HDDs for home archiving purpose

[ender_speaker]

Hey there.

I need a couple of (3TB) drives for home archiving purposes. They will be powered on 24/7 but only rarely accessed so probably in sleep mode for some hours (definitely during the night), days or even weeks. I say ‘probably’ because I’m not sure about BIOS/Win7 habits, if any, of waking up drives for random checks. This is actually leading to a bigger question in relation to the 2400-hour power-on rating of the Seagate Barracuda (ST3000DM001): does sleep mode count as powered off or you have to be shutting down completely in order to play safe with the 2400-hour drives?

I’m looking for maximum reliability (within a reasonable budget) and maybe some “green” features to save energy and keep them cool (and hopefully extend their lifetime).
Speed is not an issue, nor is raid compatibility. I’d rather manually mirror two drives (by copying the same files on each of them) and keep them independent than pool them in raid. I’m not looking for other archiving solutions such as tape, DVDs, BRs, online, etc.

As a general consideration (regardless of the number of drives), I’m thinking to get two consumer grade drives (e.g. Barracuda), and “mirror” them, instead of an enterprise one (e.g. Constellation) for roughly the same price. I had some WD RE4 fail on me (still powering but huge amounts of bad blocks while Caviar Greens do just fine under the same conditions) so I’d rather run with two cheaper drives and get an early warning if one of them fails.

So what do you think? Seagate Barracuda and WD Caviar Green are priced the same (in my area), which one would be better? Also, is continuous power on a problem for these drives? Are there better options?

Thanks.

 

[Audio-Purity]

The Seagate: Barracuda hard drives only have a 1 year warranty.
The Seagate: Barracuda is only designed for "on as needed use" (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation)
Seagate's enterprise hard drives are designed for "always on use" (24 hours a day, 7 days a week operation)
http://www.seagate.com/files/docs/pdf/whitepaper/mb538-drive-selection-guide-us.pdf
Seagate: Constellation ES & ES.2 enterprise hard drives have a 3 year warranty.
http://www.seagate.com/files/docs/p...ation-es-fips-data-sheet-ds1697-7-1204-us.pdf
http://www.seagate.com/files/static...tion-es2-fips-data-sheet-ds1725-4-1111-us.pdf
I could not find Seagate's warranty on the Barracuda clearly stated on their website.
However, you can contact Seagate and they'll tell you that the warranty on the Barracuda is only 1 year.
If you have any Seagate specific warranty questions, contact Seagate: http://www.seagate.com/support/contact-support or call them at (405) 324-4700.
Seagate Authorized Retailers: http://wheretobuy.seagate.com

In general, Western Digital hard drives have a longer warranty than Seagate hard drives.
All Western Digital enterprise hard drives have a 5 year warranty.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/enterprise/
The VelociRaptor has a 5 year warranty.
The Caviar Black also has a 5 year warranty, but it's not considered by Western Digital to be an enterprise-level hard drive.
The Caviar Blue & Caviar Green have a 2 year warranty.
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/internal/desktop/
Warranty information on all Western Digital hard drives: http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp?custtype=end&lang=en
If you have any Western Digital specific warranty questions, contact Western Digital: http://support.wdc.com/contact or call them at (949) 672-7199.
Western Digital Authorized Retailers: http://wdc.com/en/buy

In general, Hitachi hard drives have a longer warranty than Seagate hard drives.
Hitachi: Deskstar "consumer-grade" hard drives come with a 3 year warranty.
Hitachi: Ultrastar enterprise hard drives come with a 5 year warranty.
http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.ns.../$file/Compare_UltrastarDeskstar_TB_final.pdf
Hitachi's model numbers can be confusing.
For example, "Ultrastar 7K4000" refers to their latest 7200RPM enterprise line in 4TB, 3TB, or 2TB capacities, not just the 4TB 7200RPM model.
Their 5K models are actually 5700 RPM, not 5400RPM.
Hitachi's latest 7200RPM enterprise line: http://www.hgst.com/internal-drives/enterprise/ultrastar/ultrastar-7k4000
Hitachi's latest 5700RPM enterprise line: http://www.hgst.com/internal-drives/enterprise/ultrastar/ultrastar-5k3000
Hitachi's latest 7200RPM consumer line: http://www.hgst.com/deskstar-7k3000
Hitachi's latest 5700RPM consumer line: http://www.hgst.com/deskstar-5k3000
Ultrastar technical library: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/productfamilies/Ultrastar
Deskstar technical library: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/productfamilies/deskstar
Hitachi also offers 4TB options in both their enterprise & consumer lines, SSDs, 15,000 RPM and 10,020 RPM HDDs.
I encourage you to explore their website: http://www.hgst.com
If you have any Hitachi specific warranty questions, contact Hitachi: http://www.hgst.com/support/contact-support or call them at (408) 717-8087.
Hitachi Authorized Retailers: http://www.hgst.com/portal/site/en/buy

Only buy your hard drives from an authorized retailer.
Your hard drive may not be covered under the factory warranty unless it's purchased from a retailer that's authorized by the manufacturer.
If you have any doubt if a retailer is authorized, check the hard drive manufacturer's official website or contact them directly for verification before purchase.

All warranty information in my post is current as of June 19, 2012.
Warranty information pertains only to the specific internal desktop & enterprise hard drives mentioned in this post.
Hard drive warranties for mobile hard drives, external hard drives and SSDs can & often do differ significantly.
Anyone with a specific warranty question on a hard drive should consult the hard drive manufacturer's official website or contact them directly.
Anyone looking at this post years after I first posted it should consult the hard drive manufacturer's official website or contact them directly because a company's warranty policies do sometimes change over time, especially when a new generation of hard drives is introduced.

I wouldn't feel comfortable buying a hard drive that's only covered for 1 year.
Just think what position you'll be in if both drives fail 13 months from now.
The choice is yours though.

