Hard Drive reliability

[silk186]

My old 250GB HD died recently and I'm planning on buying a new drive in a few days or weeks depending on prices to recover my data to and use as my new primary storage drive, not for OS.

I have a second 320GB drive that I will use to backup my photos but I can't backup everything from the larger drive. I'm considering buying either a 640GB or 1TB drive. I've heard that the WD640 has great performance with 2 platters and the the new lines of 1TB drives have moved to three platters. They seem to be pretty equal in cost per GB (640GB and 1TB) so value is equal.

What I'm most concerned about is reliability with so much data at stake. I would prefer to go for a sexy 1TB drive but I've heard of many issues with the older 1TB drives, are these issues supposed to be resolved with these new iterations. Also has the introduction of the 1.5TB drives influenced the current pricing of drives? If I wait a few weeks should I expect to see any difference?

I would like to buy one in a few days but I'm willing to wait a few weeks to save some jing since I don't have anything important on the dead drive; the recovery can wait.

 

[maddude]

What issues did you hear about?

I bought 2 WD green 1 TB drives over a year ago and they are working great. I also have 4 WD black series 1 TB drives, but haven't even had them a month yet. So far so god though.

 

[Ockie]

Buy the new 1.5tb drive and be done with it. Yes, there is always a failure chance, but that is why you should do a backup... no matter how great the drive is thought to be.

 

[nitrobass24]

Buy the new 1.5tb drive and be done with it. Yes, there is always a failure chance, but that is why you should do a backup... no matter how great the drive is thought to be.

werd....some models just aren't the best but you can buy the best and still have failures.