Replacing a 2TB with a 4TB HDD; way too many 1 & 2 star reviews

videobruce

Limp Gawd
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Jan 21, 2005
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I'm looking to upgrade to a 4TB internal HDD in a Tower PC. It would replace a 2TB drive (I have 2 Seagate 2TB drives other than my SSD) in my main PC that are running out of room. I figured instead of a 3, go with a 4TB instead. I have had good luck in the past 20 years w/ HDD's, other than one failure (and that was a drive in a TiVo), I guess I have been lucky until I started reading the current reviews.
nonono.gif


I was looking at these, but the failure rates are terrible (for the most part) based on 1 & 2 star ratings from Amazon & Newegg.

WD Blue WD40EZRZ ;
https://www.amazon.com/product-revi...r&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=recent&pageNumber=1
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?reviews=all&Item=N82E16822235011&ignorebbr=1
Seagate Green ST4000DM004 ;
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?reviews=all&Item=9SIA2W08NU8603&ignorebbr=1
Toshiba X300 HDWE140XZSTA ;
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?reviews=all&Item=N82E16822149627&ignorebbr=1
WD Red WD40EFRX ;
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?reviews=all&Item=N82E16822236599&ignorebbr=1
WD Black WD4005FZBX ;
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?reviews=all&Item=234-000G-000W6&ignorebbr=1

Since this will primary be for archive (backup) video files (movies), I was considering 5400 and 7200 drives.
Open for discussion.
upload_2019-4-4_17-13-0.gif


(I hope the links are ok here, I didn't see anything to the contrary)
 
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I have several 3TB WD Reds in different PC's. They're kinda slow but I haven't had one die. If you plan to run applications (I know you said you didn't) I'd go with a 7200 RPM drive. No recent experience with the other drives. I also use WD Purples 2,3,4TB in many machines (A/V surveillance drives) and have good luck with those. For your use case a Red is more appropriate. I believe the only difference is firmware anyways.
 
Two points: failure rates for say Hitachi, Seagate, and WD are basically the same for current models. 7200RPM drives are still marginally faster, but this really only matters if you're running applications on them.

What I would bring to your attention is RAID. You can do a software mirror (RAID1) with Windows Storage Spaces that will keep your data safe from a single drive failure and double your read speed with writes running at the speed of a single drive.

For your purpose, the WD Green | Seagate equivalent are both suitable, but essentially any drive outside of the Purple drives are fine. The Purples are tuned for constant writes which is not the workload you're looking at, but I'd certainly use them if you got a good deal.

Buy two drives. Keep your data safe.


[for more convenience, you could get a 2-bay NAS, which could both mirror your data and make it available on your network for use when your machine is not online; these are extremely popular, and many allow you to run a personal 'cloud' that functions the same as Google Drive/etc. with the ability to securely access them outside your network]
 
Bear in mind there are no current models of Hitachi/HGST drives.
WD swallowed them up, they are no more.
Sad because they were the only drives I trusted.
 
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What's more interesting about these reviews is the ability to narrow down the results to fairly current. Many counts change dramatically, usually for the worse. (n)

Of the ones I posted, WD's Black seem to have the best reviews, but at a cost.
I was kinda looking at $150 or less. BTW, I didn't want to go the NAS or RAID route. I don't have a ton of stuff, most are ripped DVD's.
 
HDDs die, most deaths happen after a few weeks of use, others will last some years.
A SSD that boots once will last 3-5 builds.
So HDD reviews are mostly bad: no one will lose time to report that a spinner did what it was supposed to do, unlike a SSD, which is usually a huge performance upgrade.
When i buy HDDs, i buy 2: one for hot backup and one for cold backup.
any spinners that survive a month will be kept until death, because i do not fancy early mortality of a slow media that takes hours to backup.
SSDs on the other hand i am always replacing , upgrading, re-purposing for notebooks. Now that we are at ~11c / GB , 2TB SSDs are likely becoming my main hot backup and cloud / mirrored HDDs the cold backup.
 
I think people have the unrealistic idea that when you purchase a hard drive it will not die if you don't use it much. The reality is any storage media can die at any time regardless of how much you have used it. And this does not mean the manufacturer is producing garbage products or anything like that. The expectation is you likely have a ballpark 1% to 5% chance of failure each year for the 5 year expected lifetime. After 5 years the expected failure rate will increase.
 