Thinking of getting a 2.5, 3TB, 4TB or larger hard drive?
Kiss Windows XP goodbye if you're still using it because you won't even be able to use a 2.5TB or larger hard drive as a data disk, let alone a boot disk.
Guide on using 2.5TB & larger hard drives: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.ns...002600FC/$file/HiCap_2TB_TechBrief_030812.pdf

Seagate acquired Samsung's hard disk drive (HDD) business. So, Samsung's hard disk drive business is now owned by Seagate:
http://www.seagate.com/about/newsro...gs-hdd-business-pr/?paramChannelName=newsroom

Western Digital acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. So, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is now owned by Western Digital:
http://wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases/?release=ba433e4b-bff8-4d99-b60f-7f02aa42f444

 

[Kaos_Drem]

Where are you reading about 2400hrs....?

Pretty sure no drive lasts only 2400hrs because that is only 100 days of on time which you could hit easily within a year of operation at just 8hrs a day.

 

[Blkout]

Any drive over 1TB, I wouldn't consider anything but Hitachi these days, other than the Samsung/Seagate F4 2TB drives.

 

[Audio-Purity]

Do you believe that Hitachi's consumer line is better than Western Digital's enterprise line?
What's special about "Samsung/Seagate" F4 2TB drives?
What compelling reasons can you give to choose Seagate over other, possibly better choices?
People can make any claim they want, but without conclusive proof to back it up, there is simply no reason to believe it.
Someone could claim that all Hitachi hard drives have a 10 year warranty, but without a link to Hitachi's official website to prove it, I'm not going to believe it for a second.
Are you just drawing from personal experience?
If so, then my personal experience with Hitachi has been that most Hitachi hard drives that I bought new have arrived dead on arrival (DOA).
These were Hitachi: Deskstar 250GB (7200RPM SATA) models.
This doesn't prove that all HItachi hard drives are going to arrive DOA or fail early.
After speaking to many people who work in the hard drive industry, I've come to believe that the most likely reason most of these hard drives arrived DOA is because of damage that occurred during shipping.
In other words, either the shipping company or the person who packaged the hard drives or both are to blame, not Hitachi.
Your experience with Hitachi hard drives could very well be completely different from mine.
I could let this experience bias me, but I won't.
I could use this anecdote to try to "prove" something, but in reality, what would it actually prove?
That is precisely why anecdotal evidence cannot & should not be relied upon when trying to reach a valid & reliable conclusion.

 

[madcoder]

Hitachi. Just do it.

 

[hotcrandel]

Hitachi or Western Digital RE drives.

From my personal experience I've had excellent luck with Hitachi deskstar and ultrastar drives, as well as western digital RE drives.

I think a lot of people stay away from seagate drives because of generally poor reviews, I've had a few weirdo incidents that keep me away, including some 1tb contellation ES2 drives having the PCB on the bottom get so hot it burned me, when testing the drive. Admittedly these drives didn't spin up, were refurbs and sat on the shelf for a while, but still it was memorable.

I've also had an incident with the famous 7200.11 drives and a 3ware RAID card, where drives started falling out of the array after I updated the firmware on the 3ware card to fix another issue. (excellent) support mentioned to me those drives were no longer supported by 3ware due to incidents after long periods of use.

I have had okay luck with 500GB 7200.12 drives in desktops. Pretty good run with those.

What's special about those "Samsung" (Seagate) F4 2TB Drives is they used to be excellent and made by samsung, and are now made by seagate, and are sort of an unknown right now whether they work well, if they changed the manufacturing process, etc.

 

[FrostBite]

For what you need, you should look into hot swapping bays (in AHCI mode) so you can easily mount or dismount the drives by simply removing or inserting them. As for the hard drives, statistically, 2x RAID 1 hard drives will be better for redundency than a single server hard drive. Stress on redundency though which is not what you are after, uptime does not seem to be as important to you as much as a backup plan. If there is a fire, flood, or general act of God in your home or nieghborhood, you won't be doing much archiving if both hard drives are sitting right next to each other, plugged in or not. What you should consider doing is a weekly (or nightly if you are paranoid enough) backup copy, and putting the other hard drive away at your work, in your banks security deposit box, parents or friends house, etc...

As for the brand of hard drive, Google did a study that statistically, if the hard drive doesn't fail within the first 3 months, you should be good to go for a year or more. If it's really important, try a stress test for a few weeks and see if it fails, and if it doesn't, use it for 2 years than replace it.

 

[Audio-Purity]

It makes no sense to replace a good, solid hard drive, like the Hitachi: Ultrastar 7K4000 or the Western Digital: RE4 after only 2 years of use, when it's covered under warranty for 5 years from the date of purchase.
If you view the Seagate: Barracuda hard drives as "throw away drives" because they only have a 1 year warranty, then do yourself a favor & buy something with a better warranty.
A hard drive built by a reputable company that has a 5 year warranty is not going to be designed to only last a year or two.

 

[FrostBite]

It makes no sense to replace a good, solid hard drive, like the Western Digital: RE4 after only 2 years of use, when it's covered under warranty for 5 years from the date of purchase.
If you view the Seagate: Barracuda hard drives as "throw away drives" because they only have a 1 year warranty, then do yourself a favor & buy something with a better warranty.
A hard drive built by a reputable company that has a 5 year warranty is not going to be designed to only last a year or two.

Firstly, a wrranty doesn't mean that the hard drive will not fail within the time frame of the warranty itself. The Hitachi I just bought from Amazon last Thursday was DOA, even with a 3 year warranty, but that's a mechanical and percise machine for you, abd any slight, minute hiccup will wreck a hard drive in its entirety. In addition, many of the big players have lowered their warranties to 1-2 years from 3-5 years, but that doesn't mean it's a subpar product, rather it's just really expensive and need a much smaller cash reserve for warranty work if you offer a smaller warranty.

Secondly, my response was specific to the OP, and yes, it does make sense to replace a consumer hard drive after 2 years (vs no redundency or backup and relying solely on a "enterprise" class hard drive) if your absolute, most important concern is reliability as the OP has pointed out; he even bolded that point. Sure, economically it isn't the best approach, but it could provide you a possibly better insurance for whatever you deem so important to save.

A lot of companies toss out good or destroy them outright well before their regular useful lifetime as preventative maintenance. There could be no problems with the equipment at all but it's been in there for X amount of time so replace it with a new one before it causes problems. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc...

