Age old question: Seagate or WD? help

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philfromMPC

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Hi all,
I have been away from computers for a while...youthful enthusiasm replaced by utilitarian "if-it-ain't-broke" mentality. Anyway, I am looking for a new HDD and as usual, the money issue comes up. What's the best bang for buck but also reliable? I am looking at two 4TB 5400RPM HDD

https://www.microcenter.com/product...rpm-sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-smr-hard-drive

https://www.microcenter.com/product...rpm-sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-smr-hard-drive

I don't know the qualities of these companies anymore. Any opinions on either HDD? Thank you.
 
5400rpm and Shingled Magnetic Recording? Wow, might as well be writing data to a tape drive.

Seagate has always had the worst track record for me, but they are supposedly better now... supposedly...

Western Digital drives are decent.

The best drives for me have always been Hitachi drives. Hitachi (their storage division at least) was recently bought by Western Digital, which complicates matters, but there still remains two distinct product lines even though they are all branded as Western Digital products now.

I know this might stretch your budget, but this is what I would recommend:
https://serverpartdeals.com/product...12e-512mb-3-5-se-manufacturer-recertified-hdd

Western Digital drive of Hitachi lineage.
7200rpm - (no real reason to get a 5400rpm drive as mechanical Hard Drives are already slow).
CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) - this is what you want, as opposed to Shingled Magnetic Recording. Shingled Magnetic Recording being a way to cram more data onto a drive platter that carries many downsides along with it.
Helium-filled Data-Center-Quality drive. Not a cheap consumer drive.
Twice the price, but 3.5 times the capacity, compared to the two drives that you linked.
 
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Luke M said:
It's been 11 years.
Click to expand...

Nonetheless, the two distinct product lines remain. All of the "Ultrastar" drives are of Hitachi lineage and there is overlap in many cases with other Western Digital models.
 
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philfromMPC said:
Hi all,
I have been away from computers for a while...youthful enthusiasm replaced by utilitarian "if-it-ain't-broke" mentality. Anyway, I am looking for a new HDD and as usual, the money issue comes up. What's the best bang for buck but also reliable? I am looking at two 4TB 5400RPM HDD

https://www.microcenter.com/product...rpm-sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-smr-hard-drive

https://www.microcenter.com/product...rpm-sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-smr-hard-drive

I don't know the qualities of these companies anymore. Any opinions on either HDD? Thank you.
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uOpt said:
They both suck :)
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Unfortunately, uOpt is right--desktop drives suck if you want reliable.

If you look at enterprise drives from either manufacturer, Seagate Exos or WD Gold, you're looking at reliable--anything less is a compromise.

If you've been away for a while and will pretty much buy and then not worry about it again--get either of these and you'll be golden.

Now, the sweet spot on price is going to be larger sized, like 8-10TB, so keep that in mind.
 
Twenty years ago, I had something like a 20gb SeaGate external hdd. Had all my college work on it. Had it set on the table vertically. I reached for something, knocked it flat on it's side, lost everything.

I know that could have happened with any drive at the time, but since then SeaGate has been dead to me. XD
 
Westwood said:
Twenty years ago, I had something like a 20gb SeaGate external hdd. Had all my college work on it. Had it set on the table vertically. I reached for something, knocked it flat on it's side, lost everything.

I know that could have happened with any drive at the time, but since then SeaGate has been dead to me. XD
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This was the danger of external drives and why I never, never, never put any of my vertical. Today's ssd would care though. :D
 
Westwood said:
Twenty years ago, I had something like a 20gb SeaGate external hdd. Had all my college work on it. Had it set on the table vertically. I reached for something, knocked it flat on it's side, lost everything.

I know that could have happened with any drive at the time, but since then SeaGate has been dead to me. XD
Click to expand...

I've done lots of stupid shit with hard drives. I killed at least one with water and one by moving it inside a case while on (one of the big ICs grounded to the side of the drive bay with a great noise and let out its magic smoke) oh and the time I used self tapping screws to mount a drive and they clawed through the circuit board a bit (drive showed in bios, almost... Only a few bits were messed up). All of those are on me, not the makers. Of course, if I held a grudge from 25 years ago, I wouldn't buy anymore connors or quantums and where would I be now?

I wouldn't get a shingled drive, unless you really know what you're doing (in which case, you probably wouldn't ask us) and you wouldn't want drive managed SMR anyway.

If you care about storage eliability, you want to have redundancy and monitoring, and if you have that, dealing with replacements isn't too big of a deal. If you can swing it, getting two different brands of drives helps manage firmware errors; chances are both drives won't fail at the same time because of a catastrophic bug.
 
