who's the best hdd manufacturer ?

[joecass]

Who has been the most reliable hard drive manufacturer, for the last 10-11 years, going back to IDE drives of 20, 40, 80, 120GB
up to the current monster 1 - 2TB drives ?
I have had various IBM, Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor and Hitachi drives that failed; never tried a Samsung because to me,
anything made by Samsung is still a "Gold Star"

[aedipuss]

western digital black drives for the long haul. samsung recently has made some good drives(f3s).

[lordsmurf]

Right now it's Western Digital.

Followed by Hitachi or Samsung.

Seagate has had issues with a number of their 1TB+ sized drives.
I avoid them at the moment.

Maxtor is still junk.
(Is Maxtor even around anymore? Think Seagate ended the brand finally.)

[aedipuss]

iiiccckkkk - hatachi = ibm drives. horrors abound around the dtla drives. i'll never buy another hatachi/ibm.

[DarrellS]

All I've ever owned are Seagate, Western Digital and Maxtor. The only drives that I've had fail were two 500GB Maxtor SATA drives and a bunch of WD IDE drives around 2004 to 2006. I still have an old 40GB Maxtor IDE drive that I'm using as a boot drive in my other XP PC. I have it backed up to a 40GB WD.

Seagate's service was very good when the first Maxtor croaked. They had just bought out Maxtor and sent me a new 750GB Seagate to replace the 500GB Maxtor. The other Maxtor went out today after 6 years of use. It was in my brother's machine.

I never even thought to try and get the WDs replaced. I just got pissed and threw them in the trash. They were all small drives (80GB). Took me a while before I bought another WD. I think I have three now. Two in this machine and one in my other machine. They are all WD Caviar Black drives. No problems so far with the WDs and the Seagates have been rock solid. I even have an old 14.5GB Seagate from an HP I bought in 1999 that still works but it's too small to use for anything.

[lordsmurf]

iiiccckkkk - hatachi = ibm drives. horrors abound around the dtla drives. i'll never buy another hatachi/ibm.

I'm only going off what's available new right now (1TB+ size drives)
The past is the past.

[aedipuss]

iiiccckkkk - hatachi = ibm drives. horrors abound around the dtla drives. i'll never buy another hatachi/ibm.

I'm only going off what's available new right now (1TB+ size drives)
The past is the past.

that wasn't quite the op's question though...

[Noahtuck]

Maxtor is still junk.
(Is Maxtor even around anymore? Think Seagate ended the brand finally.)

Well, still junk considering they always were.....
LOL!!

And yes, Maxtor ceased to exist quite a few years back.
I'm not sure exactly how long but it seem's it has been quite a long time.

[fritzi93]

A few years back, IIRC, lots of people were recommending Seagate drives. I've had three, only one of which lasted longer than three years.

Maxtor, pffft. Had two that died just out of warranty.

I've had good luck with Western Digital, my oldest one is seven years old and still okay. I think I've had eight of them in all, two of which died of sheer old age, a 30GB and a 40GB drive.

Not statistically significant I guess, but there you are.

[EDIT] Oh yeah, there are a couple 20GB Quantum Fireballs in my wife's web-surfing machine that I scavenged from junked comps. One the OS drive and one a bootable clone, (plus a data drive). Can't kill them. Weren't they made by Matsushita?

[Snakebyte1]

I think it this will be a very subjective issue, based on each person's personal experience.

Since 1994 the only hard drives I've ever had physically fail on me were Western Digital. As a result I tend to avoid WD. Others say they are great. I did have some oddities with a Maxtor once but was able to recover it and its still working in an external enclosure several years later. My most recent HDD issue was with a Seagate last June. It was one of the 7200.11 series with the known firmware BSY problem (of course it only became know to me after it hit). I was able to follow the steps posted on various sites and recover it as well, and its been working normally since I upgraded the firmware, but I was disappointed that Seagate had this flaw in the first place.

The cost of 1TB and even 2TB is fairly low, so my strategy is to include 2 physical drives, generally of different manufacture, in my system to hedge against hardware failure. I regularly copy my DATA folder from one drive to the other to maintain a "hot" back up (and copy to an off line external drive every couple of months but the backup strategy you use depends on your own needs - mirroring and RAID is overkill for my needs).

Manufacturers change their models and manufacturing techniques quite often these days, usually to make things cheaper not necessarily better, so what was reliable a couple of years ago may not be so now and vice versa. When I go to purchase I base my research on the feedback I'm hearing about a given model of drive rather than simply by who makes it.

Just my 2cents

[somebodeez]

western digital black drives for the long haul. samsung recently has made some good drives(f3s).

What are the differences between the WD colors?

[pepegot1]

I don't know about the new Maxtor drives but, I have two that are still going strong after 6 years.

[fritzi93]

western digital black drives for the long haul. samsung recently has made some good drives(f3s).

What are the differences between the WD colors?

I've wondered about that too. Based on what folks here have said, I always get the Caviar Black.