 

[Trepidati0n]

It makes no sense to replace a good, solid hard drive, like the Western Digital: RE4 after only 2 years of use, when it's covered under warranty for 5 years from the date of purchase.
If you view the Seagate: Barracuda hard drives as "throw away drives" because they only have a 1 year warranty, then do yourself a favor & buy something with a better warranty.
A hard drive built by a reputable company that has a 5 year warranty is not going to be designed to only last a year or two.

Warranty and reliability do not have to be causal. Warranty is a cost adder and reliability is typically a cost reducer. If your product is highly reliable...a warranty is nothing more than a "feel good" item.

 

[Audio-Purity]

You could throw out & replace your hard drive that came with a 5 year factory warranty after only using it 2 years, only to have the drive you replace it with fail after 2 months.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Maybe there are some people out there who buy ice cream, only to eat the top layer & throw the rest away.
But, if you buy quality ice cream, such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream, it will be good to the last spoonful.
Buy a good quality hard drive with a solid warranty & you won't have to worry as much about it failing on you.
If it does fail after a few years, it will be fully covered under warranty.
If you have important data on a hard drive, then you should make sure you back-up the data on at least 1 other hard drive.
A hard drive could fail at any time, whether it's brand new, a year old, or 5 years old.
If it fails within the warranty period, it will be replaced under warranty.
The shorter the length of the warranty, the greater the chance is that you will be stuck having to buy new hard drives if they fail instead of having them replaced under warranty.
The earth's resources are finite & precious.
Encouraging people to waste the earth's resources for little or no reason is irresponsible and doesn't make much sense.

 

[poison5151]

Just to throw my 2 cents into the discussion, I used to run 48 Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 (2TB) drives in a Supermicro Openfiler box for 2+ years. It was on 24/7 and served as a FC target for 50-60 VMs running Oracle and SAP, so it was under constant load.

During that time, not a single drive has failed. For that reason, I always buy and recommend Hitachi drives. I have yet to see one actually fail. DOAs due to poor packaging / pinball-like handling by shipping companies are another matter entirely and should not be blamed on the hard drive manufacturer.

 

[Audio-Purity]

The Hitachi Deskstar hard drives I bought that weren't DOA didn't last me as long as the Western Digital hard drives have.
However, these were the Caviar: Black line, which is Western Digital's top line of consumer drives.
After trying different hard drives from Hitachi, Seagate, and Western Digital, I can honestly say that I've had the best luck with Western Digital.
Does this mean that people should only buy Western Digital hard disk drives?
No! Because this is an anecdote.
Anecdotes cannot & should not be used to draw reliable conclusions.
My anecdote does not prove that you will have the best experience with Western Digital.
It's entirely possible that Hitachi's quality control & overall quality of the products they make have improved significantly since the time I purchased those Deskstar hard drives, which was many years ago.
In fact it seems likely, especially considering how much Hitachi (now HGST) has invested in research & development over the past couple of years.
Right now, Hitachi are the only ones that offer 4TB hard drives.
Am I willing to give Hitachi another chance if they offer the best drive for my needs?
Absolutely!
However, I can't recommend a Seagate hard drive if it only comes with a 1 year warranty when there's other hard drives available that come with a much longer warranty.
If the hard drive fails after the 1 year is up, the person will be stuck buying another hard drive, instead of having it replaced under warranty.
Warranty coverage is very important to me.
I would recommend Hitachi & Western Digital over Seagate because they offer longer warranties on their respective products.
For example both Hitachi & Western Digital offer 5 year warranty coverage on their enterprise-level hard drives.
Seagate only offers 3 year warranty coverage on their enterprise-level hard drives.
I also don't recommend buying a Seagate: Barracuda that's only designed for "on as needed use" (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation)
if you plan to use it for "always on use" (24 hours a day, 7 days a week operation).
Especially if it only comes with a 1 year warranty.
The length of a hard drive's warranty is a matter of fact and it can be verified.
Anecdotes are another story.
People's individual experiences can & often do differ significantly.
Anecdotes simply cannot be relied upon as valid proof or evidence.
"The primary weakness of anecdotes as evidence is that they are not controlled. This opens them up to many hidden variables that could potentially affect the results."
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-role-of-anecdotes-in-science-based-medicine
"The limitations of anecdotal evidence are that often the anecdotes are curious, peculiar or extraordinary and are not typical or representative. This causes them to stay in our memory, but it does not make them typical. This lack of representativeness means that you need to be careful when making conclusions about a much broader population from anecdotal evidence."
http://www.uow.edu.au/student/attributes/statlit/modules/module1/anecdotal.html
"Good research may use anecdotal evidence (examples selected to illustrate a concept), but does not rely on them to draw conclusions because examples can be found that prove almost anything.
More statistically-valid analysis is usually needed for reliable proof."
http://www.vtpi.org/resqual.pdf
Scientists view anecdotes with suspicion, and for good reason.
Anecdotes should always be taken with a grain of salt.
This holds true whether we're talking about computer parts, science, medicine or anything else.

 

[ender_speaker]

Where are you reading about 2400hrs....?

Pretty sure no drive lasts only 2400hrs because that is only 100 days of on time which you could hit easily within a year of operation at just 8hrs a day.

Sorry for not clarifying, it means the drive is rated to operate for only 2,400 hours a year, so you have to power it down for about 1/3 of the time. It's not designed to run continuously 24/7.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/4tb-3tb-hdd,3183-4.html
http://forums.storagereview.com/index.php/topic/31582-seagate-3tb-reliability-barracuda-vs-sv355/

...
The Seagate: Barracuda is only designed for "on as needed use" (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation)
...

So just to make sure, would it be OK if the drive is on 24/7 and spends 16 hours a day in sleep mode, under W7, or you have to completely power it down in order to use it according to its specifications?

... As for the hard drives, statistically, 2x RAID 1 hard drives will be better for redundency than a single server hard drive. ...

What I meant is that if speed is not an issue, 2 drives operating independently (mirrors of each other) would be safer than 2 drives in raid as you eliminate any potential raid-related failures. On paper it sounds alright but I feel like you could use 100 drives for added redundancy and still lose the entire pool due to a weird glitch. Also corruption propagating to both copies would not happen with independent drives. Keeping the data synchronized would be more work though.



