The Types and Tiers of Hard Disk Drives for Consumers

[NTDaws]

Tier 1

-WD Gold Enterprise (Used in NAS devices)

 

-WD VelociRaptor (Built for gaming, not commonly used due to it's small capacity)

 

-Seagate IronWolf NAS (Can be used for storing games and files if you don't own a NAS but require a large amount of storage, could receive long warranty due to the fact that these hold a large amount of data)

 

-Toshiba X300 (Good drive, bad warranty)

 

-WD Black (Receive your best performance in games for a decent price, recommend for a high budget build)

 

-Seagate Barracuda Pro (On the same scale as the IronWolf but with longer warranty, a little more pricier) 

 

-WD Red (A reliable drive, but only runs at 5400RPM unless you upgrade to the Red Pro or IronWolf)

 

-WD Red Pro (Good overall performance, optimized for a NAS, Top-end capacity could be higher)

Tier 2

-Seagate Firecuda Desktop/Mobile (Includes SSD NAND Flash for faster speeds, not recommended if you tend to do a lot of writing with the drive)

 

-WD Blue Desktop (A good reliable drive that has been used for many years, recommended when sticking to a budget)

 

-Seagate Barracuda (A good reliable drive that has been used for many years, recommended when sticking to a budget)

 

-Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (Good drive, could improve on power consumption and warranty)

 

-WD Mainstream (Basically a re-branded WD Blue but with RPMs that vary)

 

-Seagate Constellation ES.2 (Long warranty with a high capacity, weak performance of the 3TB Constellation ES.2 SAS drive)

 

-Toshiba P300 (Good drive, not much else to say)

Tier 3

-WD RE3 (Mainly a enterprise drive, but it's good in consumer devices. Has had issues with read/write speeds)

 

-Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 (Decent performace for a good value, not as fast as some competition)

 

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What to look for in buying a Hard Drive:

- Review the item before buying it instantly

 

- Pricing is a big factor in this, make sure you don't overpay, ask a forum community for information

 

- Try to buy a drive over 1TB storage if you plan to use this for large files and games. (Games range anywhere from 2GB to 100GB Average, so you would want to make sure you will have a large drive for your games)

 

- Don't buy used! You never know if the drive has been dropped, damaged, worn out. Drives are cheap at your nearest computer store most of the time

 

- Keep your receipts if your drive is defective (People like to throw out there receipts before they get home and test it, ends up being fried)

 

- Don't leave consumer drives or your computer on 24/7 if you aren't using it for any specific purposes, your drive hours will decrease and it will be a waste)

 

- Consider if you want to buy a large capacity Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive. Some people have it in there budget.

 

- Be aware of the type of interface, whether it's 3.5" or 2.5". You will mainly see 5.25" for DVD/CD Drives or Add-ons for the front of your PC.

 

- Don't buy a External Hard Disk Drive, these aren't meant to game of them, and you will more then likely experience stuttering because you are running this through a USB, and are more so for accessing files on the go.

[NTDaws]

Message me for anything I should edit or add to tiers or make new tiers. Please try and keep these drives at a consumer level or anything used for a NAS.

[Curufinwe_wins]

5 hours ago, Being Delirious said:

Message me for anything I should edit or add to tiers or make new tiers. Please try and keep these drives at a consumer level or anything used for a NAS.

The HGST Deskstar NAS line should 100% be Tier 1. Yes it has higher power consumption. BUT it is more power efficient by being FAR faster than competing consumer nas drives. Also yeah. The dynamic between HGST/WD/Hitachi drives should probably be addressed. Because HGST HE drives are the same as WD Gold etc etc.

6TB comparison

4TB comparison

 

 

[ARikozuM]

Speed of a drive makes no difference these days. It’s mostly up to the controller and how aggressively it conserves power.

[Pyramiden]

I would add the HGST Ultrastar disks to tier 1, and the Toshiba DT01ACA300 to tier 2. Those Toshiba disks are rebadged Hitachi ones and they give incredible value for file storage.

I do think you might need to revise your buying tips.
For example, do you have any proof that more drive hours will reduce the lifespan of the disk? It is usually the power on and power off cycle that has impact on that.
I also don't see how semi-annual/annual reinstalls of the OS would increase the lifespan of the disk. This might even achieve the opposite, since a lot of data is written to the disk when you reinstall your OS.

[NTDaws]

*To Be Updated June 1st, 2021"

[wseaton]

These are nonsensical drive characterizations based mostly on marketing. There is no technical basis for any of it. HDs don't know if they are in a NAS or laptop.

 

Never ordered a server or computer in an enterprise environment based on WDs lucky charm color charts. Enterprise class spinning HDs for instance have longer warranties....which you pay for. They arent more reliable and there's no statistical proof backing it up. 

 

Enterprise SAS drives are supposed to have better reliability, but again there's no evidence backing this up. Consumer class SAS anybody? Ive found 10k spinners to be that much less reliable than 7200 because of the basic physics involved. 15k spinners having the worst longevity. 

 

With SSD however there is a legit technical and quasi industry standard for consumer vs data center vs enterprise. Consumer SSDs lack the power circuit protection of data center grade and higher. The added wear leveling is also a legit thing, but varies among vendors. No market for used consumer SSDs. Used data center SSDs however are a big item for mining.

 

 

 

 

[whm1974]

On 3/16/2018 at 11:06 AM, Dawson Wehage said:

- Don't buy a External Hard Disk Drive, these aren't meant to game of them, and you will more then likely experience stuttering because you are running this through a USB, and are more so for accessing files on the go.

I disagree as I have a 7200 RPM External HDD for backups and play games on it as well. Them only saving grace of HDDs are the lower price and higher amounts of Storage space. This Tech is more suited for backup drives then a System Drive.