GotNoRice said:
5400rpm and Shingled Magnetic Recording? Wow, might as well be writing data to a tape drive.

Seagate has always had the worst track record for me, but they are supposedly better now... supposedly...

Western Digital drives are decent.

The best drives for me have always been Hitachi drives. Hitachi (their storage division at least) was recently bought by Western Digital, which complicates matters, but there still remains two distinct product lines even though they are all branded as Western Digital products now.

I know this might stretch your budget, but this is what I would recommend:
https://serverpartdeals.com/product...12e-512mb-3-5-se-manufacturer-recertified-hdd

Western Digital drive of Hitachi lineage.
7200rpm - (no real reason to get a 5400rpm drive as mechanical Hard Drives are already slow).
CMR (Conventional Magnetic Recording) - this is what you want, as opposed to Shingled Magnetic Recording. Shingled Magnetic Recording being a way to cram more data onto a drive platter that carries many downsides along with it.
Helium-filled Data-Center-Quality drive. Not a cheap consumer drive.
Twice the price, but 3.5 times the capacity, compared to the two drives that you linked.
Click to expand...
+1 to everything that GotNoRice said. I was also a HGST buyer exclusively. Now I buy WD, but only CMR, not SMR. Years ago, I had some real problems with Seagate drives.
 
philb2 said:
+1 to everything that GotNoRice said. I was also a HGST buyer exclusively. Now I buy WD, but only CMR, not SMR. Years ago, I had some real problems with Seagate drives.
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WD Gold is the only thing in the WD lineup that's worth the salt imo since that's just a rebranded HGST enterprise. Anything lower than the Exos line in Seagate and you're asking for trouble, but that can be said for WD as well except their falloff is more linear in terms of quality.
 
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Thanks for the advice. I just want to clarify that I feel that consumer products are only what I need. I know enterprise/server hardware is more safe but I doubt its needed for my use. After all, these companies supply consumer-grade hardware that most people use without much complaint. Thanks for clarifying the CMR and SMR. I never paid attention to that.

My use is to back-up my files in my main PC HDD. Its mostly documents, photos, etc. I have a powered external 3.5mm HDD enclosure that I turn on occasionally to update my files using rsync. It has a 2 TB HDD (forgot which brand). I think I need more space in my PC as it only has a 600 GB storage HDD (have a separate boot SSD). I'm looking at 4 TB at the moment, which should be more than enough for me for a few years.

These Reds, Purples, Golds are new naming system (I only remember Blue and Black). What's the opinion on this Red HDD?

https://www.microcenter.com/product...sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-nas-cmr-hard-drive

By the way, I prefer my nearby Microcenter. Not a fan of Amazon monopoly (though I do use it) and Newegg seems to have bad reviews now. But that's a discussion for another thread.
 
philfromMPC said:
Thanks for the advice. I just want to clarify that I feel that consumer products are only what I need. I know enterprise/server hardware is more safe but I doubt its needed for my use. After all, these companies supply consumer-grade hardware that most people use without much complaint. Thanks for clarifying the CMR and SMR. I never paid attention to that.

My use is to back-up my files in my main PC HDD. Its mostly documents, photos, etc. I have a powered external 3.5mm HDD enclosure that I turn on occasionally to update my files using rsync. It has a 2 TB HDD (forgot which brand). I think I need more space in my PC as it only has a 600 GB storage HDD (have a separate boot SSD). I'm looking at 4 TB at the moment, which should be more than enough for me for a few years.

These Reds, Purples, Golds are new naming system (I only remember Blue and Black). What's the opinion on this Red HDD?

https://www.microcenter.com/product...sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-nas-cmr-hard-drive

By the way, I prefer my nearby Microcenter. Not a fan of Amazon monopoly (though I do use it) and Newegg seems to have bad reviews now. But that's a discussion for another thread.
Click to expand...
good drives but no really what you need. either of the drives you originally posted would be fine.
 
philfromMPC said:
Thanks for the advice. I just want to clarify that I feel that consumer products are only what I need. I know enterprise/server hardware is more safe but I doubt its needed for my use. After all, these companies supply consumer-grade hardware that most people use without much complaint. Thanks for clarifying the CMR and SMR. I never paid attention to that.

My use is to back-up my files in my main PC HDD. Its mostly documents, photos, etc. I have a powered external 3.5mm HDD enclosure that I turn on occasionally to update my files using rsync. It has a 2 TB HDD (forgot which brand). I think I need more space in my PC as it only has a 600 GB storage HDD (have a separate boot SSD). I'm looking at 4 TB at the moment, which should be more than enough for me for a few years.