Thanks all for answers, to be honest I'm not that happy with the conclusion:
- Seagate consumer (Barracuda - ST3000DM001) is not designed for continuous operation (pending clarification of how sleeping for most of the time might change things) and a 1-year warranty sounds a bit like they've no confidence in the product they're selling.
- Seagate enterprise (Constellation - ST33000652NS) is an older design with 5 platters instead of 3 and it costs twice as much. (BTW, are they going to axe this line too - same as the green one - once the hybrid drives are out?) I was hoping to get 2 Barracudas for each Constellation for added safety at the same cost. Using 2 Constellations to "mirror" each others would be cost prohibitive.
- Western Digital consumer (Caviar Green - WD30EZRX) sounds like the only viable option for my case but I've seen the abysmal feedback (especially on Newegg where Barracuda seem to fare better) and even though it's far for an objective indicator, I'm not that comfortable.
- Westen Digital enterprise line has no 3TB offerings and I wouldn't want to collect too many drives down the road. Also a bit overkill for archiving and same as Constellation: older design, expensive.
- Hitachi/Samsung are not widely available in my area and after being bought by WD/Seagate I'm not sure what's happening to them nowadays. Also, wasn't there a joke about Hitachi Deathstar?

So perhaps the best options would be:
- WD Caviar Green 3 TB + WD Caviar Green 3 TB backup (1st choice)
- Seagate Constellation 3TB + WD Caviar Green 3 TB backup (2nd option)

 

[FrostBite]

For 2 drives mirrored vs. raid, unless you are manually copying over instead of letting the computer do it, 2 mirrored drives is RAID 1. But again, for what you are doing, you should be looking at backup plan and software as RAID won't protect you from viruses, accidently deleting the wrong file, some corrupted files, and you should have it automated in case you forget to copy over a file or are too busy and skip it. Based on what you want, if I were you, I would have two additional hard drives, get some backup software, schedule weekly (or monthly) backups to both hard drives, and take one hard drive with me to work Monday and bring it back Friday. If something were to happen on my main computer, I have my backup. If my backup is messed up, I have my off site backup. Again, this is above and beyond having a single backup but people are paranoid and are willing to take additional steps.

As for hard drives, go for drives that are well known for solid reliability. These would be, in my opinion, Hitachi 5k3000 (I own a few), WD Green EARS (I own a few), and the original Samsung pre-Segate Spinpoint (I don't own any of these but I've heard great things). These are all 2TB's because they have been in the market for quite some time, and feedback has been thorough and positive.I can't comment on 3TB's because they haven't been on the market as long so there isn't as much feedback that I can go through.

 

[Audio-Purity]

I called Seagate & spoke to pre-sales. I was informed that the Seagate: Barracuda desktop hard drives are designed for only "on as needed" use (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation).
He said leaving the computer on all the time is "always on" use (24 hours a day, 7 days a week operation). Even if the computer is in sleep-mode most of the time, this is still considered "always on" use by Seagate. He said he wouldn't be surprised if a Barracuda drive failed prematurely (before 1 year) if the computer is "always on" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Since this is far beyond its intended use specifications.
Seagate said neither Seagate nor Samsung produce Samsung hard disk drives (HDDs) anymore. He said he is sure of this for the "America regions," but could not speak for other regions.
However, Samsung's solid state drive (SSD) business is still owned & manufactured by Samsung.
There is the Seagate: Constellation ES.2 (ST33000650NS) that's 3TB, has a 3 year warranty, is an enterprise-level drive, and is designed by Seagate for "always on" use.
http://www.seagate.com/files/static...tion-es2-fips-data-sheet-ds1725-4-1111-us.pdf
However, I'm not sure why you'd want to buy an "enterprise-level" HDD that only has a 3 year warranty when everyone else offers a 5 year warranty.

I called Western Digital several times & spoke to several different levels of technical support, including level 3 support. I was informed by level 3 technical support that their enterprise hard drives are recommended for "always on" use (24 hour a day, 7 days a week). The Caviar: Green line is recommended for 8 power-on hours per day. Power-on hours is the number of hours that the computer is powered on, it doesn't matter if it's in use, idle, sleep mode or hibernate. He recommends running a hard drive within its specifications to maximize its life. He also said that the Caviar: Green line are not recommended in a server environment or for read & write intensive applications. The Caviar: Green line is designed for a low duty cycle. Enterprise-level drives are far more robust and are designed for up to 100% Duty cycle, 24/7 operation & have a 8,760 hours per year power-on hours profile. However, the Caviar: Green line does run cooler & quieter and consumes less power than some of the other hard drives on the market. So it still has its applications. The maximum capacity currently offered in the RE4 line is 2TB. If absolutely have to have a 3TB hard drive, your only choice in Western Digital's lineup is the 3TB Caviar: Green (WD30EZRX).
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701229.pdf

I called Hitachi several times & spoke to support. I was informed that the entire Ultrastar line has a 8,760 hours per year power-on hours profile and can be used for "always on" use (24 hour a day, 7 days a week).
Hitachi explained that their current Deskstar line has a 24x7 availability rating, but that some of their older Deskstar models don't.
They did say that if you are going to be using a lot of hard drives that are close together, they would recommend the Ultrastar enterprise line because they are less susceptible to vibration, which can cause bad reads or writes if there's too much vibration.
They explained that currently, Hitachi still manufactures its hard drives.
This might change in the future though because of Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.
Hitachi assured me that the warranty will be honored on all their hard drives & that the warranty is not affected by the acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies by Western Digital.
Hitachi has 3TB & 4TB models in both their Deskstar (consumer) & Ultrastar (enterprise) lines.
You may want to give them a close look.
http://www.hgst.com/internal-drives/desktop
http://www.hgst.com/internal-drives/enterprise

Which Hitachi: Deskstar models in Hitachi's current line-up have a "24x7 availability" rating and are therefore designed for "always on" operation?
The 4TB Deskstar 7K4000, the 3TB, 2TB, and 1.5TB Deskstar 7K3000 models, the 4TB Deskstar 5K4000, and the 3TB, 2TB, and 1.5TB Deskstar 5K3000 models are all rated for "24x7 availability."
The 4TB Deskstar 7K4000, 3TB Deskstar 7K3000, 4TB Deskstar 5K4000, and 3TB Deskstar 5K3000 are all rated for 600,000 load/unload cycles, all the other models in the Deskstar line are rated for 300,000 load/unload cycles.
There are a few other Deskstar models that are rated for "24x7 availability", but I chose to focus on Hitachi's current line-up.

