Reliable Hard drives?

3

3DChipset

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Sep 3, 2007
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What is a good reliable hard drive manufacturer that you guys have had good success with? Seems Western Digital is a hit or miss... Any other manufacturers out there with a good track record?
 
Everyone is going to give you a different answer, but I prefer WD and Samsung. I will not touch Seagates.
 
I believe all sata drives are unreliable. Expect and prepare for a 2% to 8% annual failure rate for the first 5 years. We surely hit that at work. Although I am lucky not to hit that at home. At work we have had failures from all 4 manufacturers this year and close to the 8% of our drives failed out of 200+. Like last year, most of the failures were purchased from 2008 to present. With that said. I would put the order of most reliable to least: Hitachi, Samsung, WDC, Seagate.
 
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Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate... haven't had much luck with Western Digital unfortunately.
 
Brocasta said:
Everyone is going to give you a different answer, but I prefer WD and Samsung. I will not touch Seagates.
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+1
WD and Samsung are great. Seagates are only good in the enterprise-grade market, stay away from consumer-grade markets if you want a HDD that will last beyond a year.
 
drescherjm said:
I believe all sata drives are unreliable. Expect and prepare for a 2% to 8% annual failure rate for the first 5 years. We surely hit that at work. Although I am lucky not to hit that at home. At work we have had failures from all 4 manufacturers this year and close to the 8% of our drives failed out of 200+. Like last year, most of the failures were purchased from 2008 to present. With that said. I would put the order of most reliable to least: Hitachi, Samsung, WDC, Seagate.
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Wow, you can't really believe your own bullshit here...

No, not all SATA drives are bad. Because they use SATA they are bad? Not everyone can afford SAS drives which are $500+ per drive.
Nearline-class drives are far better than desktop/portable-class drives, and they are SATA.

If you want to talk about drive classes or grades, that's one thing.
Just saying they will fail because they use SATA is one of the most laughable statements I have ever heard! :D
 
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The only reliable drive is one that's backed up regularly, beyond that I'd just pick whatever's cheapest and/or has the longest warranty... (and an SSD if you're shopping for an OS drive, they're totally worth it) I've literally had at least one drive from all the major manufacturers die on me, at home, and I don't have a home server or any exotic storage needs. Even had a venerable Quantum die on me unexpectedly after a vacation trip years ago.

Outside of bad batches or models with known issues (7200.10?), I don't think it's worth your time to try and figure out what's more reliable, because it's next to impossible anyway. Anecdotal evidence means very little, and environmental conditions often play a role in drive failure... From running temp, which you can control, to things entirety out of your hands, such as how securely it was originally shipped.
 
I don't think it's worth your time to try and figure out what's more reliable, because it's next to impossible anyway.
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I disagree. There is a lot of data and user experience out there on success and failure rates in the industry.
Yes, some HDDs do have higher failure rates than others, but that's why we at [H] do our research before buying the "cheapest" HDD available.

For a 10 year member, that really wasn't the best advice to give, imo.

I don't have a home server or any exotic storage needs.
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That's great that you don't, but many of use do have servers and very advanced/complex storage units, and standard desktop-class HDDs are not normally enough.
Research must be conducted to find which drives are suitable for our needs.

There is no such thing as a one-drive-fits-all solution.

I agree with you on finding a HDD which may have a good warranty, but what about the data on the drive?
Again, I agree with backups, but many of us require uptime as well.
The amount of time it takes to recover several TBs of data from tape or disk backup storage units may take far too long for the required situation.
I myself have hotswap drives ready for extended uptime.


What you are stating is great for a general-user.
This isn't [G]eneralOCP though, it's [H]ardOCP!
 
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I understand those with servers or RAID arrays shouldn't (and really can't) just buy any old drive, many cheaper drives wont even play nice in that sorta setup (no news to you I'm sure)... That doesn't necessarily make those drives less reliable per se tho, just not suited for certain uses. I didn't think that was the OP's case tho (or the thread's point) but maybe I'm mistaken. Users in those situations usually know better. :p

I just made the comment about not owning a server or anything like that to point out I wasn't buying half a dozen drives every two years, and yet I've still managed to end up with dead drives from almost every single manufacturer (Samsung might be the exception, don't think I've owned any actually), in the course of maybe 15 years (which isn't much imo, given the context and number of failures).

