a bagillion of them die on me is that they seem to be OK if mounted vertically.  The ones in my node 804 case mounted vertically haven't died anywhere near as fast as the ones outside the case mounted horizontally.  It could just be the ones in the case are better shock mounted and don't vibrate each other as much as the ones outside the case, but something to consider.

 

I'm now up to 8 HGST Deskstars and 2 HGST Ultrastars so 8 seagates in the node 804 and 6 seagates still on the racks.  I've finally had 2 days in a row with no drive failures.

 

I've got a stack of 10 recert Seagates on my desk that I'll probably just use as cold backups.  Copying my backup images to them every week via USB3 -> Sata and then letting them sit on a shelf.

[MattLantis]

, Hitachi, 

Can confirm my Hitachi works fine

[burnttoastnice]

Seagates are fine and WDs are fine.

I wouldn't get a Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi, Maxtor or Quantum, just because I have never experienced them.

 

My PC bought in 2004 had a maxtor HDD (which is still working to this day) It has a bunch of bad sectors now but damn, the 80GB thing managed to boot up Windows XP on a fresh install in less than 10 seconds - on a Celeron 2.6GHz (single core) w/1GB RAM. It's a shame Maxtor HDDs don't exist anymore, that thing was reliable AF.

[hk29]

go with what you know, believe, and trust.  these companies have been around next to forever.  not sure if that hybrid is any good for storage.

[alexnt]

I had once a seagate barracuda that failed after 3 months. The whole series had that issue then. I lost a lot of stuff that I could not find again. I will never buy any seagate again even it is free.