What differences are there between Hitachi's Ultrastar & Deskstar lines?
Hitachi's Ultrastar line: have a 5 year warranty, are all rated for 600,000 load/unload cycles, every model has a 64MB data buffer (cache), utilize enterprise-specific firmware to minimize the performance impact of rotational vibration interference (RVI) found in rack-mounted servers and multi-drive storage arrays, are specifically designed, built and tested for the enterprise environment, go through an extended manufacturing stress test to ensure quality and reliability, receives additional manufacturing testing at extended temperature ranges to ensure a target of less than one non-recoverable bit error per 10^15 bits read, which results in a 10x error rate improvement, maintain an even higher level of reliability & performance in multi-drive systems due to a dual-stage actuator (DSA) and an enhanced rotational vibration safeguard (RVS), support hardware-based full disk encryption (FDE) (specific models only), and they can be recommended even in mission-critical applications.

The best hard drive for you will depend on your individual wants & needs.

The Hitachi: Deskstar has a 3 year warranty & a "24x7 availability" rating and seems like a much better choice than the Seagate: Barracuda or the Western Digital: Caviar Green for the usage scenario Ender_Speaker described.

Where did I find this information?
Hitachi: Ultrastar 7K4000: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/FD3F376DC2ECCE68882579D40082C393/$file/US7K4000_ds.pdf
Hitachi: Ultrastar 5K3000: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/F9EC919C140E20498825785A005E6482/$file/US5K3000_ds.pdf
Hitachi: Deskstar 7K4000: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/3C330019E6ED04A48825797700626F0D/$file/DS7K4000_ds.pdf
Hitachi: Deskstar 7K3000: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/155901D3B251D9A9862577D50023A20A/$file/DS7K3000_ds.pdf
Hitachi: Deskstar 5K4000: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/9D124C36A04248F1882579600008D4D4/$file/DS5K4000_ds.pdf
Hitachi: Deskstar 5K3000: http://www.hgst.com/tech/techlib.nsf/techdocs/02D9197756A273D0862577D50024EC1D/$file/DS5K3000_ds.pdf

If the hard drive in question doesn't specifically say that it's designed for "always on" use, "24x7 availability", "24x7 accessibility", "24x7 reliability", "24x7 duty cycle", or "8760 power-on hours profile" (hours per year),
then it's almost certainly designed for low duty cycle, "on as needed" use (8 power-on hours per day).
A hard drive manufacturer isn't going to make the effort to design a hard drive for always-on, 24x7 reliability and then keep it a secret.
When in doubt, consult with the product specifications or product documentation on the manufacturer's official website.

 

[rive22]

Go with Hitachi Ultrastar.

 

[Audio-Purity]

many of the big players have lowered their warranties to 1-2 years from 3-5 years...

That is simply not true.
Only Seagate has drastically reduced their warranty coverage.
Seagate's Barracuda line now only has a 1 year warranty.
To make matters worse, the Barracuda line is only meant for "on as needed use" (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation)
Although, Seagate has recently reduced their warranty coverage, their enterprise-level drives have a 3 year warranty.
Just because Seagate slashed their warranty coverage, does that mean that all hard drive manufacturers have followed suit?
Western Digital offers a 5 year warranty on all their enterprise-level hard drives, the VelociRaptor, and even the "consumer-grade" Caviar: Black line.
Hitachi offers a 5 year warranty on their Ultrastar hard drives and a 3 year warranty on their Deskstar hard drives.

If Seagate sees that consumers won't readily accept a 1 year warranty on a hard drive, they'll have no choice, but to increase their warranty coverage and design products that are made to outlast their warranty period.
Offering only a 1 year warranty on their Barracuda line does not seem like something of which Seagate is proud.
I could not find the warranty on the Barracuda clearly stated anywhere on Seagate's official website.
I called Seagate to confirm that it only had a 1 year warranty and to ask them where the warranty is mentioned on their official website.
They confirmed that it indeed only has a 1 year warranty & that it's not stated anywhere on their website.
Seagate changed their warranty coverage over 6 months ago.
I'm going to show Seagate what I think of 1 year warranties on hard drives by refusing to buy or recommend them.
I hope others will do the same.
If Seagate won't stand behind their products, why should I?

There's no need to buy a consumer-grade hard drive with a 1 year warranty when there are so many alternatives on the market that have a much longer warranty.
There's no reason to buy an enterprise-level hard drive with a 3 year warranty when every other company offers a 5 year warranty.

If you think all hard drives are the same, consider this:
What does Seagate owe you 12 months after you buy their Barracuda hard drive?
Nothing! Not even a warranty!
Which hard drive is more likely to be designed to last: a hard drive with a 1 year warranty that's specified for "on as needed" use (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation)?
Or a hard drive with a 5 year warranty that's specified for "always on" use (24 hours a day, 7 days a week operation)?
If you owned a company that offered hard drives with 5 year warranties and you had to replace most or all of them 1 or more times, you would not stay in business.
It is true that we cannot predict the life of a hard drive with 100% certainty.
So, we need to look at things in terms of probability.
It only makes sense that a hard drive designed to be covered by a 5 year warranty will most likely outlast one that's only designed to be covered for 1 year.
Even if the hard drive with a 5 year warranty fails after 4 years, 11 months of constant use, it will still be replaced under warranty & you won't have to pay for a new one.
If the original hard drive fails after 1 year of use and then the replacement drive fails after 3 years of use, the replacement drive is still covered & will still be replaced under warranty.
I contacted Hitachi, Western Digital, and Seagate and all of them confirmed that the warranty from the original hard drive is carried over with your replacement drive.
The warranty of the replacement hard drive will have the same end date as the original hard drive.
If the Seagate: Barracuda fails after only 1 year of use, what are your options?
You will have no choice, but to buy a new hard drive.
There is a wise saying: "buy cheap, buy twice"
However, in this case, that is a massive understatement.
You would have to buy 5 Barracuda hard drives (1 each year) to equal the 5 year warranty & they still would only be designed for "on as needed" use (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation).
Take this into consideration when comparing hard drives & deciding which one to purchase.