[Moontrash]

roll the dice really...the only ones i knew about that were "you deserve to buy this and it go bad if you don't read reviews online..anywhere"..were hitachi's when they were the pinnacle of crap...the aforementioned.."deathstar" drives...I've had every brand and I've had more WD go bad than any other. I havent owned many seagates but havent had one go on me. I've had maxtors last years...have a few old 5 and 10gb maxtors that still work lol...i think it depends on quality throughout the years...as we get on in this world...the quality gets less if its built in china

[MJA]

western digital black drives for the long haul. samsung recently has made some good drives(f3s).

What are the differences between the WD colors?

I've wondered about that too. Based on what folks here have said, I always get the Caviar Black.

black comes with 5 years warranty.blue and green(5400rpm) 3 years

[somebodeez]

western digital black drives for the long haul. samsung recently has made some good drives(f3s).

What are the differences between the WD colors?

I've wondered about that too. Based on what folks here have said, I always get the Caviar Black.

black comes with 5 years warranty.blue and green(5400rpm) 3 years

Many thanks!

[Nelson37]

WD Caviar Black also have a more robust spindle arrangement holding the platters and upon which they rotate. There are a couple other mechanical differences.

They are just a few bucks more than the blues or greens.

Going back over time long-term, WD has got to be my favorite. They did have a couple bad models years ago, but few and far between.

[MJA]

wd caviar black also have a more robust spindle arrangement holding the platters and upon which they rotate. There are a couple other mechanical differences.

They are just a few bucks more than the blues or greens.

Going back over time long-term, wd has got to be my favorite. They did have a couple bad models years ago, but few and far between.

once u go black you never go back :d

[redwudz]

I have about 30 HDDs in use presently. I've lately been using Samsung HDDs. I've got a few Seagate drives and those are the only ones I've had fail in the last two years. I have some old Maxtor 80GB PATA drives and they are still going strong. When Seagate bought them out, (2006) the quality control seemed to drop.

I do have a couple of Hitachi drives. I don't trust them much as they seem a bit noisy. Most of my drives are WD black, 320GB and 500GB. I do have two 150GB WD Raptors and they work very well. The newer Samsungs are 1.5TB and 2TB. The only disadvantage to the large drives is you loose more data if/when they do die.

All the HDD companies make a few versions/models of drives that seem to have a higher failure rate. I stay away from WD green drives, but the blue and black versions seem OK. Overall, the failure rate on the newer drives seems to be lower than in the past ten years.

I think a lot of the early HDD failures are a result of poor shipping practices. If the drives are handled roughly in shipping, especially the larger drives, they seem to have higher failure rates. What I've commonly seen is bare drives put into the bottom of a shipping box and the padding put on top, affording very little protection.

Newegg was guilty of that for a while. Packing with Styrofoam beans is another problem as the drives can shift to the bottom of the box. Bubble wrapped in the middle of the box with additional padding all around seems to be the best. If the shipping box is damaged by handling, there's a much greater chance the drive will fail earlier. I'd stay away from companies that improperly ship hard drives.

[RabidDog]

Wd colors : (supposedly) Black .. better performance (about 25-50% dearer)
Blue .. mainstream .. good performance, good energy consumption good size
Green .. Slower, but bigger, suitable for large data-stores, lower energy use.

Good drives? they're all good .. otherwise they would be rejected by industry and consumers alike
previous years shouldn't influence as production process's and line have completely changed.

Only innovation in this sphere is the momentus XT, hybrid drive combines Hdd +SSd in one package.

BUy what's cheapest or suits your user expectations the best. Match the drive chosen to intended use. Heat is a big drive killer, try to keep drives in your "rig" at least one slot apart.

[deadrats]

Who has been the most reliable hard drive manufacturer, for the last 10-11 years, going back to IDE drives of 20, 40, 80, 120GB
up to the current monster 1 - 2TB drives ?
I have had various IBM, Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor and Hitachi drives that failed; never tried a Samsung because to me,
anything made by Samsung is still a "Gold Star"

in all honesty basing a purchasing decision based on what a product range was like 10 years ago is kind of silly as far as i'm concerned, just because brand x made good hdd's a decade ago doesn't mean that they still do, likewise just because brand y made excellent hdd's doesn't mean they still do.

over the years i have had hard drives from every major manufacturer you can name die on me, likewise i still have a 20 gig western digital, an 8 gig seagate and a 40 gig maxtor that are alive and kicking.

it's a roll of the dice really.

if i had to make a prediction however, i would guess that the slower the rotational speed, the lower the power consumption and the cooler a hdd runs, the longer it can be expected to survive. to that end i usually favor WD "Green" 5400 rpm hdd, but i also make sure that i have a backup for all data that i can't afford to lose.

not to mention that as hdd sizes jumped i upgraded to bigger hdd and copied all my files to the new drives and retired the old ones, when hdd sizes reach the 5 tb range for $100, i will do the same thing again, basically my hdd aren't used long enough so that failure becomes an issue anymore.

