Reliable 2TB internal drive for media files storage…?

A

amd7674

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 1, 2007
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I’m running out of space on my desktop which I use as my “file server” (smb shares on win7) and I have to buy something ASAP. After doing some quick research I’m very surprised of the current HDD failure rate and low ratings reported by newegg users…. Ouch..

I want something reliable (who does not), so possibly 2 media devices can access it at the same time.

I’m thinking about the following models….

Samsung Sandpoint F4

Hitachi Deskstar

WD Green EARS

I have both smaller brothers Hitachi 1tb and Wd Green 1.5Tb, and I like both of them… I like Sammy as it seems more reliable than Hitachi and WD (accoring to few reviewers), but I have to order it from newegg, so I’m worry about transportation and possible DOA. Hitachi and WD I can buy locally (WD being cheaper) and I have 15 days straight HDD exchange, so there is no worry about DOA/RMA/Shipping charges etc….

Perhaps I should go for something smaller 1.5tb or 1tb if it means it will be more reliable?

TIA ;)
 
Samsungs are among the lowest failure rates, I'd go with them personally.
 
I have been using a WDC 2TB Green for over a year for my HTPC storage. This summer I have added a second Green 2TB Green (this time an EARS) and yesterday I added 2 Samsung F4s. $100 for 2TB is a great price (I paid that shipped for the WDC Green as well). Now I can retire a dozen 250 to 750GB drives. Or to be more accurate move them to backup only roles and not power them 24/7. The WDC 2TB greens work great for streaming HD video we shall see how the F4s work..
 
The low ratings on NEWEGG are because of two important factors:

Firstly Newegg ratings are generally worth absolutely nothing. 95% of the people who 'review' or 'rate' a product on Newegg aren't even qualified to have their own thumbs up their butts, let alone install a HDD.

Secondly and most importantly, Newegg's hard drive shipping practices are quite probably responsible for the vast majority of DOA drives. When you order an OEM / bare drive from Newegg you are likely to receive it in a large box with a single layer of bubble wrap taped around the drive itself, and then a crumpled up piece of brown paper to accompany it in the shipping box. You're brand new hard drive has likely been beaten to hell before it ever reaches your doorstep if you order it from the egg.
 
Thanks guys for your comments... :D

I did sent out few emails to local shops to see if they can get me Samsung F4, if not I’ll go with the cheapest out of three WD Green.
 
I would lean towards the Samsungs. They run much cooler than the WD's and seem to have a lower failure rate.
 
I just ordered 2 of the 2TB F4s yesterday before the promo code expired, and I've had 4 2TB F3s running flawlessly for a few months. Really liking Samsung right now.
 
OMG LOL !!! I was ready to pull the trigger on local WD Green drive, and you guys are making VERY HARD on me and are voting for Samsung now .... 3 experienced users in the row.....wow.... :)

So you guys think I should order Sammy and take my chances with Newegg's shipping methods....?
 
Jesse B said:
Samsungs are among the lowest failure rates, I'd go with them personally.
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Based on what? Newegg reviews?

I'd say the most reliable is whatever Dell/HP/Acer uses. They are the ones that have to deal with the customer when they fail and a drive failure will reflect on the entire quality of the system from the customer perspective.
 
I'd say the most reliable is whatever Dell/HP/Acer uses.
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What!? Dell stuck with IBM throughout the entire 'click of death' era. And they are infamous for RAM with abnormally high failure rates and PSUs that take out the whole computer when hooked up to a dirty/ungrounded outlet.
 
Well Toyota f'ed up and people still buy them by the millions. We are way past the Deathstar drive era.
 
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danman said:
Well Toyota f'ed up and people still buy them buy the millions. We are way past the Deathstar drive era.
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"Toyota was great in 1970 and I'm unwilling to do any new research but I just know they are still the best anyway, and I'm going to act all smug about my new Prius."
 
@OP

I'd say Samsung or Hitachi (Google love the Hitachis). If you want to save a few Watts, get the Samsung. In fact I intend to buy three of them very shortly.
 
danman said:
Well Toyota f'ed up and people still buy them by the millions. We are way past the Deathstar drive era.
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no let him make his point about deathstars, since that was almost a decade ago its very relevant to bring up today, nevermind that "era" was also before Hitachi bought out IBM and took over manufacturing because its like .. "the click of death, deathstar deal, bro."

parityOCP said:
(Google love the Hitachis).
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there's a shocker. :)
 
odditory said:
no let him make his point about deathstars, since that was almost a decade ago its very relevant to bring up today, nevermind that "era" was also before Hitachi bought out IBM and took over manufacturing because its like .. "the click of death, deathstar deal, bro."
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Sorry, my bad :)
 
I think you'll be fine with whatever drives you get. Nobody here has any real reliability statistics they can show you.