For completely accurate & up-to-date warranty information with solid references, see my post:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1038849703&postcount=2

 

[kac77]

For disk backup you can get just about anything. It's backup, not your main. Hitachi would be the best deal usually. Then the green lines of either Seagate or WD. If you are worried about failure on your backup just mirror it.

If this was work related then it would be totally different. But for home just about anything will do. If you have alot of stuff you'll end up switching them out eventually anyway. Just get something pretty reliable and cheap.

 

[ender_speaker]

I called Seagate & spoke to pre-sales...
I also called Western Digital & spoke to technical support...
I also called Hitachi & spoke to support...

Wow, thanks a lot, that was really nice, helpful and quite rare these days!

For the moment I couldn't get any pricing on the 3&4 TB Hitachi drives, as the authorized dealers don't list any details on their sites. Depending on the availability I might go with Hitachi (perhaps the Deskstar 5K4000 or the even the Ultrastar 5K3000) and WD Caviar Green as back-up. Otherwise it's 2x WD. Constellation costs twice as much as a Green WD so I think I'm better off with 2x WDs for a 2Y warranty period (down from 3Y for Constellation).

Hitachi seems to be more reliable judging from the people's recommendations curiously though, they are not widely available.
From TH: "Unlike Seagate’s and Western Digital's 3 TB offerings, the Deskstar 5K4000 is designed for 24/7 operation."

On a slightly unrelated note, the boot drive is going to be a 1TB VelociRaptor. Would an mSATA 32/64GB SSD lead to any noticeable improvement if used for cashing (on a Z77 MB)?

 

[Fooshnik]

An SSD would improve speeds but you're better off installing the OS and often used programs to the SSD and less used programs/personal data to the HD.

As for backup, you could even get a simple USB 3.0 external HD dock, run your nightlies to that and keep one drive off site.

 

[Blkout]

Why is that?
What's so special about Hitachi hard drives?
What's special about the Samsung/Seagate F4 2TB drives?
What compelling reasons can you give to choose them over other, possibly better choices?
People can make any claim they want, but without conclusive proof to back it up, there is simply no reason to believe it.
Someone could claim that all Hitachi hard drives have a 10 year warranty, but without a link to Hitachi's official website to prove it, I'm not going to believe it for a second.
Are you just drawing from personal experience?
If so, then my personal experience with Hitachi has been that most Hitachi hard drives that I bought new have arrived dead on arrival (DOA).
This was before Western Digital acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.
I'm not sure what, if anything, has changed since the acquisition.
This doesn't prove that all HItachi hard drives are going to arrive DOA or fail early.
All it proves is that my own personal experience with Hitachi hard drives has not been very good.
Your experience with Hitachi hard drives could very well be completely different from mine.
That is precisely why anecdotal evidence cannot & should not be relied upon when trying to reach a valid & reliable conclusion.

Reliability is my biggest concern when archiving large amounts of data. The old Samsung F4 2TB drives were fantastic, but now owned by Seagate so I hope they have changed the drives although they do have a new label on them. Other than that, Hitachi has the best track record for drives above 1TB. All other makers have had reliability issues with drives over 1TB.

I have 10 Samsung F4 2 TB's in my HTPC, my brother has 8 in his HTPC and I have two other friends with 6 of them in their HTPC's and none of them have failed so far in over a years use. This pretty much confirms for me the reputation these drives have earned for their reliability.

 

[Audio-Purity]

Wow, thanks a lot, that was really nice, helpful and quite rare these days!

You're welcome. I'm looking into buying several high capacity hard drives. So I figured if I'm going to be doing the research anyway, why not share it?
I've updated all my posts to reflect my most recent findings. The updates include: answers to which hard drives are designed for 24/7 operation, whether or not idle, sleep or hibernate mode count as "always on" use, answers to which operating systems support 2.5TB or larger hard drives, answers to warranty questions, answers to why hard drives sometimes arrive DOA & who is to blame, a link to Hitachi's technical library, and key differences between Hitachi's Ultrastar & Deskstar lines.

For the moment I couldn't get any pricing on the 3&4 TB Hitachi drives, as the authorized dealers don't list any details on their sites.

Keep looking. Your efforts will be worth it because Hitachi is currently the best choice for high capacity hard drives.

TH: "Unlike Seagate’s and Western Digital's 3 TB offerings, the Deskstar 5K4000 is designed for 24/7 operation."

This is absolutely correct. I did some research & confirmed it.
Hitachi's current Deskstar line is specified for "24x7 availability." This includes their entire current Deskstar line, not just the 5K4000.
The Seagate: Barracuda & Western Digital: Caviar Green are definitely not designed for 24/7 operation.

On a slightly unrelated note, the boot drive is going to be a 1TB VelociRaptor. Would an mSATA 32/64GB SSD lead to any noticeable improvement if used for cashing (on a Z77 MB)?

If you're not completely satisfied by the performance of the 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor, you may want to consider using a high-performance SSDs, such as the Samsung: 830 or the OCZ: Vertex 4 as your boot drive. These drives offer incredible levels of performance. Their performance is very consistent and doesn't slow down with un-compressed data. I use the Samsung: 830 as my boot drive. If you're going to switch to an SSD, make it a good one! Also make sure you're using an OS that supports TRIM, such as Windows 7.
You can still find use for the VelociRaptor drive as a secondary drive for games, movies, music, photos, or software.

 

[Audio-Purity]

As for backup, you could even get a simple USB 3.0 external HD dock, run your nightlies to that and keep one drive off site.

One thing people always fail to mention when talking about external hard drives as backup is that if it ever falls or gets knocked over, all the data on the hard drive will most likely be gone forever because the hard drive will probably not survive the fall.
I know this from first-hand experience with an external Seagate hard drive. It was dropped once because of an accident involving the USB cord and it never worked again.
You can control your own actions, but can you control the actions of pets, children, or visitors?
With external USB hard drives, one accident is all it takes for your data to be gone forever.
USB cords are very easy to trip over and often get tangled up with other cords.
I now keep my hard drives inside a well-ventilated computer case.

