New Hard Drives!! Which one to get?!

[Guest endgameaddiction]

Well my HDD is 2009. I'm probably just one of the few lucky people who have gotten more than their money's worth from Seagate than. But I'm always constantly defraging and disk cleaning running multiple programs. Most of them from IObit software.

 

My experience with Hitatchi have been short. And I am using a Hitachi 2TB for a second drive where I store my mods and everything else related to gaming.

 

I heard SSD have a shorter life span than HDD.

[Zor2k13]

Windows vista or higher does automatic defragging when the computer is idle. You are not supposed to defrag an SSD drive I think even windows 7 or higher automatically turns off defragging for SSD drives. The real complex problems show up when you try to do RAID or other fancy storage options. Anyone that runs a server for a website can tell you some horror stories about business type storage options.

 

I have a crucial SSD for one of my computers and a samsung for the other. The system with the crucial drive boots faster than the system with the samsung drive. I used to have that crucial drive in that other system before I bought the samsung. The other system booted faster with the crucial too and if I had known the samsung was gonna be a little slower I would have just bought another crucial drive instead. Samsung does some annoying things with firmware for new SSD drives that takes what seems like forever to finally solve. Before I bought that samsung I was starting to think my crucial drive would be a problem later on but not now. Intel had some firmware fiasco some years ago too and pissed off a lot of people but they solved the problem so far. The only drives you should really stay away from is OCZ drives. They were bought out by toshiba? I think but who knows what they will do now. Just don't buy any of their pre bought out drives especially their pci-e drives, those things are cheap for a reason.

[Loveryus]

Generally I always look at the amazon customer reviews and compare them. Seagate is a good choice in this case.

[Zor2k13]

There are sites that accept money in exchange for positive amazon reviews and some of them are already being sued by amazon but the damage is already done for years now.

 

Newegg reviews are slightly more accurate because people complaining there are real people and they complain more often on newegg than other places.

[RitualClarity]

I use both brands -- Seagate and WDs -- for years without any problems and it all falls down to proper periodical maintenance such as defragging, error checking and backup. Same goes to SSDs, which although they're fast, if they get bricked it's near impossible to recover data.

 

Best to get WD Blacks -- usually a good choice for gaming and performance.

 

I usually shy away from pre-acquisition (meaning to say before they were acquired by WD) Hitachis because of their short lifespan and the notorious one where the platters got shredded to dust.

 

Do note that I avoid using system hibernation or sleep because asides from other horror stories about bricked drives, I've seen a couple of Acer PCs lose their OEM WDs (looked at the label, said they were made in 2011) because of it causing bad sectors, and had to replace them with Seagates, so it's wiser not to let the PC run 24/7 -- turn off hibernation or sleep.

I do and believe the same personally.

 

 

 

 

Need I say more?

 

 

FYI.

 

HGST, Inc. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital that sells hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services.

- If you're looking for a single desktop system drive, the best option is WD Black.

- Like others have said, a better option would be a 120GB SSD (Intel or Samsung) as a system drive and a 1TB WD Blue for storage and backup.

 

I agree. I have a 6 year old WD black and it works just as good as it did the day I bought it. I have so far never had a WD black die. Many "retired" due to their size being too small for use.

 

Well my HDD is 2009. I'm probably just one of the few lucky people who have gotten more than their money's worth from Seagate than. But I'm always constantly defraging and disk cleaning running multiple programs. Most of them from IObit software.

 

My experience with Hitatchi have been short. And I am using a Hitachi 2TB for a second drive where I store my mods and everything else related to gaming.

 

I heard SSD have a shorter life span than HDD.

That used to be the case. A good quality SSD like from Samsung, Crucial or Intel should last as long as any modern mechanical hard drive now. The programing used to have proper wear leveling has advanced to a point where this is possible. Cheap off brands not so sure about. I have a 4 or so year old SSD and have basically retired it due to size. For a year I used it as a scratch disk to capture video from Fraps, downloads and all sorts of crap. Stuff that is claimed to kill SSDs and it still works just as good as it did before. (It is a Sata 2 SSD to boot. Not even a Sata 3 compliant. Get about 100 to 150mb the entire time. from when I got it to now.)

 

I have and continue to Kill Hitchis both new and old. About 1 to 2 and a half years they usually die. Some last much longer. However I don't blame the drive. The work I am having it do is beyond the capacity of the drive and I know and expect it to die. When I retire the drive from this task and use it as a basic long term backup (think floppy drive) they last a very long time.