Red Falcon said:
I disagree. There is a lot of data and user experience out there on success and failure rates in the industry.
Yes, some HDDs do have higher failure rates than others, but that's why we at [H] do our research before buying the "cheapest" HDD available.

For a 10 year member, that really wasn't the best advice to give, imo.
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Cool, you got any links then? I'm never beyond educamating myself some... ;) Preferably something that applies to the drives in general, not specific multi-drive setups that depend on key drive characteristics.

Some of the most interesting I've ever seen were Google's data center studies but I think those revolved largely around environmental conditions and run time rather than brands/models. I've seen plenty of troubled lines to avoid in the past, and some I didn't see soon enough (IBM Deathstar 75GXP, what up?), but I've never seen a comprehensive study focused mainly on brand reliability (or even current models).
 
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and yet I've still managed to end up with dead drives from almost every single manufacturer
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What drive models were they? What grade segment were they in? If they were all just desktop-class drives, I'm really not that surprised, shit happens.

not specific multi-drive setups that depend on key drive characteristics
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Hate to say it, but you kind of need to know this information before you can really say which hard drives might be good and bad, depending on the scenario.

Cool, you got any links then?
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http://forums.storagereview.com/index.php/topic/29329-ssd-failure-rates-compared-to-hard-drives/

Also, in the last 20 years, I've personally seen each of a manufacturer's drive fail at some point or another, with the exception of Conner drives and Quantum drives.
Conner was a bit before my time, but the ones I've used were rock-solid.
I do agree with you though, sooner or later, a drive from each manufacturer will eventually give out over time.

Seriously though, desktop-class drives have a much higher failure rate than nearline-class drives such as Seagate Constellation and WD RE4 drives.
Nearline-class drives are a lot more robust and have a much higher tolerance to noise, heat, vibration, and punishment.
Another thing is that desktop-class drives are 8x5 drives, where as nearline-class are 24x7 drives.

Research, profit, go forward, and conquer! :D
 
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My personal experience: none of my WD and Hitachi drives failed, however the only two Seagates drives I had caused me trouble (one died and the other has an increasing amount of SMART warnings).

I'm including external drives and laptops in there (mines had Hitachi drives and still work perfectly fine).
 
@Red Falcon Those are all valid points, but the OP didn't give any details about his usage scenario either, just asked about general reliability based on brand, which is really hard to judge. It seemed to me like a very general question centered around desktop class drives, hence my original reply. People looking for a reliable drive with no other qualifications are very often the lazy ones that don't wanna set up a simple backup routine! (no offense OP)

RMA numbers seems like one of the sloppiest ways to judge this, considering the fact that many drives that arrive DOA will just be returned to the seller, and many more will fail past the warranty (or are simply replaced and never RMA'd). Still tho, that link is interesting. I think I've seen it before... Pretty sure I've at least seen those SSD numbers bandied about before during many Sandforce discussions. Tho with most of those SDD manufacturers now employing controllers from more than one company and even varying the source of NAND, the #'s become useless without a model breakdown like they did for HDDs.

Anyway, yeah, all my failed drives were all just regular desktop drives; tho I really don't remember much about the Quantum, not even capacity, just what rig it was on (probably only remember that one because it was Quantum, RIP). Had one Maxtor, one external WD, two or three Seagates (think one was a laptop drive), one IBM, one Hitachi, and the Quantum. Two most recent were Seagate. Probably forgetting some, but that's like 7 out of maybe 25 drives that crossed my household (30 tops), I think I've had relatively poor luck actually, sure taught me to backup tho! :p
 
No, not all SATA drives are bad. Because they use SATA they are bad?
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I said they were unreliable. And I meant don't trust your important data to a single drive because it can fail. A lot of users here expect to buy a hard drive and it to last for for many years without any issues at all.

Not everyone can afford SAS drives which are $500+ per drive.
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I agree. And I certainly do not recommend that for most users.

Nearline-class drives are far better than desktop/portable-class drives, and they are SATA.
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The problem with this is determining which drives are designed better versus being the exact same drive with a different firmware. I have given up on that at work.To me MTBF is a meaningless number since many bad lines of drives (deskstars, seagate 7200.10s ...) had the standard MTBF whatever that was at the time but had much higher failure rates.