 

[Audio-Purity]

Reliability is my biggest concern when archiving large amounts of data.

I couldn't agreed with you more.

The old Samsung F4 2TB drives were fantastic, but now owned by Seagate so I hope they have changed the drives although they do have a new label on them.

I contacted Seagate. Seagate said neither Seagate nor Samsung produce Samsung hard disk drives (HDDs) anymore. He said he is sure of this for the "America regions," but could not speak for other regions.
I'm not too concerned about Samsung HDDs because they are not manufactured anymore and there are better choices from Hitachi & Western Digital.
I think it's best to focus on hard drives that are still being manufactured and have a good, solid warranty.
You may have had good luck with Quantum hard drives. However, Maxtor acquired Quantum HDD business in 2001 & Seagate acquired Maxtor in 2006.
Acquisitions sometimes change everything.
The most important question to ask is: what hard drives does Seagate currently make & how good is the warranty they offer on those drives?

The Seagate: Barracuda line only has a 1 year warranty and is designed for "on as needed" use (8 hours a day, 5 days a week operation). That's a power-on hours profile of only 2080 hours per year.
I wouldn't recommend Seagate hard drives to anyone because there are far better choices with far better warranties & specifications.

Side note: Samsung's solid state drive (SSD) business is still owned & manufactured by Samsung.

I have 10 Samsung F4 2 TB's in my HTPC, my brother has 8 in his HTPC and I have two other friends with 6 of them in their HTPC's and none of them have failed so far in over a years use. This pretty much confirms for me the reputation these drives have earned for their reliability.

I'm surprised that anyone would be impressed by a very small group of hard drives lasting a year.
A close friend of mine & I bought several Western Digital: Caviar Black hard drives, including a 1.5TB model back in 2010. We've not had a single one fail.
Your anecdote might convince some people that Samsung HDDs are good.
My anecdote might convince some people that Western Digital HDDs are even better.
In reality, neither anecdote should convince anyone of anything.
Why don't either of these anecdotes prove anything?
Because the sample size is far too small & all variables are not controlled.
If you use a sample size that is too small, the results won't be statistically valid.
All variables also need to be controlled as well.

What if one brand of hard drives was ordered from unauthorized discount Retailer D, which is known to carelessly package items, but offers cut-throat prices and uses cheap shipping company C to cut costs so it can offer "free shipping", even though shipping company C has a reputation for mishandling packages during shipment, while the other brand of hard drives was ordered from reputable authorized Retailer R, which has an excellent reputation for service and packaging items properly & uses top shipping company T, which is slightly more expensive, but has a strong reputation for handling items with the uppermost care during shipment?
Would this affect the life expectancy of the hard drives & possibly cause some end-users to have biased opinions of which hard drive manufacturer is better?

Let's add 2 people into the equation: Frank & Walter.
Frank hears from people he knows that the "best" HDD is the Western Digital: RE4 line. The anecdotes he hears are so biased that they make the RE4 seems like the "only" choice. He decides to buy a 2TB RE4. His only concern is getting the lowest possible price on what he believes is the best drive. Foolish Frank decides to order from discount Retailer D. He never bothers to verify if Retailer D is an authorized Western Digital retailer before making his purchase. His focus is on getting the "lowest price."
Walter hears from people he knows that the "best" HDD is the Hitachi: Ultrastar 7K4000 line. The anecdotes he hears are so biased that they make the Ultrastar 7K4000 seems like the "only" choice. He decides to buy a 2TB Ultrastar 7K4000. Wise Walter knows that quality rarely comes cheap, so he decides to pay a little more & order from Retailer R, after verifying that Retailer R is indeed a reputable authorized Hitachi retailer.
Frank lives in Death Valley, California. He's so excited about getting the new hard drive that he drops it during installation. Frank takes no precautions against static electricity during installation. He doesn't even unplug his computer before installing the hard drive. He puts his 2TB Western Digital: RE4 in a poorly-ventilated & extremely dusty computer case in a room that doesn't have air conditioning. To make matters worse, Frank got the cheapest PSU he could find for his computer. Frank does not know that a poor quality power supply can shorten the life of computer components. He doesn't use a surge protector either. Frank is an internet addict & uses his computer extensively. He also uses the computer as a server. It's always left on. Sleep mode & hibernate are disabled. His RE4 ends up failing in July in 116 degrees fahrenheit weather.
Frank doesn't know what to do. So he goes to Western Digital's website and quickly learns "no warranty is provided by Western Digital unless your WD product was purchased from an authorized distributor or authorized reseller." After exploring Western Digital's website, it becomes clear to him that Retailer D is not an authorized WD retailer. It immediately begins to sink in that the RE4 he bought is not covered under warranty and that he will have to buy a new hard drive. Frank blames Western Digital for his hard drive failing and for not covering it under warranty. He refuses to accept responsibility for: his decision to buy from a disreputable, unauthorized retailer, his choice of shipping companies, his choice of PSU, dropping it during installation, failing to install the RE4 properly, failing to use a surge protector, his neglect of the computer into which he put his hard drive, his failure to put the computer in an air conditioned room, and his failure to do research on the retailer from which he decided to purchase the hard drive. Had he done research on the retailer, he would have noticed that there were thousands of reviews warning him to avoid the retailer. Due to his frustration with the whole experience, he casts aspersions on Western Digital every chance he gets, especially on IRC & internet fora (forums).
Walter lives in San Diego, California. He puts his 2TB Hitachi: Ultrastar 7K4000 hard drive in a well-ventilated & nearly dust-free computer case in an air conditioned room. Walter is very careful during installation of his new hard drive, taking all precautions against static electricity and makes sure he unplugs his computer before installation. Walter did research on PSUs & decided to get the SeaSonic: Platinum 1000 for his computer after learning that it got the Editor's Choice: Gold Award on [H]ard|OCP. He also uses the best surge protector he can find. Walter only has time to use his computer a few hours per week. It is powered down completely when it's not in use. The Ultrastar 7K4000 lasts through the month of July in 75 degrees fahrenheit weather. Walter is very pleased with his purchase and praises Hitachi every chance he gets. He quickly begins to see Hitachi as the "only" choice, since it hasn't failed him yet. He doesn't hesitate to recommend Hitachi to everyone he knows.
Walter meets Frank on an internet forum. They share experiences about recent hard drive purchases. Frank tells Walter that "my 2TB RE4 failed & Western Digital didn't even honor the warranty." Frank fails to mention that he bought it from an unauthorized retailer at a cut-throat price and that he chose "free shipping" even though he heard bad things about the shipping company. He leaves out that he failed to install the RE4 properly & even dropped it during installation. He neglects to mention that the PSU in his PC is the cheapest one on the market. He also fails to mention that he put the hard drive in a poorly-ventilated computer case that's never been dusted. He never mentions that he put the computer in a room without air conditioning, despite the extremely hot weather. He omits that he doesn't connect his computer to a surge protector. He doesn't even mention that the average high temperature during July is 116 degrees fahrenheit where he lives. Walter responds "oh my! That's terrible! You should have bought Hitachi. I've heard good things about Western Digital though. Maybe they're just not good at making hard drives above 1TB." Frank responds "yup, that's probably what it is." Frank decides to share his new-found "wisdom" with anyone who will listen. Little does he know, he is actually spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt). Word spreads fast and people are starting to falsely believe that Western Digital can't make good hard drive above 1TB and that they don't honor the warranty of their products. They all decide Hitachi is the only logical choice.

