Help picking a 2TB HD PLEASE!

S

splash

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 16, 2008
Messages
161
I'm one of those guys that wanted to build his own PC and I did BUT I really don't know hardly anything about these things.

Yesterday I was HELPED greatly on this site with getting a new video card. It is in my sig.

I don't GAME I just use my PC for email, internet and I do a lot of Photoshop CS5.

My sig. is up to date and my Seagate that I use for storage and my WIN 7 backup is full. I want to upgrade my data storage drive to a 2 TB drive. I don't want to buy the wrong HHD OR one that is know to have problems or firmware issues!

I also don't what to take several days getting up to speed on what is good or bad that is why I'm asking you to help a brother out and say "pick one of these 2 or 3 hard drives you can't go wrong and they will work with your motherboard just fine"!

Hell maybe you could even give me a link to where the best price is!

I just don't have the knowledge that you all have about these things. Sorry for being a newbie or asking dumb questions. I just hate to buy the wrong thing or waste money you know!

THANKS IN ADVANCE TO ALL THAT HELP!!!!!!!!
 
You can never be guaranteed that you will not have problems. It is expected that each 1% to 7% of your hard drives will die. And that is not always caused by old age, temperature or usage.

With that I recommend hitachi 2TB drives.
 
I guess a better way of asking this is "Are there any models or manufacturers to avoid? Last time I bought a HHD Seagate was having all kinds of firmware issues.

I could wait a week or two before buying so what is a great price for a 2TB drive on sale $80?
 
I would currently avoid Seagate.

However with that said I had bad drives or problems from all 4 drive manufacturers at work

Seagate (> 5% annual failure rate in the last year for all Seagate drives I purchased from 2008 to present)
WDC ( 1 TB black drive died in less than 6 months)
Hitachi (2TB drive DOA motor does not work)
Samsung ( firmware issues / patch released)
 
2TB Samsung F4 would be an option (patch the firmware!).

Consider using an SSD for your Operating System as well, or buy one later when newer SSDs are available at lower cost.
 
2nd on the samsung (if you are ok patching the firmware)

Or Western Digital is great too.
 
Looking at:

Western Digital Caviar Green 64 MB WD20EARS AR $80

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI $90

HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 AR $80 (Can I use this SATA 6G)?

Looking at these do to price.

My concerns are I have a Raid1 that has the WIN 7 OS installed and this new drive is just a data storage so will WIN 7 just recognize it and mount it?

Could I use the HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 being a SATA 6G?

And just how do you update the Spinpoint F4 firmware. I see I download a file and unzip it onto a USB drive. BUT when I have the new F4 plugged into the WIN 7 PC and turn it on won't the OS try to find the new hardware and start mounting and formatting? So how do I go about installing the firmware?

Sorry for being a moron! LOL!
 
And just how do you update the Spinpoint F4 firmware. I see I download a file and unzip it onto a USB drive. BUT when I have the new F4 plugged into the WIN 7 PC and turn it on won't the OS try to find the new hardware and start mounting and formatting? So how do I go about installing the firmware?
Click to expand...

You need to boot the computer into freedos. One easy way to do that is burn a cd of the freedos iso.

http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/

then change directory to the USB stick and run the program from there. The firmware update can not happen in windows.
 
the WD 2TB EARS green drives are dirt cheap. if i was going to be buying a drive for backup id use those.
 
The F4's have had serious firmware issues, and along with the WD drives have issues because of the 4K sector emulation.

The hitatchi 5K3000's are new and I would avoid them for awhile, but they stuck with the 512 byte sectors at least.

For me, I would stay with the 7K2000's. Reliable, fast, and very robust. no 4K emulation either.
 
I think I'm in the same boat as the OP (splash) except he is looking to use Win 7 (?) and I am shooting for ZFS. Now that the Samsung F4's are the same price as the 5k3000 it is a toss up. The data corruption issues on the F4's bother me and although I could update their firmware, I would rather not deal with that hassle. Right now I'm leaning more towards the Hitachi 5k3000 drives because of the SATA III 6Gbs support.

The whole 4k vs 512 sector thing and drive alignments are a little confusing. Are 4k sectors supposed to provide fewer writes than using 512, is that why people like them? What happens when you add a 4 5k3000 RAIDZ array to a 4 F4 RAIDZ array?
 
im upgrading my whs and just forked out a wad for 3x WD 2TB Black drives...i didnt want to have issues with the 4k drives, i dont trust hitachi and never used samsung.
 
I spent last night looking up best deals on net What do you think of these "junk or keeper" PLEASE vote

Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB 5,900 RPM 32MB SATA 3Gb ST320005N4A1AS 5yr Warranty $86

HITACHI 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb 3yr Warranty $80

WD 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB WD20EARS *AR* 3yr Warranty $80

SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB SATA 3.0Gb 3yr Warranty $80

I'm probably "smart enough" to do the F4 firmware update BUT don't like the idea IT doesn't change the FW # to let you know it took.