[Constant Gardener]

My former employer bought hard drives by the case, from a variety of manufacturers. Remarkably few failed, certainly not enough to say that brand x is better than brand y. I choose drives by price and have not been disappointed.

[MJA]

choosing a drive by price isn't enough.feedback/customers review are more important.

I don't wanna end up with another IBM death star .lol

[Constant Gardener]

choosing a drive by price isn't enough.feedback/customers review are more important.

I don't wanna end up with another IBM death star .lol

True, but most "reviews" I see are from people who have had a single failure and concluded that anything by that manufacturer is crap. We bought thousands of drives and didn't have enough failures to see a pattern.

Fortunately we didn't buy any IBM drives. I do have some of the allegedly-bad Seagates which have been running fine for several years, but not enough to be statistically significant.

[lordsmurf]

True, but most "reviews" I see are from people who have had a single failure and concluded that anything by that manufacturer is crap. We bought thousands of drives and didn't have enough failures to see a pattern.

Yep.

I did have quite a number of those Seagate 1TB + 1.5TB drives, however, and saw a pattern.
No discernable patterns from anybody else, however
Those WD Black, Blue and Green drives are all really nice -- I have quite a few of each of them.

Black is for higher performance, Green is good for low power / quiet (always on) and RAID-1.
Blue is mostly in laptops that I've seen. Have those, too.

[DarrellS]

I know there was an issue with the 1.5TB Seagate drives when they first came out but I believe WD had a problem with their 1.5GB drives also.

I never heard of a problem with the 1TB Seagate drives though and the problem with the 1.5TB drives were with the 1st generation drives.

People keep saying that Seagate lowered their warranty to three years but every Seagate drive I've purchased has a 5 year warranty. Fry's Electronics has a 1TB right now for $89 with a 5 year warranty and we got my nephew 2 1TB Seagate drives on sale for Christmas for $59 each. That's usually how we buy our drives. Whoever has the best deal at the local Fry's Electronics between Seagate and WD Black.

The Seagate drives offer everything that the WD Black drives do and the only WD drives with a 5 year warranty is the Black drives. The Green and Blue both have a three year warranty.

[Ron B]

I think you have to "go with the flow". Many years ago, I went with Maxtor and had good success with them, can't recall any failures. Had a few IBM drives, stopped buying them when the Deathstar period came about. Again, can't recall any failures, but these were the days when a 120G hard drive was big. Then, I switched over to Seagates and had a long run of success with them. One did fail, but it was, like a 60G drive that slowly gave up after a couple years of use. RMA to Seagate for a reconditioned drive. Stopped using Seagates a year or so ago when their quality took a dive(about the same time they acquired Maxtor). Have had a couple WD Blacks, very good drives, wouldn't hesitate to buy another. Recently, I bought a Samsung Spinpoint F4 2 TB 5400rpm drive to use as a storage drive, first Samsung I've owned. It is surprisingly fast for a 5400rpm drive, my main concern is with long term reliability. It had to have the firmware flashed to address SMART issues which was pretty lame, but it's been running fine.
I have some real doubts about hard drives larger than 1 TB. Seems like the reliability for nearly all drive manufacturers suffers above the 1 TB threshold. I got the Samsung 2 TB because it had the best reviews of all the over 1 TB drives, but we shall see.
Now, I have my first SSD(an OCZ Vertex 2), but it will be some time before any of us can fill our computers, servers and storage arrays with them.

[DarrellS]

My next two drives will be WD Black SATA III drives. Probably 1TB (maybe 1.5TB) with 64MB cache. Can't afford a SSD boot drive and doubt the price will drop much for a few years. I don't plan on switching operating systems any time soon either and I hear SSD is not for XP Pro.

[ehero]

IMO, you can't find the best answer from the people. Because, HDD quality also depends on what you do with your hdd.

Suppose, you use your computer to produce movie and other high hdd intention program.

But others use their computer just internet browsing and ms office related. So, their hdd's life will be longer than your hdd.

[Ron B]

I hear SSD is not for XP Pro

I would not want to try an SSD on XP. The alignment and maintenance issues make for more effort than should be required for a computer drive. SSD technology, mostly firmware in my opinion, still needs some work.

IMO, you can't find the best answer from the people. Because, HDD quality also depends on what you do with your hdd.

I don't know about that. I think it is the overall consensus of users that shows HD performance trends. The "Deathstar" and recent Seagate problems are general consensus types of feedback provided by large numbers of users.
In my experience, most hard drives fail fairly quickly after installation, usually within a few months or less, if there is a major defect, otherwise they just wear out over time. Sometimes they fail after a year or two(this happened to one of my drives), but I think if your new hard drive is still working after a month or two, usually you're good to go until the thing dies of old age. Of course the drive's lifespan will be determined in part by how much the drive is used. Starting up and shutting down the computer probably put as much wear and tear on a hard drive as reading and writing a considerable amount of data to it.