I have a couple of first gen 2TB WD greens that have been working great since I bought them. I don't have any other 2TB drives to compare with though.

odditory said:
no let him make his point about deathstars, since that was almost a decade ago its very relevant to bring up today
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Seems relevant to me. If Dell didn't bother to switch manufacturers back when there were known issues why would they bother today? I would assume they just go with whoever can get them the drives they need for the lowest price, all modern drives are fairly reliable.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Seems relevant to me. If Dell didn't bother to switch manufacturers back when there were known issues why would they bother today? I would assume they just go with whoever can get them the drives they need for the lowest price, all modern drives are fairly reliable.
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Maxtor says hi.
 
just go with whoever can get them the drives they need for the lowest price
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I believe that is what most PC manufacturers do. I still remember years ago (work experience) when IBM sold computers there was a time when they did not put their own drives in their machines.
 
Probably because they could sell them for more than they could buy a competitors product for.
 
I have 2x 2TB Samsung F3s on a WHS box. Really great drives. Quet and cool.

I had a 1Tb F3 previous to that whcih was also a great drive.
 
I tend to lean towards WD myself. In fact, that is all I have..

But I also believe that all modern drives are fairly reliable, so I would go with the largest capacity you need, at the lowest price..:D
 
As long as you thoroughly stress your disks after receiving them, any new disk should be fine.
Those that fail the test can be returned and replaced ASAP, those that pass the test will most likely be fine for years.

I switched to Seagate for the past 4 years, I had only one 500GB disk fail me when it approached full capacity, it was replaced at no cost: They sent me a new drive in a special box, I returned mine in the same pre-paid box. It was guaranteed for 5 years. That was my first hard disk for years, I would have found this problem earlier if I had run Seagate Tools, which I now do systematically for all new drives.

I have also 9 of the infamous 1.5TB disks, I have been lucky with them so far, only had to update the firmware to fix a random 3 minutes OS freeze bug caused by bad cache management software, they've been fine in RAID 6 so far. Recently I purchased 2 Barracuda XT 2TB (kinda between their consumer and enterprise lines) and 2 external 3TB disks to play with. So far, so good.

If you read the user comments on newegg about Seagate issues, it appears that it's only the disks built in China that are buggy. That's why I tried the Barracuda XTs, they're made in Thailand (and have 64MB of cache.)

As for newegg shipping, these 2 XTs were very well protected, bubble-wrapped and inside a kind of cardboard sliding box I never saw before, inside the newegg shipping box. But I heard other people mention their recent naked drive order was very badly packaged, one side of the drives directly on the shipping box because the inflatable protection burst, maybe it depends on the brand.
 
From the current lineup:
I have 6 WD drives, all of which run great (EARS 2TB x 2, 4 blue/black series drives).
I have 4 Samsung drives, all of which run great (4 x F3 1TB).

I intend to pick up several more 2TB drives, F4 or EARS, depending upon the F4 reviews. I can wait.

Trends I've noticed:

- WD may have better RMA and warranty / customer support.
- WD drives tend to have better IOPS performance, but slower max-throughput in the 7200rpm lineup.
- Samsung's F3 7200 RPM drives tend to be quieter and cooler than the WD 7200 RPM drives, yet the F3 variant delivers greater sequential read/write speed.
- The Samsung 5400rpm drives may be slightly slower than the WD EARS green ( http://www.storagereview.com/samsung_spinpoint_ecogreen_f3_review_hd203wi ), but perhaps the new F4 2TB changes this. The EADS 2TB green seems to bench slightly better than the EARS overall despite slower average sequential speeds (due to the 4K sectors I guess). - not 100% sure on that EARS vs EADS factoid = couldn't quickly dig up my source, so it's from fuzzy memory.
- Samsung F2 5400 rpm series tends to have loud seeks compared to WD green drives: http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58561
- I have not heard the same complaint against the F3 5400 rpm drives, however.

Either way... WD and Samsung are my go-to HD brands. I like them both, but I've been buying and recommending Samsung lately because of their F3 1TB (best value I've seen).
 
I know the Samsung F3 was a great hard drive and Samsung is a really good brand so I'd go with the F4.
 
Stay away from Seagate. I made the mistake of buying 4 x 2TB Barracuda LP drives. I have them in 2 x RAID 1 arrays. They are all less than a year old. On Tuesday, one developed the 'click of death'. You couldn't even identify it in the BIOS. The Model # wouldn't show up and SeaTools couldn't even read the serial #. Thankfully I bought Retail Kits w/5 year warranty. Luckily they have a good replacement service too.
 