They all have reached a false conclusion, based on nothing more than anecdotes.
This is why anecdotes should be taken with a grain of salt & viewed with skepticism.

Side note: Always make certain that you purchase your hard drive from a reputable authorized retailer. See post #2 of this thread. It includes links to authorized retailers for Western Digital, Hitachi, and Seagate.
Western Digital, Hitachi, and Seagate will fully honor the warranty, as long as you purchase your hard drive from an authorized retailer.

Hitachi has the best track record for drives above 1TB. All other makers have had reliability issues with drives over 1TB.

Do you have any valid, conclusive, unbiased, non-anecdotal evidence to support this claim?
Otherwise, you're just spreading FUD.

I haven't come across anything that would call the reliability into question of the Western Digital 2TB RE4, 1.5TB RE4, 2TB Caviar: Black, or 1.5TB Caviar Black.
All Western Digital RE4 & Caviar: Black hard drives come with a 5 year warranty.
Every review I've seen of the RE4 & Caviar: Black has been positive.
There's no question that Hitachi is a very good choice right now.
But, they're not the only choice.

 

[ldoodle]

Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 (2TB) drives...

...not a single drive has failed

I have 15 of the HDS723020BLA642 7K3000 drives, so the next revision up from yours.

In the 1 year I've had them, 7 drives have been replaced....... so far! Using ZFS, all but one were down to trn (transport) errors, and the one that wasn't was down to h/w (hardware) errors.

That's nearly 50% failure rate. Unless ZFS is wrong in what it reports.

 

[GeorgeHR]

Hey there.

I need a couple of (3TB) drives for home archiving purposes. They will be powered on 24/7 but only rarely accessed so probably in sleep mode for some hours (definitely during the night), days or even weeks

I don't think archiving is the proper word for drives that are powered on full time.

I think any hard drive that you would use in a computer would be usable for your purpose.

---

I have all Western Digital hard drives (a few SSDs also). Just makes my life easier. Any brand should perform as well.

4 drives in our business server have been powered on full time for years. 8 drives in our HTPC have been powered on for years. No problems.

Our archieves are kept on hard drives that sit in external cases that might be on 1/2 hour a day. Until they are filled and are moved to storage where they will most likely never be used again (except to have the contents copied to larger drives to save space).

 

[Audio-Purity]

I have 15 of the HDS723020BLA642 7K3000 drives, so the next revision up from yours.
In the 1 year I've had them, 7 drives have been replaced....... so far! Using ZFS, all but one were down to trn (transport) errors, and the one that wasn't was down to h/w (hardware) errors.
That's nearly 50% failure rate. Unless ZFS is wrong in what it reports.

Have the drives replaced under warranty.

You may want to contact Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) support. Verify that you're running your 2TB Deskstar 7K3000 HDDs within specification. Try to troubleshoot the problems you're having. Ask them what is the best software to use to verify the health status of their hard drives. See if they can help you determine the root cause of the drives failing. Ask them if they would recommend the Deskstar or Ultrastar for your individual usage needs.

Such a high failure rate is extremely unusual.
Can you rule out the possibility that the drives may have been damaged during shipment?

 

[ldoodle]

Yeah thay have all so far been replaced under warranty. I can't go directly to Hitachi as they were bought through my work's main IT supplier (by me privately though, using my company spending power with them for a huge discount), so they are OEM drives.

I'd be very surprised if they were damaged in transit, as they came in one of those fancy hard disk transportation boxes, which I assume mfr's use to send to resellers. It was capable of carrying 30 disks, so my supplier just removed 15 of them.

Box was immauculate on arrival.

I agree such a high failure rate is uncommon, so I wonder if ZFS is false reporting. I think I have 1 failed drive still here so I will download Hitachi's Fitness Test tool and see what is shows - http://www.hgst.com/support/index-files/simpletech-legacy-downloads#DFT

 

[Aesma]

Audio-Purity, you sure like to write !

About the Samsung F4 2TB, I like them too and own a dozen, one died on me however, I was booting up my PC and a component on its board fried with a puff of smoke.

I RMAed it recently and got a refurb Seagate LP in its place.

As for retiring drives after 2 years, it was a time I did it, even before 2 years. But since drives had 3 or 5 years warranties, what I did was sell them on eBay to help pay for new drives. Now, I don't have the time to deal with eBay, and not the money to replace good drives, so I just use "old" drives less, mainly as offline backup.

 

[westrock2000]

My computers stay on all the time. Some times they sleep, but very often they stay on for days at a time. My server definently stays on 24/7. But it does spin down the harddrives after 30 minutes or so.

I have never had a harddrive fail within 1 year. In any of my computers that I can remember in the last 15 years. They either don't work from the beginning or they die several years later.

Even here at work we have started switching over from enterprise class SCSI drives to standard SATA drives and of the 2 hundred or so machines that have been put on SATA, I think we might replace 2 or 3 per year. And these are running 24/7 and actually doing stuff.