I get them because they are cheap and they give some indication of failure early enough for me to address properly. Again with proper backups I haven't lost any data that I wanted or cared for even using these.

 

added note. The old 1 tb WD black is still being used on an older machine running  and it was used for the above that killed the Hitachi for over three years without incident. Bottom line short of getting enterprise level hard drives at added $$$$$$ WD black is the most reliable fastest mechanical drive you can get in my opinion.

[Lovely Rose]

My plan is to either get a another 500GB or a 1TB. and use it as an External.

 

I got a500gb in my comp already and it took me like 2 years to even get close to filling it up XD

[RitualClarity]

My plan is to either get a another 500GB or a 1TB. and use it as an External.

 

I got a500gb in my comp already and it took me like 2 years to even get close to filling it up XD

 

Sound like an excellent plan. I would get a  1 tb however if you can find a 2tb on sale (cheaper per GB) I would get that and then you can keep versions of your work on it and if you ever did get to fill the 500 gig and upgraded to a 1tb. you would still have plenty of space to keep various versions of your work on the external.

 

Another choice depending on the sensitivity of your data. Dropbox is cheap for 1tb of storage and it is off line. You can let them do the work for you in backups. Still should have a second backup but .. it is an option none the less.

 

(I would also get a second external and keep copies of your work on that as well in case some horrible act occurred and you lost your computer and data was messed up on the external. You would still have some good files backup)

 

[Lovely Rose]

 

My plan is to either get a another 500GB or a 1TB. and use it as an External.

 

I got a500gb in my comp already and it took me like 2 years to even get close to filling it up XD

 

 

(I would also get a second external and keep copies of your work on that as well in case some horrible act occurred and you lost your computer and data was messed up on the external. You would still have some good files backup)

 

 

 

if you want to pick up the tab on this one ur welcome XD

[RitualClarity]

[FetishSergal]

Don't get a big hard drive, compartmentalize and get many, trust me it's so much better to see one of your many 250gb drives die, than a 2TB drive die...

 

That's also what they do at military bases, they use HESCO bags filled with soil between the barracks to compartmentalize fragmentacion from possible mortar strikes.

 

Also keep this in mind: constant use can cause damage, you're probably going to spend less time using a hard drive with software and iso files (I assume you're going to use it as installation) than you're going to use a hard drive with porn, movies, tutorials or any other multimedia. I have various hard drives and I ocassionaly make safe copies of my information, I am still unsure wether to send my dead hard drive to a data center so I would rather avoid this happening in the future.

 

Yo ho fiddly dee!

[pinky6225]

snip

 

 

 

I use both brands -- Seagate and WDs -- for years without any problems and it all falls down to proper periodical maintenance such as defragging, error checking and backup. Same goes to SSDs, which although they're fast, if they get bricked it's near impossible to recover data.

 

Best to get WD Blacks -- usually a good choice for gaming and performance.

 

I usually shy away from pre-acquisition (meaning to say before they were acquired by WD) Hitachis because of their short lifespan and the notorious one where the platters got shredded to dust.

 

Do note that I avoid using system hibernation or sleep because asides from other horror stories about bricked drives, I've seen a couple of Acer PCs lose their OEM WDs (looked at the label, said they were made in 2011) because of it causing bad sectors, and had to replace them with Seagates, so it's wiser not to let the PC run 24/7 -- turn off hibernation or sleep.

I do and believe the same personally.

 

 

 

Need I say more?


FYI.
 

HGST, Inc. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital that sells hard disk drives, solid-state drives, and external storage products and services.

- If you're looking for a single desktop system drive, the best option is WD Black.
- Like others have said, a better option would be a 120GB SSD (Intel or Samsung) as a system drive and a 1TB WD Blue for storage and backup.

 

I agree. I have a 6 year old WD black and it works just as good as it did the day I bought it. I have so far never had a WD black die. Many "retired" due to their size being too small for use.

 

Well my HDD is 2009. I'm probably just one of the few lucky people who have gotten more than their money's worth from Seagate than. But I'm always constantly defraging and disk cleaning running multiple programs. Most of them from IObit software.

 

My experience with Hitatchi have been short. And I am using a Hitachi 2TB for a second drive where I store my mods and everything else related to gaming.

 

I heard SSD have a shorter life span than HDD.