Isn't the most common failure actuator arms since that is what gets 'beat up' the most??
 
As stated already, it’s likely that people leave reviews when they are unable to enjoy their product. When the product dies they have time to leave bad reviews.
 
Isn't the most common failure actuator arms since that is what gets 'beat up' the most??

Probably. I would say heads are very likely along with the rest of the actuator. Decades ago we had more problems at spin up but I have not seen a case of that in a long time although I only have experience a few hundred drives.
 
I have a couple of 4TB Blacks, 4TB Greens, and a 4TB Red. they have been running 24/7 for the past few years with no issues.
I believe the Green line has become part of the Blue line now.
 
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Funny, I had a friend call me up, the guy who I bought my 1st PC from (custom build) and we got talking. He is a Seagate fan (which surprised me). Apparently he had enormous issues with WD years ago including warranty coverage with multiple of drives (used in servers) and he switched over to SG.

Enterprise was what he recommended; 5yr warranty and prices at or below WD's Black series. Choices are, but the 512e vs 521n vs 4Kn is the question;
https://www.provantage.com/seagate-st4000nm0115~7SEG90PA.htm
https://www.provantage.com/seagate-st4000nm0035~7SEG90P0.htm
https://www.provantage.com/seagate-st4000nm0085~7SEG90P2.htm
 
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Funny, I had a friend call me up, the guy who I bought my 1st PC from (custom build) and we got talking. He is a Seagate fan (which surprised me). Apparently he had enormous issues with WD years ago including warranty coverage with multiple of drives (used in servers) and he switched over to SG.

They are functionally the same. Personal experience can vary a lot, but I'll state that I use both- Seagate more recently for NAS use because their Ironwolf drives are solid.

And since you're still checking this thread, please reconsider using two drives in a mirror :D
 
They are functionally the same. Personal experience can vary a lot, but I'll state that I use both- Seagate more recently for NAS use because their Ironwolf drives are solid.

And since you're still checking this thread, please reconsider using two drives in a mirror :D

I can verify this claim. My 2x8TB Ironwolf's have 13824 and 14685 power on hours on them without a hiccup.
 
I've had great experience with WD Golds. 20 plus in the last 5 years with zero failures! 5 year warranty & a few bucks less than Blacks for some reason.
I have heard that WD is going to discontinue them and replace with Hitachi branded enterprise Helium drives.
 
I've had great experience with WD Golds. 20 plus in the last 5 years with zero failures! 5 year warranty & a few bucks less than Blacks for some reason.
I have heard that WD is going to discontinue them and replace with Hitachi branded enterprise Helium drives.

Already have, as listed on Newegg, but I believe that the Golds are still 'current', and if the price and warranty are good...
 
I have heard that WD is going to discontinue them and replace with Hitachi branded enterprise Helium drives.

Interesting. I was very upset when WDC stopped producing HGST branded drives.
 
I have been using WD drives dating back to the Raptor drives. I am currently using a 4TB WD Black since 2014 and it is still working flawlessly. The WD 4TB is used for me Steam / Uplay games along with massive music collection. I use this in conjunction with a San Disk Extreme Pro 960GB SSD that is used for my OS. All of my WD drives worked great.
 
Bear in mind there are no current models of Hitachi/HGST drives.
WD swallowed them up, they are no more.
Sad because they were the only drives I trusted.
Amen, brother. I think I will have to start using WD drives, because the reliability stats for Seagate drives on Backblaze are just awful.
 
I've sworn by HGST drives for at least a decade.

I thought NewEgg still had some left? If not, buy used on eBay
/there is no plan C
 
Amen, brother. I think I will have to start using WD drives, because the reliability stats for Seagate drives on Backblaze are just awful.

Have you looked at recent stats? Or are you assuming based on the old 3TB drives which blew up all the time? Seagate's rate of failure isn't significantly better or worse than anyone else in Q1'19. I mean HGST's haven't really been better or worse than anyone else since the exceptional 4TB drives they made. After that, they are a crap shoot like everyone else.
 
I'm personally a fan of WD Black drives. I've had multiple over the years and they have never failed me. And having the 5yr warranty was a comfort in case one did.
 
Here’s a vote for HGST, I’ve had pretty good luck with CoolSpin and NAS 4TB models
 
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