Picking a desktop 4TB HDD

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carlmart

Gawd
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Sep 17, 2006
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Some weeks ago I started looking for a suitable HDD to use for video editing purposes, specifically to transfer HD video tapes I had recorded years.

Those tapes had been uploaded to an HDD years ago, played that HDD lots of time, and when at last decided to start editing, I discovered the HDD had crashed and was not reading the files anymore. And as a stupid that I was I never made a backup of that HDD.

Fortunately the tapes are still with me, hopefully readable, to be captured again.

So I started looking for a 4TB HDD, with good comments in Newegg, and decided to go for this one:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822179299?reviews=all&Item=9SIAAEEAAT7010

Now, I do not live in the USA, I live in Brazil. Fortunately the model was available here, even if double the price. Fine.

The problem was when I went buy it and asked for the warranty, which I had taken for granted it was 3 years. Not so: just a single year.

So I went back to the Newegg page, and the 1-year warranty was not just for Brazil. For the USA too. Somebody can tell me why?

I don't buy any HDDs with less than 3-year warranty, as I think that time reflects what the manufacturer expects the HDD to last. Am I wrong?

So back to Newegg and I found this other Seagate:

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822178402?Item=9SIA5AD8P22252

Warranty: 3 years.

Someone may ask: why not pick a WD HDD, like the WD40EZRZ?

Main reason: price. It costs more than two times and a half the US price. Second reason: reliability rate for WDs I had has been very very poor.

Any comments on this Seagate I'm considering?
 
Make sure and read the fine print before you buy. Comments say the warranty isn't 3 years from Seagate, but 3 years from the third party seller. If you're in Brazil, they may not warrant it (or they might). Warranty length can definitely be an indicator of quality, if the warranty is from the manufacturer. Most of the enterprise-class drives have longer warranties than consumer drives, and are a little more durable.

I don't know that drive personally, so I can't help with that exact drive. It's a pretty small cache compared to other drives, so if it's for video editing you might check benchmarks.

Reliability wise, I've had excellent luck with all of my drives in personal systems, but years ago when I worked in a computer lab I was going through Hitachi drives like potato chips--sending RMA drives back in bulk shipping cases. I try to have a lot of backups.
 
I hadn't read the reviews, so I didn't know who did warrant the HDD.

But I just had a look at the reviews qualification spread for both models at Newegg, and it's quite poor for the Barracuda. And I have learnt to rather trust that information, provided the user universe is reasonably large.

The other drive spread can quite be trusted because the number of buyers is quite small.

OTOS, the spread for the WD Blue 4TB model is quite better than the Barracuda. Pity I can't find that exact model here.

What I just did was to look, one by one, at Newegg's users feedback for the models available here. There was one with reasonable spread.

https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E168221...4-_-Product&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo

Would that model, being a Surveillance type, work fine as a desktop HDD?

About the cache: all models available here, except for the Barracuda, have a 64MB cache. But if I'm not wrong that had been the cache in all the HDDs I had been using for editing.
 
Seagate sucks best faliure rate of them all check out Backblaze the site.
 
 
Comixbooks said:
Seagate sucks best faliure rate of them all check out Backblaze the site.
Click to expand...


Sorry, but this is no longer the case. Seagate is reliable as any other HDD manufacturer. Don't buy in to the outdated hype from a long ago seagate.

Much much better now.
 
Actually, the answer is "whatever". You see, a vendor can make a great drive "today" and a horrible drive "tomorrow" and both have the exact same model identification on the box. (sigh)

So, "who makes a great drive?" can only be answered with "unknown". Sure, we can describe what production lines of various models are "good", but we have to be talking about "after the fact". Otherwise, there just isn't enough data to make a conclusion. Just one of those things.

I appreciate the Backblaze data... and if you buy older stuff, it can really help out.
 
OP: Thanks for pointing out the drive ST4000NC001 .. I was able to scoop this one up on google shopping as New Old Stock from goHardDrive.com using the promo code DECSAVE19 (new google shopping customers) for $60.61 shipped. It should have a 3 year warranty with the vendor (not with Seagate as these are OEM drives). These older drives are reportedly very good for NAS use, quiet, low power consumption, and most importantly they are NOT SMR drives.. (basically old school 1tb platters x4 using Advanced Format and not Shingled / SMR)
 
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