I plan for and expect failure. Everything is backed up at least 2 times. All raid servers have hot swappable bays for most if not every drive. Every single drive in a raid array is monitored for 5 important SMART parameters. I always have boxes on hand to ship out my RMAs.
 
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3DChipset said:
What is a good reliable hard drive manufacturer that you guys have had good success with? Seems Western Digital is a hit or miss... Any other manufacturers out there with a good track record?
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LOL!

See the can of worms you opened? LOL!!!

Pick a drive....any drive.....the differences are so miniscule that there's no difference other than loyality.

I have NO loyality to ANY brand because they've all had good and not so good drives but it's totally idiotic to consider one brand more reliable than the next.

Buy what fits your needs. :)
 
Agreed with Red Falchon. My storage Preference for near line is Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate. Consumer grade research carefully.
 
It seemed to me like a very general question centered around desktop class drives
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Impusle, I think you might be right about that.

@drescherjm: If I were you imo, I would look at some of the features of nearline-class drives compared to destkop-class drives.
I know everyone says that the only difference of a WD RE4 drive is the firmware, but that simply is not true, there is a lot more to it.

As for the MTBF number, it really is meaningless, I agree.
Much more data is needed before that number will mean anything imo.
 
I opened up a can of worms, eh? I'm loving the responses from those who have some knowledge on the subject. I want to get 4 HD's and a 30gb for the OS. I want to create a homeserver for files. I haven't heard of WD RE4 drives before. I'll have to look up on those. Thanks again for all the feedback. It's appreciated.
 
drescherjm said:
LOL. We had quite a few failures in their bigfoot line of 8.4GB drives.
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lol, yeah it was a joke.

Anyways, on a more serious note my opinion is that no one manufacture is better than the others in terms of reliability.

For instance, the IBM DeathStar line was probably the worst hard drive line in existence, they were actually made by Hitachi. Now Hitachi makes very good drives.

The reliability of the line actually comes from the model and revision more than the brand.
 
3DChipset said:
I opened up a can of worms, eh? I'm loving the responses from those who have some knowledge on the subject. I want to get 4 HD's and a 30gb for the OS. I want to create a homeserver for files. I haven't heard of WD RE4 drives before. I'll have to look up on those. Thanks again for all the feedback. It's appreciated.
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The RE4 drives are nearline-class drives, and you will definitely want them if you use hardware RAID or FakeRAID.

Also, they are a lot more robust than their desktop-class variants, the Blues and Blacks.
They are similar in performance however to a Black drive of the same GB/TB-size.
I'm using one in my server for the OS drive.

If you are planning software RAID, you can use desktop-class drives if cost is an issue, just make sure there isn't too much vibration between them and you should be good.

Software RAID is great as it doesn't require TLER since the OS and RAID daemon take care of the RAID array.
My server is running WD Green and Blue drives in software RAID and I couldn't be happier.
However, what I am doing is not mission critical, and if it were, I would have arrays of RE4 or other nearline-class drives.

Remember though, there is more to a nearline-class drive than just TLER support.
 
Server use is another can entirely! :p Besides the RAID considerations already mentioned I'd probably try and find running temperature tests (for the models you're looking at). Sometimes drives with more platters can run hotter, which might be a concern depending on your case and where it's located, etc.
 
Yes, heat is also an issue.

5400RPM and most 7200RPM drives don't need much in terms of cooling.

Low-end-server-class 10K RPM drives should have passive cooling at a minimum to avoid overheating.

Online-storage-class 15K RPM drives require active cooling and will rapidly overheat without it.

Almost all nearline-class drives will be in the 7200RPM range, with very few being the exception.
 
Usually, when a drive has been out long enough for us to have an idea of its reliability (only an idea, because we don't proceed scientifically), it's out of production.

So I agree that it's not worth bothering trying to determine that, and instead, I buy all brands, when the deal is good.

I can't help but notice some people here raving about the Crucial M4 reliability, when it has only be out a few months, that doesn't really make sense to me (performance is another matter).
 
