Need Help Chosing Hard Drive

[Mr.Jak]

I'm looking to get a drive or two, to replace my old, slowly dying 500GB drives.

I have a Samsung 850 evo 250GB as my boot drive, and have games on one hard drive, and another dedicated for media and recording videos. I was thinking that I could get a Seagate ST3000DM001. for $100, to store my games, and   a 2TB for $80 for everything else, but everyone seems so doom and gloom about Seagate, so I suppose I could keep one of my drives as it is and get a 3TB WD Black for $163 ($155 with promo).

While I love the extra warranty, I'm concerned that it won't really be any better, and will be louder than the Seagate, which I've already heard that the WD blacks practically sound like they are dying while in use -- very distressing. I supposed I could go with WD greens, since they are the same price as the Seagates, but I know it's the slowest, by far.

I actually really like the idea of getting the Seagates, since I'd have extra storage but people seem so biased towards WD on Tom's Hardware that it's hard to want to side with them, and the five year warranty is enticing on the WD. It doesn't help that every hard drive I see has terrible reviews recently, so I'm at a stand still. I don't really need these drives to last five or ten years, but at least 2-3 would be what I need, though I will be able to keep my current drives handy with working backups.

Note: I will not be running these drives in RAID.
Also, my current drives don't ever reach 100MB/s, and stop shy of 80 at best.
I am looking forward to your responses. 

[Mao_Zedong]

Go full seagate, they are just as fast as WD blacks, nearly as quiet as WD greens, and cheaper than either of them. Ignore the reports of them failing, those are all from one source, which doesn't test the drives evenly.

[Mr.Jak]

I figured they were only getting their info from that, especially after Linus covered it on the WAN show, though I don't think he ever said that Barracudas were a good choice, though he did kind of hint at it.

Unfortunately, I could never find any other so called "study" on the reliability of drives.

[TheMcSame]

I wouldn't bother with Seagate, I've had problems with them, my friends have had problems with them, there's a lot of horror stories about their drives on he internet, not worth taking the chance imo.

 

It doesn't help that they completely fucked up in the 90's.

[theMLGbro58]

I would go with Seagate.  I have had good experience with them, and so have all of my friends that have built pc's.  They are pretty quiet and fast, and quite reliable.  For the most part I've only heard good things about Seagate, and bad about WD.  

[Mr.Jak]

I wouldn't bother with Seagate, I've had problems with them, my friends have had problems with them, there's a lot of horror stories about their drives on he internet, not worth taking the chance imo.

 

It doesn't help that they completely fucked up in the 90's.

Care to elaborate?

Personally I've had several of both, and my Seagates seem better, but I'm assuming, due to age of the drives I have, that this could have easily changed.

[TheMcSame]

Care to elaborate?

Personally I've had several of both, and my Seagates seem better, but I'm assuming, due to age of the drives I have, that this could have easily changed.

They were constantly sending out bad batches in the 90's and almost went bust because of it, that's what I've heard anyway.

[Captain_WD]

I'm looking to get a drive or two, to replace my old, slowly dying 500GB drives.

I have a Samsung 850 evo 250GB as my boot drive, and have games on one hard drive, and another dedicated for media and recording videos. I was thinking that I could get a Seagate ST3000DM001. for $100, to store my games, and   a 2TB for $80 for everything else, but everyone seems so doom and gloom about Seagate, so I suppose I could keep one of my drives as it is and get a 3TB WD Black for $163 ($155 with promo).

While I love the extra warranty, I'm concerned that it won't really be any better, and will be louder than the Seagate, which I've already heard that the WD blacks practically sound like they are dying while in use -- very distressing. I supposed I could go with WD greens, since they are the same price as the Seagates, but I know it's the slowest, by far.

I actually really like the idea of getting the Seagates, since I'd have extra storage but people seem so biased towards WD on Tom's Hardware that it's hard to want to side with them, and the five year warranty is enticing on the WD. It doesn't help that every hard drive I see has terrible reviews recently, so I'm at a stand still. I don't really need these drives to last five or ten years, but at least 2-3 would be what I need, though I will be able to keep my current drives handy with working backups.

Note: I will not be running these drives in RAID.

Also, my current drives don't ever reach 100MB/s, and stop shy of 80 at best.

I am looking forward to your responses. 

 

 

Hey Mr.Jak,

 

The good thing about today's world is that you have the freedom to choose from different brands. A hard drive is generally a mechanical unit and can fail due to many different reasons. The choice of the brand is entirely yours.

 

From the WD line I could suggest looking at WD Green or WD Red for storage drive or WD Black for performance drive, if you are looking at the 2TB and 3TB capacities. Otherwise I would advise you to check out WD Blue. It really depends on how many drives you would like to have and what you would need them for. Here are links with details about these drives:

WD Black: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=MrDbS5

WD Blue: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Su8CJJ

WD Green: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=qN7Yxx

WD Red: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=863dYo

 

The good thing about public forums like this is that you can get many opinions about certain products and brands and thus decide for yourself. The more opinions - the better.

 

Captain_WD.

[Mr.Jak]

They were constantly sending out bad batches in the 90's and almost went bust because of it, that's what I've heard anyway.

I have no problem at all with DOA, my only issue is if they die like a month after the warranty expires.

[Captain_WD]

I have no problem at all with DOA, my only issue is if they die like a month after the warranty expires.

 

 

As I mentioned, Hard Drives fail due to many different reasons. You can have a hard drive from a certain brand that would last you 8+ years and another hard drive from the same brand and model fail withing a few months due to incorrect installing, vibrations, etc.

If you are worried that a drive would fail after the warranty, I would suggest getting one with a longer warranty. WD Black has a 5-year limited warranty.

 

Captain_WD.

[Mr.Jak]

I want thank the forum for your input. I have already ordered my hard drives, and have decided to get two 3TB seagates for $190.
I should be getting them well before next Wednesday, if not by tomorrow. 

[angus_pa]

good choice