Again this drive is for data storage and backup images of OS and family pictures (backup).

I'm running WIN 7 64bit so will I deal with the alignment issues some drives have?

My raid1 is so quiet I have to look at the LED light on box to know if the PC is turned on. I want to stay quiet if that makes a difference?

Money right now is an issue that is why I have been looking for the lowest prices AND realize that 2TB HD during Black Friday got down to $69.99 so these prices are about as good as it is going to get.

THANKS IN ADVANCE TO ALL THAT REPLY!
 
Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB 5,900 RPM - Junk (reliability concerns)
HITACHI 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 2TB 32MB - Keeper (Fastest drive of the bunch by far)
WD 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB - Keeper (Slowest drive of the bunch again by far)

SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB SATA 3.0Gb - Keeper (need to update firmware)
 
drescherjm said:
Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB 5,900 RPM - Junk (reliability concerns)
HITACHI 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 2TB 32MB - Keeper (Fastest drive of the bunch by far)
WD 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB - Keeper (Slowest drive of the bunch again by far)

SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB SATA 3.0Gb - Keeper (need to update firmware)
Click to expand...

Seagate ST2000DL003 Barracuda Green Hard Drive - 2TB, 5900 RPM, 64MB, SATA-6Gb
3yr warranty $84

drescherim wis thes Seagate junk too? And thanks for all your replies!
 
I really do not like Seagate reliability right now. From the high rate of problems I am having at work with drives from them purchased after 2008. The interesting thing is none of these problems were firmware related.
 
OK I made a choice and went with the highly praised SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI for $79.99 no rebate to deal with and got it from Newegg which is a bonus.

One last request is there a WELL WRITTEN and clear for a non-techie directions as to not turn this into a paper weight when I try to up date the firmware?

Link PLEASE! And THANK YOU!
 
1. burn an iso of freebsd and burn it to a cd
2. download the firmware to a USB stick.
3. boot the freebsd cd
4. After it boots use the cd command to change directory and the dir command to examine each drive letter that are available till you find the executable
5. run the executable. Do not worry about any other drives installed it will ignore these. Just do not let the power go out during the process.
 
splash said:
OK I made a choice and went with the highly praised SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI for $79.99 no rebate to deal with and got it from Newegg which is a bonus.

One last request is there a WELL WRITTEN and clear for a non-techie directions as to not turn this into a paper weight when I try to up date the firmware?

Link PLEASE! And THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

I ended up going with the Hitachi drives. I will let you know if I have problems.

Link to Firmware: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386
 
I ended up going with the Hitachi drives. I will let you know if I have problems.
Click to expand...

Those are mighty quick at 155MB/s. Compare that at the 120 MB/s WDC Green or the 140MB/s Samsung F4.
 
Found this on another forum about the build date on the F4's :


Just wanted to post some information from Samsung that may be helpful to people (like me) with drives built in December 2010:

Dear Customer,
Since your drive was made past 11/2010 the patch has already been applied. Therefore you don't need to patch it again. Also your drive should not fail due to a missing patch.
Thank You for choosing Samsung



I had read anecodotal evidence of this on another forum from a person who stress tested three F4EG drives and found that the 12/2010 build did not produce write errors but that the earlier builds did. I'm breathing easier now.

Take that for what it is worth. I would think this would be found on Samsung website somewhere.
 
you dont need to re-align the 4k drives if youre using windows 7. that only applies to previous os'. the only issue i did run into using a 2tb green drive in win7 64 bit was waking up from sleep due to the headpark issue. ms released a patch that corrects it. once i installed it the problem went away.BUT, it was not the patch released under windows update. for some reason the one under windows update did not fix the issue. installing the separate patch did though. i havent had the drive drop out yet.
 
the only issue i did run into using a 2tb green drive in win7 64 bit was waking up from sleep due to the headpark issue. ms released a patch that corrects it.

Rogue71

Could you send me a link to that patch?
 
I am planning to setup a ZFS system at home using 2TB drives. However after reading articles/posts on the 4k issue (which I don't really understand) I am concerned about what drives will 'work'.

My initial setup is hopefully a 4 drive RAIDZ (1 or 2 - haven't decided), which will be expanded to hopefully 8 drives later down the track when I add another 4 drive raid to the pool. The OS will be Solaris Express 11.

The Samsung HD204UI, Seagate ST2000DL003, Hitachi HDS722020ALA330 are all on my shortlist. I was thinking 2 Hitachi drives and 2 Samsung/Seagate drives to hopefully reduce the rate of a >2 drive failure (if using radiz2)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks.
 
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