These Reds, Purples, Golds are new naming system (I only remember Blue and Black). What's the opinion on this Red HDD?

https://www.microcenter.com/product...sata-iii-6gb-s-35-internal-nas-cmr-hard-drive

By the way, I prefer my nearby Microcenter. Not a fan of Amazon monopoly (though I do use it) and Newegg seems to have bad reviews now. But that's a discussion for another thread.
Click to expand...
When consumer drives are tested for only a 8hr duty cycle and are prioritized on being quiet vs 24x7 reliable, they're really not good for anyone that values their data. The entire concept of a 'consumer hard drive' came about from the idea of a 'home computer' that was cheaper and just as capable as a 'business' one. Well, the only way to do that was to cut corners, hence the home computer and its components are typically junk, including the drives.

So Blue still exists and is the consumer line. Purples are a modified Blue (step up a bit), and Reds are a modified Gold (step down). The Blacks are the same as Golds.

As far as that drive, that's on the consumer side of red with more on common with the blue than the Red Pro and Gold/Black. Personally, if you're going to step that low, you might as well get a blue because it's not worth paying more for just a longer warranty as the drive hardware between the basic Red and Blue is going to be quite similar and more on the consumer (less reliable) side imo.
 
SamirD said:
And they have also been around a lot longer than people realize. (y)
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Yup! I was always an HGST guy for years, but recently, with all the questionable drives and if they are using this tech or that between reds and stuff, Toshiba it was for me now for my TrueNAS build.
 
Like MrGuv, I was an HGST guy for a long time (home and enterprise). Then went to the WD Red / Red pro and got burned and now spec mostly Seagate Exos (Which I have had great reliability with their 16TB and above drives) and minimally WD Gold. For SSD, we use Kioxia (Toshiba) and Samsung for boxes we build ourselves, shelves and other storage boxes (from a vendor) are whomever we/the manufacturer specced out (if given a choice).)
 
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MrGuvernment said:
Yup! I was always an HGST guy for years, but recently, with all the questionable drives and if they are using this tech or that between reds and stuff, Toshiba it was for me now for my TrueNAS build.
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Not to mention the WD data breech. I've got 2x Tosh 16GB myself. :D The only problem I've heard about Toshiba is the warranty process, but luckily haven't dealt with that.
 
mwroobel said:
Like MrGuv, I was an HGST guy for a long time (home and enterprise). Then went to the WD Red / Red pro and got burned and now spec mostly Seagate Exos (Which I have had great reliability with their 16TB and above drives) and minimally WD Gold. For SSD, we use Kioxia (Toshiba) and Samsung for boxes we build ourselves, shelves and other storage boxes (from a vendor) are whomever we/the manufacturer specced out (if given a choice).)
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The seagate Exos are definitely back to the seagates of lore which set the bar for great drives. I've got a set of some of the original 16TB as well as drives by WD/HGST/Tosh and they're definitely on par with the best from the rest. :) I haven't touched SSDs yet, so I'm partial to just old school SLC which was bulletproof but we can't have that anymore. :( SAS ssd vs consumers still have a lot of differences so I find myself still looking enterprise for those if I had to pounce on some.
 
I kinda got burned on a couple of WD SMR drives, but at least they haven't failed. I run then in raid 1, so hopefully I'll notice if one fails before they both go. Slow as shit though. Should have paid more attention when buying bulk storage to keep my pron on. All my important stuff is on SSDs and gets backed up to cloud and/or external flash or optical.
 
SMR for desktop is a bad idea. We trialed an EMC host aware shelf with SMR drives and it wasn't "bad" but the decrease in cost for the physical drives didn't make it worthwhile enough to switch from PMR.
 
xDiVolatilX said:
wait is it bad to keep the hard drives vertical?
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Not if they're mounted so they won't fall over...

20 years ago I worked at a computer shop and we ended up stopping the purchasing of Seagate HDDs as we had huge failure rate returns for them. Ended up going WD for just about all HDDs. The IBM DeskStars were awesome and super fast for the first year or so until they would all start the 'click of death'. Nowadays SSDs are almost as cheap as Hard Drives (at 1TB and below anyway) so I'd be more apt to buy a couple of those and spread my data around.
 
Trusted WD drives: WD Red Pro, WD Black(Lately this line has been remarketed as Gaming, could have been retooled), The WD Gold, and the Ultrastars are the ones with HGST DNA, just avoid HC650 and HC670 as they are SMR.
Seagate: Seagates are a diceroll and Exos drives arent exempt.
Toshiba: I started using these lately and so far so good but my sample size isnt relevant.
HGST: These drives are no joke. Id buy a used enterprise HGST over a new Seagate.
 
