WD and Seagate 1gb+ HDDs reliability?

S

shurcooL

[H]ard|Gawd
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Oct 12, 2007
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Hi,

I'm thinking of picking up a large 1tb+ HDD mainly for backup/centralized storage. Right now my desktop has a 150gb old raptor 10k rpm drive, which is fine, but I want a bigger drive so I can put everything from my laptops there, etc. so that I would have everything in one place.

Anyway, I was considering the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB drive because it seemed to offer the best GB/$ ratio. And their performance is pretty good.

But then I noticed some of the customer reviews for the Barracuda 1TB and 1.5TB drives vs. WD Caviar Black 1TB.

First of all there's some sort of 30 second freeze issue with the Seagate 1.5TB drives:
Link

Next, the Seagate 1TB drives seem to have abyssimal reviews, with only about 50% being 5-stars, and about 20% being 1-star reviews with people saying their drives have failed within 1-90 days.
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB - Newegg Customer Reviews Link

Compare that with the WD 1TB drive reviews - which have 75% 5-stars and 3% 1-stars (failures):
WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB - Newegg Customer Reviews Link
There's a newer version ST31000333AS, but it's too recent and doesn't have many reviews yet.

So while the Seagate 1TB/1.5TB seem to be a little cheaper and faster, that many failure reports scare me away.

I mean, I'm not even doing a RAID setup (too expensive) here, and all my stuff would be only on 1 drive. I guess reliability is very important.

So is WD a better choice for me?

And how come those Seagate drives seem to be failing for so many ppl, yet I haven't heard about that anywhere else... Weird. I've even tried searching this forum, but didn't find much.
 
Newegg doesnt use the greatest packaging when shipping hard drives. The drives ive ordered from them come in bubble wrap thrown into a box of peanuts. A lot of people wont order hard drives from newegg because of this. I bought 4 1 TB Seagate drives from them a few weeks back and so far ive had no problems with them and they have a 5 year warranty so im not too worried about it. Their poor shipping might be why theres so many negative reviews.
 
id say 98% of the people who review products on newegg are idiots, A good reflection of the community. I wouldn't take their word for it.
 
Is there a more respectable place to find customer reviews on PC parts and such then?

It's the only place I know, that's why I've used them. I never actually order from NewEgg since I'm in Canada and buying online (esp. from the US) isn't really an option here.
 
Honestly, I would not mess with the Seagate stuff for the moment. The 1.5TB is having problems right now, and even after the firmware update people are STILL having issues.
I would get a Samsung HD103UJ SpinPoint F 1TB, it gets GREAT reviews and is the fastest 1TB HD out right now. The WD is also a competent choice as it seems to be reliable. At the same times Seagate is having these HD issues, it slashes it's warranty, not a good sign. To me, the Samsung seems to be the only viable option. I've had 2 Seagates fail me recently after using them for a short time so I am a little ambivalent about them.

http://www.storagereview.com/php/be...&devID_1=348&devID_2=352&devID_3=354&devCnt=4

http://www.ntcompatible.com/Samsung_Spinpoint_F1_1TB_Hard_Drive_Review_s123059.html

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/12/09/samsung-spinpoint-f1-1tb/7
 
I like my segate drives better than my WD green powers, but really its a toss up IMO go with whichever is cheaper. I have had failures from both companies...Recently more problems with WD but I also have more WD drives.
 
I run a number of Seagate 7200.10 and 7200.11 1TB drives and WD green 1TB drives and they work fine. Neweggs packing job is just a cheap solution. I also just ordered 4 Samsung 1TB drives from Newegg and one came DOA... Dunno if it was Newegg or Samsung, but I couldn't find the link to check warranty on Samsungs website. What it boiled down to was the RMA process. I find WD's RMA process quick and easy and painless and the Seagate's as pretty easy to. Seagate's return drive does require a signature which may be a factor in ur area. But I do use both depending on price... If its just one drive, I recommend the Samsung or the WD Black... or pick up 2 drives just in case...
 
About as risky as any other hard drive in my experience; Seagate's 1.5TB drives have had firmware issues but a quick flash fixes it, fortunately. :)
 
This is kind of unfortunate. I've been a Seagate user for 5 years or so, never with a failed drive. I've had failures from all other companies except Samsung (but I've only had one disk from them). Now it seems like the net is turning against Seagate. It looks like their high quality is starting to dissapear :(

I'm about to put a WHS together and so this thread interests me. I guess the WD or Samsungs are the best right now.

I hate to buy a non Seagate drive though.... still have a couple weeks to think about it.
 
elchorizo said:
This is kind of unfortunate. I've been a Seagate user for 5 years or so, never with a failed drive. I've had failures from all other companies except Samsung (but I've only had one disk from them). Now it seems like the net is turning against Seagate. It looks like their high quality is starting to dissapear :(

I'm about to put a WHS together and so this thread interests me. I guess the WD or Samsungs are the best right now.

I hate to buy a non Seagate drive though.... still have a couple weeks to think about it.
Click to expand...

Well, the reason people are having issues with Seagate as a company is that they threw the 1.5TB out the door without the proper testing, and the problem people encountered was large enough that basic testing should have picked it up before the drive ever saw daylight. THEN on top of that, Seagate absolutely blamed THE CONSUMER for not setting up the drive properly, for dropping it, bad shipping ect. (I'm pretty sure they
thought that if they closed their eyes the "problem" would just go away)
Seagate KNEW they had a problem and started selling the damn things for about $110.00
just to get rid of as many as they could, Ebay was FLOODED with them. Then like a drug addict who has been through the stages of Anger, Denial, then acceptance they FINALLY came up with the firmware "fix". I says "fix" because some people are STILL having issues. Seems Seagate is trying to sell in volume without properly testing their stuff,
not a good sign.
 
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