That used to be the case. A good quality SSD like from Samsung, Crucial or Intel should last as long as any modern mechanical hard drive now. The programing used to have proper wear leveling has advanced to a point where this is possible. Cheap off brands not so sure about. I have a 4 or so year old SSD and have basically retired it due to size. For a year I used it as a scratch disk to capture video from Fraps, downloads and all sorts of crap. Stuff that is claimed to kill SSDs and it still works just as good as it did before. (It is a Sata 2 SSD to boot. Not even a Sata 3 compliant. Get about 100 to 150mb the entire time. from when I got it to now.)

 

I have and continue to Kill Hitchis both new and old. About 1 to 2 and a half years they usually die. Some last much longer. However I don't blame the drive. The work I am having it do is beyond the capacity of the drive and I know and expect it to die. When I retire the drive from this task and use it as a basic long term backup (think floppy drive) they last a very long time.

I get them because they are cheap and they give some indication of failure early enough for me to address properly. Again with proper backups I haven't lost any data that I wanted or cared for even using these.

 

added note. The old 1 tb WD black is still being used on an older machine running  and it was used for the above that killed the Hitachi for over three years without incident. Bottom line short of getting enterprise level hard drives at added $$$$$$ WD black is the most reliable fastest mechanical drive you can get in my opinion.

 

 

 

I went for a 512 GB SSD and use it as main drive the price was about £170 as i recall so bit cheaper than a graphics card still but more expensive than RAM, i got a crucial one which came with software to clone your current HD onto it

 

this was a whlle ago so the prices may have dropped a bit more so 1 TB SSD's might be more affordable now

 

I did read that having a large amount of RAM (8-16GB) can add up to 40% to the life time of a SSD so i think the shorter life time issue doesn't really apply if you using it on a gaming PC as you most likely have a lot of ram as well.

So if the current one you are using isn't an SSD i'd suggest getting a SSD for the OS/important software and then use your current HD as a backup/main storage

[Sunja44]

If you want to boot and play from your new hard drive get a SSD drive. If you do not have a SSD boot disc already...more performance gain you will never gain by a single piece of hardware. Samsung is still hard to beat for such drives. If you have the money get a Samsung Evo 1 TB, otherwise maybe choose one with less storage capacity.

 

For external drives or additional drives a goold old magnetic device is sufficient, Hitachi or Seagate come to my mind. For capacity...as larger as better, there are already 4 TB magnetic hard drives available, but your operation system needs to be able to manage the capacity and there might be limits.

 

If you really need a bulk of storage for videos, pictures etc, then the most efficient method is a NAS and running the hard drives in a RAID system. Most NAS systems (I for an example use a Synology DS214 play) come along with an own - and easily understandable - plug and play operating system which will be automatically integrated in your home LAN, a truly nice solution for a media server.

[AKM]

Sidenote: Be careful with Newegg.  They often have the best prices, but read the return policy very carefully.  I get the impression that they're fine with replacement of a faulty product, but not with return and refund.  Also some places are well known for giving you refurbished products as a replacement for a faulty new product, even though you played full "new" price in the first place.  Sneaky, sneaky.  Places like Amazon will take a product back and refund you the money within the grace period, and they're not that much more expensive.  Sometimes that extra money's well spent.

[Vykroft]

I've been using a 1TB WD Caviar Black for the last 4 year and I didn't have a single problem. Worth every penny.

[FetishSergal]

I've been using a 1TB WD Caviar Black for the last 4 year and I didn't have a single problem. Worth every penny.

 

I will tell you the problem, the problem is the moment something does happen, it's bound to happen one day or another. In Russia there is a proverb: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Get yourself one more and make a backup just in case. Also always leave 50-100GB free as a margin, I always do that, routinely check for noise and replace, it's cheaper that way, especially if your data is of high personal value. Defrag often and be careful with chkdsk (backup before running), it's known to fuck up some drives.

[Vykroft]

True, but I also bought a seagate HD and fail after 3 month of use, and believe me if I say to you that I'm almost a obsessed person when it comes to hardware maintenance (I use to defrag my disks all weeks, and run a chkdsk /r at least once a month). However, in my case, the WD is still virgin of errors, that doesn't mean that is absolutely reliable, as you said, but it gave me less trouble than others.
Just for the record, I have a dual both linux/win 7, and in the beginning I used to have the same disk partitioned for both OS, one with NTFS for windows and other with the usuals linux-swap for memory and EXT3 or  4 (depend on the year) partitions for data, etc. And I transfer data between those two very often. The Seagate fail pretty fast in that task (and I lost data in the process... T-T), the Caviar Black is still in one piece.. I was luck maybe? mmm I think that the quality of the trademark is being a significant factor. Is not the only factor, but yes a something you have to consider carefully.