Burner27 said:
Stay away from Seagate.
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yep, do. They're popular because they were free after rebate for a while at Fry's and because they were the first (IIRC) to raise warranty to 5 years. Thing is, that 5 year warranty was necessary. It'd be like saying buy an (older) Xbox 360 because MS extended the warranty. Okay... But the product still sucks!
 
Seagate was never an option...

So I was not able to find a local shop selling Sammy 2Tb F4..

so the question is:

Is Sammy (on special until today) really worth $17 more and taking chance on Newegg's shipping methods?

Or it would make more sense to go with cheaper WD Green EARS (3 platter) with the ability of 15 days direct replacement warranty from local shop.... I guess after 15 days I would still have to deal thru regular RMA WDC channels (no benefit to local shopping)

All I need is "reliable" storage media drive...
 
Do you need the drive today?

I would wait till the drive is $100 again (like it was 2 days ago with coupon code) at newegg with free shipping.

I am supposed to get the 2 x 2TB F4s I paid $198 for shipped in a few hours. I will report back on the shipping condition from the Memphis warehouse..
 
Western Digital 2TB Black edition would be my choice. The Blacks have a 5yr warranty which means they are probably put together well.

Though I will say how the drive is shipped/packed makes a huge difference. Newegg has been problematic for me on the past 3 drives. I've since switched to amazon.
 
Western Digital 2TB Black edition would be my choice. The Blacks have a 5yr warranty which means they are probably put together well.
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That is a good drive but do you need the extra speed for a media server? Is that combined with the extra warranty worth almost double the cost?
 
I just got my 2TB F4s from newegg. Shipping was excellent. Drives were in cshells. Then bubble wrapped. Then individually boxed then put in a large box with loads of the brown paper that they use for packing. Maybe I will take a picture when I get home..
 
drescherjm said:
Do you need the drive today?

I would wait till the drive is $100 again (like it was 2 days ago with coupon code) at newegg with free shipping.

I am supposed to get the 2 x 2TB F4s I paid $198 for shipped in a few hours. I will report back on the shipping condition from the Memphis warehouse..
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I don't need it today. However I live up north in Canada; and we do not get same specials :(
 
From the reports, anecdotal user experiences and information I've come across as far as reliability is concerned...

#1 Hitachi
#2 WD (they sometimes seem less reliable but sell far, far more than anyone else besides Seagate. Proportionally they are very reliable lately)
#3 Samsung (some strange issues have been encountered by some users with the F3s tho, I'm slightly distrustful to invest in more Samsung drives when Hitachi and WD are doing so well)
 
housecat said:
From the reports, anecdotal user experiences and information I've come across as far as reliability is concerned...

#1 Hitachi
#2 WD (they sometimes seem less reliable but sell far, far more than anyone else besides Seagate. Proportionally they are very reliable lately)
#3 Samsung (some strange issues have been encountered by some users with the F3s tho, I'm slightly distrustful to invest in more Samsung drives when Hitachi and WD are doing so well)
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I used to hate on Hitachi, but my file server now primarily has hitachi 2tb HDDs in it.
They've been good to be, so I will continue to use them. That and the only other 2TB drives that usually go on sale are 4k drives.
 
I was going to post this same question LOL

one other thing..in raid 5 will the drive speed have any effect on transfer rates on the network?
how about 32 vs 64 m buffers on the drives?

Just thinking of using this for blu ray iso playback over the network.
 
Just out of curiosity, has samsung changed its RMA-policy?
It used to be the way that RMA were to be handled by the place of purchase, if that place went out of business a distributor could(don't think they had to) handle RMA, if the distributor didn't want to do the RMA one was screwed...
 
sparks said:
I was going to post this same question LOL

one other thing..in raid 5 will the drive speed have any effect on transfer rates on the network?
how about 32 vs 64 m buffers on the drives?

Just thinking of using this for blu ray iso playback over the network.
Click to expand...

A single drive of virtually any kind made recently will be able to stream blu-ray across the network assuming you're not streaming to multiple machines/devices.
 
Dell and HP use drives from Samsung, WD, and Seagate from what I've seen at work. It probably depends what they on the assembly line at the the time.

Even within the same order of about 100 machines, there were Samsungs and WDs in the computers.

My Latitude laptop came with a WD black, but my friend's laptop came with Seagate with similar specs. The 6 Latitudes at work have a mix of Seagate and WD even in the same order.

Dell and HP don't seem to care too much about the brand of the drive. When the drive is replaced under warranty, the replacement may not be the same brand of drive. They only try to give you something at least equal to what was there previously. I've received 160GB drives to replace 80GB drives probably because 80GBs are no longer stocked.
 
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