What it basically boils down to is that most drives are "ok." They are electromechanical devices, and they do/will fail over time. Every brand has failures and every brand now and then has a bad design slip through (the next Bigfoot, 75GXP or 7200.11 is just around the corner.) Certain models will fit certain use cases better but in the end, recently... There haven't been any disastrous models.
 
German Muscle said:
Trusted WD drives: WD Red Pro, WD Black(Lately this line has been remarketed as Gaming, could have been retooled), The WD Gold, and the Ultrastars are the ones with HGST DNA, just avoid HC650 and HC670 as they are SMR.
Seagate: Seagates are a diceroll and Exos drives arent exempt.
Toshiba: I started using these lately and so far so good but my sample size isnt relevant.
HGST: These drives are no joke. Id buy a used enterprise HGST over a new Seagate.
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Disagree on slamming the Exos--their drives are on par with the best of the best. I've got nearly a half dozen of them and their competitors and they're all the same.

HGST, while legendary for their low failure rate, aren't anything special these days. I've had to warranty at least one (two?) of these, just like every other brand.

Bottom line is that an enterprise drive design is more robust and is designed to last longer, even if a single drive in a group doesn't due to a manufacturing issue. 'Desktop' drives were invented for 'Home' computers and no one that cares about their data should be using one of those either.
 
mwroobel said:
What it basically boils down to is that most drives are "ok." They are electromechanical devices, and they do/will fail over time. Every brand has failures and every brand now and then has a bad design slip through (the next Bigfoot, 75GXP or 7200.11 is just around the corner.) Certain models will fit certain use cases better but in the end, recently... There haven't been any disastrous models.
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I think as drives are now being pushed towards capacity vs price, we'll see improvements in reliability come down the pipe as they need to compete with ssds. I think we've entered an era were reliability in the enterprise sata market is at an all time high and I don't see that slipping unless there's a major new innovation in drive design that doesn't use the now proven enterprise hardware designs.
 
SamirD said:
Disagree on slamming the Exos--their drives are on par with the best of the best. I've got nearly a half dozen of them and their competitors and they're all the same.

HGST, while legendary for their low failure rate, aren't anything special these days. I've had to warranty at least one (two?) of these, just like every other brand.
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backblaze results dont lie
 
German Muscle said:
backblaze results dont lie
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Backblaze data is great for consumer drives, but the whole point of their company was to try to build enterprise storage using consumer equipment and in each iteration they have moved closer and closer to enterprise industry standards.

Exos drives are a staple by every server manufacturer in the 2.5" factor, as are drives from Toshiba, Fujitsu, and some others. These are usually drives taxed heavily in 24x7 multi-disk critical workloads spinning at 15k vs 7.2k and just generally being beat to death compared to any consumer drive. And this Exos tech finally was put back into the sata large capacity exos line a few years back starting with the Exos 12TB--and it's solid imo. So solid it reminds of the Seagate that most don't remember--when they were by far the leader in drives and their reliability was second to none. They only fumbled when they had to compete with all the garbage 'home computer' drives and that whole segment of the market, which they should have never dealt with in the first place and stuck to their guns imo. But they have nicely corrected because you can hear, feel, and see that the Exos is just the same as any other heavy duty, high performance, high reliability drive when you put it side-by-side with the best sata around.
 
SamirD said:
Backblaze data is great for consumer drives, but the whole point of their company was to try to build enterprise storage using consumer equipment and in each iteration they have moved closer and closer to enterprise industry standards.
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But they are using enterprise drives.
 
3-1-640x837.jpg
 
German Muscle said:
View attachment 569674
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So in the data you posted in 16TB capacities:
Seagate has 1x .85 and 1x .93 for an average of 0.89 on 9.6M drive days
Toshiba has 1x .64, 1x 1.32, and 1x .54 for an average of 0.83333333333333333333333333333333 on ~6.6M drive days
WDC has 1x .15 and 1x .28 for an average of 0.215 on 3.8 drive days

I don't see anything that shows the Seagate Exos line is statistically worse than the others.
 
SamirD said:
So in the data you posted in 16TB capacities:
Seagate has 1x .85 and 1x .93 for an average of 0.89 on 9.6M drive days
Toshiba has 1x .64, 1x 1.32, and 1x .54 for an average of 0.83333333333333333333333333333333 on ~6.6M drive days
WDC has 1x .15 and 1x .28 for an average of 0.215 on 3.8 drive days

I don't see anything that shows the Seagate Exos line is statistically worse than the others.
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thats fine, you discounted it as them using consumer drives, i stated they are using exos drives, you asked where and i showed you. lol
You like seagate, i dont. Its not a big deal and im not gonna get into a back and forth with you after seeing your arguements in other threads.
 
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