What's the favorite HDD brand these days?

entropism

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Looking to pick up a new drive for my wife today, always done WD in the past.

What's the best option for a 3tb drive these days? Was looking at WD Blue (5400), a Toshiba P300, HGST Ultrastar, etc. Past experience had Seagate as one to avoid, not sure if this is still true. Reliable and preferably quiet are the main focus. Speed doesn't matter much, it's a storage drive paired with an SSD.

Any input would be awesome, thanks!
 
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HGST would be my first choice if money isn't a concern. But I still tend to buy whatever is cheapest for the majority of my purchases (warranty and price and the biggest factors for me). I've not had any (consistent) issues with any one brand.
 
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HGST/Hitachi (if you can find the old true blue Hitachis) and WD. I've had good luck with Toshiba as well.
 
HGST hands down (this includes the WD Red 8TB, which is really just a 5400rpm HST He8)
WD is also good depending on model (8TB, 4TB, Blacks)

OP : For 3TB specifically? Pickup a Toshiba P300 - it's basically a HGST 7K3000 (the housings are exactly the same)
 
The 5TB Toshiba's are junk in my experience. All the ones I had from different sources and different purchase dates developed bad sectors in under 6 months. They may be based on Hitachi tech, but iffy quality control.

Every Hitachi and HGST drive I've bought are rock solid. My 8TB reds are also rock solid.
 
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Ended up getting a WD Blue 5400 rpm, simply due to price and familiarity. When it comes time to upgrade mine, I think I'll be going with either the WD Red, the HGST deskstar or the Toshiba X300 4TB.
 
WD Red here too (currently have 4 x 3TB no RAID), I used to like Seagate and I don't know why I changed - perhaps lack of availability?
I do like intel for SSD's, mainly because of reliability. Tried OCZ a while ago but a few failed on me.
 
Yeah, TB sorry. And this is being paired with my old Samsung 840 256gb SSD, as mentioned in the OP
 
Just ordered two 6TB WD Red Pros from Newegg today. The 5 year warranty was a big incentive along with the 7200rpm speed and 128mb cache. Fingers crossed they arrive alive.
 
IBM Deskstar drives. They are just the best.... just make sure you get enough of the 80 gig IDE versions so you can get that storage space. Then write or read speed will be a little faster than your single 3tb drive!

;)

Sorry couldn't resist. If you don't know about the old Deskstar drives let me know and I will tell you about that horror story.
 
IBM Deskstar drives. They are just the best.... just make sure you get enough of the 80 gig IDE versions so you can get that storage space. Then write or read speed will be a little faster than your single 3tb drive!

;)

Sorry couldn't resist. If you don't know about the old Deskstar drives let me know and I will tell you about that horror story.
Ah yes the old 'Deathstar' drives, consistently unreliable. LOL.
 
My favorites;

HGST - super reliable but pricey.
WD - been buying these since 1995. Only 2 have gone bad.
Toshiba - I only buy the 3TB ones. Never an issue.

In that order.
 
Another vote for HGST, then WD, then...whatever else. That's just me but that's served me well (knock on wood).
 
For a desktop:
HGST ultrastar
WD Black

Server
HGST ultrastar

I Have avoided Seagate like the plague since the IDE days. After sending a drive in on warranty that had failed they sent me a replacement that was also dead, then another one. I gave up after that.
 
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I like seagate, i have running more than 12 drives atm no issues. I also like WD, i have 8 drives running atm on the server, already bought 4x 8tb reds to expand.

I had issues with hitachi 5k3000, 6 out of 8 failed over a period of 2 years, in the same server 6x samsung and 8x segate are still running fine. I still would buy HGST, simply dont find anything that fits my budget and needs, but i have no brand favorite, any brand is fine as long as the price/performance is right.
 
Just get the Enterprise/NAS model from any of the major mfg's and you'll be fine. They are built more robustly since they're designed for 24/7 use and generally come with a better warranty.
 
Just get the Enterprise/NAS model from any of the major mfg's and you'll be fine. They are built more robustly since they're designed for 24/7 use and generally come with a better warranty.
Lol in some instances the only difference is firmware. The hardware has been proven to be the same. This is the case most notably with WD. Although you are paying extra for a longer warranty.
 
At work I have had a much higher failure rate with Seagate Enterprise drives over HGST desktop drives in the same servers / same type of operation. However I only have around 200 drives total.
 
I tend to stick with WD. Bought a 1TB WD Blue 7200 recently, it's quiet and just does its' job. I've been using WD drives since the 90's, had one go bad, and WD took care of it.

I'm loyal to companies, and products, that have proven themselves over time.

YMMV
 
I've always had great success with Western Digital, however I am on my third (waiting for it to arrive) 8TB NAS drive as the first two I've received (one in RMA) were bad. Hoping this third one works without any issues as I need my media server to get back online 100%.
 
HGST. Still rocking older-than-life drives on other computers, and they still work. Other than that, WD drives are decent, as long as you don't get Greens.
 
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I have had good luck with WD Black drives for desktop usage and Seagate Enterprise drives (currently branded as Ironworlf Pro) for NAS storage. Have also used a few WD Red Pro and WD Red drives, but not that many.
 
Another He8 8TB array user here!
internet-bro-fist.jpeg
 
No failures so far. I have 4x 3TB WD NAS ( in two Venus DS3R Pro2 ) , 5x 4TB HGST NAS ( in Oyen Mobius ), 6x HGST 6TB NAS, and JUST ordered 4x 8TB HGST NAS ( from Newegg for $325 a pop ) to completely fill my Asustor AS6210T. I use the Venus enclosures for portable storage and the Mobius is a backup of what is on the Asustor. Running the Asustor in RAID 5 now but will migrate to RAID 6 when I install the last 4 drives. From that point it should be pretty seamless to upgrade the 6TB drives when the 10TB+ drives get cheaper.

I'm sure everyone is aware but HGST is now owned by Western Digital, so if you like WD, then getting HGST goes into the same pot. Just hoping WD doesn't muck with how HGST runs things and they treat it as a step-up brand.
 
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Some of HGST's assets got bought by Toshiba, so you have some Toshiba drives being HGST rebadges (P300 = Deskstar 7K3000)
 
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