The OP has to understand that any HD reliability data, even if exits will be very closely guarded secret.
Even the Google study did not provide much info.

However from time to time there is a little bit of useful info:

1. Relatively recent study by Russian date recovery lab published in THW - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681.html

2. A blog by relatively large (compared to the majority of users here) HD user - http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/

Good luck and may the HD gods be with you!
 
I've had good luck with all brands. Sure there are duds out there but in the last since I've been buying drives in MB sizes I've lost a total of 2 and I've been through a lot of drives in that time. At work we had them die pretty often but they were in poor conditions. At home I have a fan always cooling the drive.
 
I've had bad luck with seagate consumer level drives. Everything else seems pretty reliable.


My WD 120 gig just developed the click of death last week. Had that thing forever.
 
Roscowgo said:
I've had bad luck with seagate consumer level drives.
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Same here, both personally and in work.

Where Seagate really excels is in the enterprise market with their Cheetah 15k and Constellation drives.
Every Cheetah from every era of production I have seen in use or have used has been as rock solid as a tank.
I've only personally seen one die, and it was after nearly a decade of 24/7, heavy usage.

Though expensive, I couldn't recommend a better drive for long-term storage, uptime insurance, and stability.
 
Western Digital Raptors stastically are about the most reliable consumer drive you can purchase. It is based on enterprise drive hardware and has enterprise drive reliability expectations. I've had multiple raptor drives and not a problem with any of them. I only recentliy sold my original 34gb raptor drive and it still worked perfectly with no bad sectors nearly 10 years later. I work in IT like a lot of us here and enterprise drives are remarkably reliable. Spinning 24x7 for a decade or more. We've got some HP file servers in our branch office enviornments that have drives originally installed in 1999 that still run like a top and we are waiting for them to die before we replace them.
 
Archaea said:
Western Digital Raptors stastically are about the most reliable consumer drive you can purchase. It is based on enterprise drive hardware and has enterprise drive reliability expectations. I've had multiple raptor drives and not a problem with any of them. I only recentliy sold my original 34gb raptor drive and it still worked perfectly with no bad sectors nearly 10 years later. I work in IT like a lot of us here and enterprise drives are remarkably reliable. Spinning 24x7 for a decade or more. We've got some HP file servers in our branch office enviornments that have drives originally installed in 1999 that still run like a top and we are waiting for them to die before we replace them.
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Same reliability with my old 36GB and 80GB Raptors.
Just recently replaced my server OS drive from the 80GB Raptor to a 500GB RE4.

The original Raptors and new VRaptors are very robust, but they are not as good as nearline-class drives.

All V/Raptors are low-end-server-class drives, positioned below nearline-class drives in terms of robustness and uptime durability, but they are still very reliable.
 
Nice drive, they're a bit expensive but totally worth it for uptime insurance!
 
From the Backblaze blog they pick some Hitachi drives. At home I haven't had any trouble with WD or Samsung. I have two seagates currently in my server with some reallocated sectors. Although I just bought a 2TB Seagate external for backup.


http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/

"We are constantly looking at new hard drives, evaluating them for reliability and power consumption. The Hitachi 3TB drive (Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3030ALA630) is our current favorite for both its low power demand and astounding reliability. The Western Digital and Seagate equivalents we tested saw much higher rates of popping out of RAID arrays and drive failure. Even the Western Digital Enterprise Hard Drives had the same high failure rates. The Hitachi drives, on the other hand, perform wonderfully."
 
I opened up a can of worms, eh? I'm loving the responses from those who have some knowledge on the subject.
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LOL!

In the end there'll be no agreement but maybe you've learned that enterprise drives exist.

You probably won't by enterprise drives because they're too expensive and you'll choose a model that's on sale. :D

It's all been discussed many times. :)
 
I've had great luck with Western Digital's Green series for my archives. Quiet, runs cool, and it's Good Enough™ for use as a backup or archive drive.

Interestingly, I've also had AMAZING luck with Maxtor drives ::knock on wood::. I've had a 250 gig Maxtor churning away 24/7 in an email server for going on 4 years now with nary a hiccup, and that's after having used it as a boot drive for almost full year. It's getting close to the time when that needs to be swapped out, though....I keep backups, but...well....ya know :)
 
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