[FetishSergal]

True, but I also bought a seagate HD and fail after 3 month of use, and believe me if I say to you that I'm almost a obsessed person when it comes to hardware maintenance (I use to defrag my disks all weeks, and run a chkdsk /r at least once a month). However, in my case, the WD is still virgin of errors, that doesn't mean that is absolutely reliable, as you said, but it gave me less trouble than others.

Just for the record, I have a dual both linux/win 7, and in the beginning I used to have the same disk partitioned for both OS, one with NTFS for windows and other with the usuals linux-swap for memory and EXT3 or  4 (depend on the year) partitions for data, etc. And I transfer data between those two very often. The Seagate fail pretty fast in that task (and I lost data in the process... T-T), the Caviar Black is still in one piece.. I was luck maybe? mmm I think that the quality of the trademark is being a significant factor. Is not the only factor, but yes a something you have to consider carefully.

 

Nothing like an extra hard drive believe me, it can get lost, it can fall down, anything dude, just keep copies of your stuff and sleep stronger at night.

[Vykroft]

O yes I have that too... xD

[Rayblue]

O yes I have that too... xD

 

RMA the drive. It would have been better if each operating system had its own hard drive instead of both on one.

[Vykroft]

Sure, but in the beginning I only had one HDD, so it had to be dual-boot, I didn't have the choice.
Now I have Grub installed in the MBR of one of the 2 disk

[Zor2k13]

Sometimes you can find some real bargains on craigslist, some people think because their computer got a virus they have to throw it away or sell it for next to nothing! If you find the right laptop on there, sometimes they come with an ssd drive as standard and used laptops go for cheap these days. The ssd drive that fits into most laptops is the same kind of drive you can get for a desktop. If the ssd is one of those mini pci things, you could get a pci-e card adapter for it to use in a desktop if thats what you have.

[Vortec]

 My Two bits...i have three 1Terebyte WD Blue HDD in two seperate machines, on my game machine has two of them one i used for Skyrim Mods and stuff. That drive been a bugger to defrag as it taking days literally to defrag it-using Defraggler. My main game machine drive is a 256Mb Crucial SSD, with Skyrim on it, i will always for now on buy SSD drives just for the hassle of not defragging mechanical drives anymore. Granted these WD Blue drives themselves haven't caused problems, its just defragging them is now a huge hassle, SSD's don't have that.

[Vacaliga]

If we are just talking storeage I'd highly recommend WD red's, use them in my office NAS and they just work, Black's are fine too if you plan to run some applications on it aswell, used one of those in my gaming rig for a long time before going full SSD (Corsair GTX 120GB + 2x GTX 240GB)

 

While i'll admit to having some brand loyalty, in my experience i view harddrives a lot RAM in the sense that the straight up bad companies are pretty much gone so as long as you stick a known brand you should be pretty safe within reason ofc but i don't think there is a downright wrong choice, so if one on sale or with a nice warranty for example i'd say go for that, as long as the reviews (and by that i mean actual reviews) are not screaming OMG a 100dollar paper weight.   

[Anatriax]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2681525&CatId=139

For a dependable HDD. I personally run my OS on an HDD. The only REAL thing putting your OS on an SSD will affect is your boot time. 

Install your games on to a separate SSD. 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2416663&CatId=5300

 

This is a good SSD. 

The SSD is slightly more expensive than those like it, but I've been using Kingston SSD's since they got into making them, and have not had any issues at all. Games load fast and smooth from my SSD. 

I have been and always will be a huge supporter of Seagate HDD's. I have NEVER had one fail unless I pulled it from a machine and physically abused it.

[Rayblue]

 My Two bits...i have three 1Terebyte WD Blue HDD in two seperate machines, on my game machine has two of them one i used for Skyrim Mods and stuff. That drive been a bugger to defrag as it taking days literally to defrag it-using Defraggler. My main game machine drive is a 256Mb Crucial SSD, with Skyrim on it, i will always for now on buy SSD drives just for the hassle of not defragging mechanical drives anymore. Granted these WD Blue drives themselves haven't caused problems, its just defragging them is now a huge hassle, SSD's don't have that.

 

For defragging, I use this instead, it's much faster than every other defragger I used in the past, even Auslogics':

http://www.mydefrag.com/