Outta Space...What to Buy?

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Sovereign

2[H]4U
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Mar 21, 2005
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Yeah. I'm out of space. No, I'm not going to delete things, the solution is another drive. I haven't paid attention to hard drives since about the days the Raptor 150 was brand-new and king of all things hard drive.

I was looking at the Western Digital GP 1.5TB. A close price competitor is Seagate's 1.5TB models; are those still as bad as they were when the firmware problems showed up en masse? Had a friend get 3 bad drives in a row, he eventually got a refund.

However, (and please don't flame me--I'm just cautious), NewEgg reviews seem to state that even the 1.5TB GPs are a "gamble" and the drives constantly spin down, then spin up, which makes SMART think they're going nuts. SMART (in Vista) was what told me one of my 750GB drives was going... Am I going to see that with the GPs?

My budget is about $130-ish for just SATA drives (i.e., I don't need a RAID or controller card).
 
I have a pair of 7200.11 Seagate 1.5tb drives that came with firmware CC1H (post problem) that I've been having some issues with this week. I'd say go for 7200.12 or LP if you want Seagate.

WD is also a good option, personally I'm using them now.
 
I just picked up 3 of the Samsung 1.5TB Ecogreens for $99 each at Newegg. It's $119 if you only buy 1. They should be here tomorrow. I'm curious to see how they compare to the rest of my storage which is mostly WD Green. I do have a couple 7200.11 1.5TB Seagates, one pre-firmware problem and one post. Haven't had problems with either.
 
I have purchased many of the Hitachi 1 TB drives lately. I have lots of them... maybe 12 to 15? And I have had no DOA's from ZZF or New Egg. They are really cheap... less than $80. Sometimes as little as $67. You could get two of them and run them mirrored (Raid 1) and have some redundancy. That is what I do.
 
Hmm. Those Samsung EcoGreens are the same price as the WD GPs. The only problem is I see a couple reviews that suggested Samsung offers no warranty on OEM drives (as opposed to WD Caviars I had warranty service on even though I bought them off eBay). Can anyone confirm?

I think if I'm gonna buy a 1.5TB, WD keeps my business because of their warranty service...
 
Sovereign said:
Hmm. Those Samsung EcoGreens are the same price as the WD GPs. The only problem is I see a couple reviews that suggested Samsung offers no warranty on OEM drives (as opposed to WD Caviars I had warranty service on even though I bought them off eBay). Can anyone confirm?

I think if I'm gonna buy a 1.5TB, WD keeps my business because of their warranty service...
Click to expand...
Yes, i read the something similar about the oem 1.5TB samsungs. While some places are offering it for low low prices (buy.com or ebay + bing cashback), it looks like it only has a 30 day warranty. I found that out after i had already bought one, the good news is i paid only $60 for it (price mistake + coupon + cashback) ;)

If prices were competitive i'd def take the 1.5TB western digital + full warranty.

The Hitachi 1Tb 3 platter drives are nice also, i have a few and can't recall reading any complaints about them. Fast and cheap.
 
I would call Newegg customer service and ask about the Samsung OEM warranty.
They have plenty of Samsung OEM drives listed with warranties.
Just get something in online chat or from their website that you can print and save.
Newegg will honor any listed warranty that the manufacturer won't.

If there really is no warranty on OEM Samsung drives, I would like to know so that
I can not buy another one of them.

Typically the "no OEM HDD warranty" refers to OEM drives shipped to Dell, HP, etc. that are used in systems. In that case, the end user gets their warranty from Dell, HP, etc. as part of their total system warranty, and the drive manufacturer does not support the end user directly.

But OEM drives sold through places like Newegg should always have 3+ years.
 
This issue with the Samsungs has been cleared already. Put in the serial number on the website, you will see that it has a 3 Year Warranty. Samsung offers 3 Years w/ all OEM Hard drives
 
I have been using 2 of the Samsungs for a week now and have both half way filled up. They are still transfering data to them at 96 mb/s with some very large Video files. They are supper quiet and I am very impressed.
 
Another vote for the Samsungs. The WD Green drives' throughput go in the crapper if you turn off write caching. The Samsungs do a better job IMO. I have a pair of 1TB EcoGreen F2s, and have been quite pleased with them.
 
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