What HDD Do You Use
JohnDelaquiox
Posts: 1,195
Hey everyone, I hope you are all well. I have pretty much finished updating the core components on my computer, all except for the Hard Drives. I am pretty much sick and tired of mine bottle necking my Machines. So I would like to know what you the members of this wonderful community are running before I make my final selection.
I know most of you would say oh John just switch to SSD. Well my friends right now they do not offer enough of a bang for the buck or price to speed and storage ratio for me to even consider buying them.
I have my eye on either a pair of Seagate Constellation ES.3 1T's or a pair of Seagate Hybrid Drives both at 1T.
Now Call me crazy but I just do not trust anything above 1.5T I know there are now 4T Hard drives out there but I think those things are just prone to failure.
These are my number one and two choices but please if you have one you could recommend please do.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178381
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Comments
I don't care for SSD but that's just me. I have 2 internal 2TB WD. I have 2 Seagate externals one 1 TB and one 3 TB. I haven't had any problems with any of them.
I use the one I can afford.
If I'm not mistaking WD bought out Seagate so your pretty much getting the same HD
Western Digital did buy out Seagate so it doesn't much matter. Not that it matters. I've had failures on a regular basis with both brands. That includes internal and externals.
Last time I looked at SSD's, they were hard to migrate to, too pricey and lacked sufficient space.
Invest in reliable off site storage and back up your HDD weekly at the very least and daily if you do any amount of work.
Seagate
If ypu want something fast, reliable, that runs cool, you could try WD's Raptor series. I was impressed with theses ones
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236243
IMO you don't really need a super HHD for Studio, and my runtimes are accessed from a USB2 HD (20MBs)
Raptor looks nice but its freaking expensive. And its really not just for Studio its for everything in general.
These are the ones I have in mine. http://www.amazon.com/WD-Green-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B008YAHW6I/ref=sr_1_2?srs=2530774011&ie=UTF8&qid=1395518264&sr=8-2&keywords=western+digital+internal+hard+drive
WD Green 2 TB look promising.
How does your machine perform when it comes to accessing your runtime while inside of Daz.
...running a 7200 RPM Seagate 1TB in the workstation, been incredibly reliable.
My take on SSDs is they are primarily good for notebooks as those machines get jostled around a lot. if used in a desktop, best only as the primary boot drive due to the speed. You still want our main storage drives to be more cost effective.
They run great. For viewing inside DS you want to have a good graphics card with dedicated RAM. But my files come up quick if that's what your really asking.
I've never had any problems with Western Digital disks. I have no experience of Seagate so I can't comment on them either way.
As for SSDs, you wouldn't believe how fast Windows 7 loads from an SSD. They are, however, a nice to have rather than a necessity.
...been running a 320G 7200 RPM Seagate in my notebook for nearly five years now. Replaced the old factory model Toshiba one that died.
As far as internal drives are concerned:
120GB Kingston HyperX SSD for OS/security software (kept under 50% capacity for performance reasons)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139600
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200RPM for apps/games/documents
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
Western Digital Green 1.5TB 5400RPM for my libraries/extra storage
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136513
WD or Seagate - I've had duds with both, but the problems are very infrequent. And I won't touch a drive without at least a 3 year warranty.
FWIW, IBM is using both WD and Seagate 3.5 inch drives in their current big Electronic Storage Subsystems and the failure rate is quite low. They used to replace failed drives as they occurred; the current software contacts IBM Austin when the third drive fails - and the customer usually finds out about it by the email from the system and the email from Austin with the arrival time of the CE showing up within minutes of each other.
I have no experience with Seagate internal drives, but I have two externals that I've had for 5+ years on the one and 2 years on the other that are Seagate's. I have heard through the forums here that the internals have had problems.
WD Black and WD externals, had too many problems with other brands.
The black versions are slightly more expensive, but they are considered to be 'business-grade'.
For my personal use I have always used Seagates but for my sale builds WD have worked great. Its actually kind of hard to find a bad harddrive these days. Though I try and avoid Fujitsu or Hitachi.
I've always had WD internal drives and never had an issue. I've heard bad things about Fujitsu. My son's computer has a Hitachi and has ran fine for 5 yrs now
Due to industry consolidations brand itself is too broad to base a HDD reliability decision on, you need to look at the model ratings & reviews. Read CURRENT shipping product reviews because often OOB & infant failures are batched and related to a assembly, material defect or firmware bug that gets worked out in the nest shipping version. Look for proven and mature model lines. Warranties are important, however more important is select for the proper use. If using a 24x7 duty cycle get a media (red) or high availability (black). If used for general use and entertainment go with "green" and lower speed units 5400. If used for intensive media and business use, get a black / 7500 or faster. Do n0t get the highest capacity and look for multiple platters. A multi-platter lower density drive is less risky and performs better in access & seek. Keep 7500 or faster drives well ventilated. Upgrading to SSD can be complex, especially if you need to have programs and user files on a separate data disk. It requires registry hack and some apps do not install w/o much hassle. DIM does not like it.
For optimal preventive maintenance use a gold P/s rated 1/3 more than you need and plan or replace a no-name, <450 watt 18 mos after use, as the caps will fail and lead to problems affecting other components. <br /> Yesterday I was scrapping some old disks, came across a 1992 Connor 120m b that looked like it was used as a hockey puck for a few seasons and just for giggles plugged it into a usb-ide adapter and was surprised to see it was still readable, had errors but the majority was readable old dos files. I was amazed. Do beat your platters with a BFH before disposal - but keep the ever so handy read head armature magnets! (DO NOT STORE THE HIGH POWER MAGNETS NEAR YOUR PC GOOD HDDS)
I actually haven't had any larger drives fail yet (4 x 1 TB, 3 x 1½ TB and 3 x 2 TB WD drives). But I've noticed many weak sectors on some of these larger drives. I believe this problem may be increasing with increasing data density.
One of the 1½ TB drives was incredibly slow but WD's diagnostics program said everything was fine. I tried everything but wasn't able to find out what the problem was. Eventually I discovered HD Sentinel and a scan revealed an awful lot of weak sectors, which included the area where the MFT is located. See attached report, performance is as you can see very poor in the areas with weak sectors (darker colors).
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Hopefully, this is a useful guide.... http://lifehacker.com/the-most-and-least-reliable-hard-drive-brands-1505797966