Best 3TB HDD - Seagate or Hitachi?

[dsc106]

For speed, reliability, etc. - any thoughts on which way to go? Oh, and Western Digital I suppose too!

Not sure what current info is out there regarding performance and failure rates.

 

[LoveMachine]

I currently have a Hitachi 7K3000 3TB (purchased for much less than currently listed, thankfully) and a WD EZRX 3TB Green drive that is about a month old. The Hitachi is a bit faster on sustained transfers, and a bit snappier overall, but it runs warmer and louder (both idle spin sound and read/writes). The WD is extremely quiet, which is important for me since its a 24/7 HTPC/media server. I use an SSD for boot/apps, so speed isn't terribly critical for me. For my purposes of media delivery, the WD is my preferred drive. If an SSD wasn't in the picture and it was the primary drive, I'd definitely choose the Hitachi. Not as quiet, but certainly quieter than my 1TB WD Black drive, and nearly as fast too.

The older WD Green drives were not stellar in terms of reliability. I had a 2TB EARS drive fail after less than a year of light use, but the newer lines seem to be a bit better. Only time will tell. You can always look at Newegg's reviews, but take those with a grain of salt, since sometimes there is a positive feedback system, where a few people have a bad experience and it snowballs and everyone with an issue then reports it to be part of the crowd. It seems like the overall egg ratings are about the same for all the newer high capacity drives. I do like that the new WD Greens at least have a 2 year warranty, vs. Seagate's 1 yr.

 

[thelastjuju]

where a few people have a bad experience and it snowballs and everyone with an issue then reports it to be part of the crowd.

ah.. but this same thing applies to ALL drives though.. and when that ISN'T the case, and dosen't happen, that's a HDD I want to get. 😎

I refuse to buy anything off newegg that gets bombarded with 1-2 egg reviews.

I'd avoid any of the drives coming with only 1 yr warranties right off the bat too.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I dunno about 3TB drives but I have had horrible experience with Seagate in the past. So I'd vote Hitachi

 

[dsc106]

So is Seagate down to 1yr warranty now? Not sure if that's worth the trade-off for them being a slightly faster in performance over the Hitachi.

 

[Charlie98]

I have a bunch of Hitachis (500GBs) and like them very much. I just got my first Seagate .12 1TB drive, so far so good.

Oddly enough, I have a Seagate GoFlex portable external (500GB) that's about 2 years old and it's been fantastic.

The next 1GB drive I'm getting will be a Hitachi single-platter... I'm scared to death to get a 2-3GB HDD, put all my media files on it... and have it crap out in a year or so.

 

[FAUguy]

I had two Seagate 3TB drives back in December and both died within a couple weeks. Since then I've been using two Hitachi 7K3000 2TB drives without problem. From looking at customer reviews on Amazon and NewEgg, it seems like there are a lot more issues and DOA with 3TB drives. Might be best to just do 2TB for reliability. Western Digital does have the longest warranty on their 2TB Black, but in the few weeks I had it, I notices a continual motor oscillating sound that was nonstop, so it went back.

 

[ethebubbeth]

I have owned 10 5k3000 Hitachi drives (Currently operating: 2x 4 disk arrays in my NAS and 1 in my desktop). The original 1 in my desktop died a month after installation (could have been DOA, I was impatient did not do a full format and scan before using it). None of the others have exhibited any issues. The ones in my NAS are operating 24/7, my desktop is on 8-12 hours per day. 5 of these drives have been in operation for 18 months, the other 4 were bought second hand and have been in operation for me for 4 months (I have not bothered querying total uptime from SMART yet).

Hopefully my anecdotal experience can be of use to you in making your decision.

 

[TonyScott]

I would have to say Seagate. Have been using it for a long time and got no issues with it. I have also heard from a friend that Hitachi also performs well. If my Seagate breaks down, i will consider trying Hitachi out. But as of now, Seagate works for me.

I believe no hardware/software/system is perfect. 🙂

 

[Subyman]

I've had a few Seagates go out in the past, but they were heavily used. The RMA is a breeze through them, so no worries there. I've never had a WD go bad and I've been using them forever. I can't say much about Hitachi as I've only had those in laptops. I'd vote for the WD if it was me buying them.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I bought 2 x 3TB Seagate 7200.14 drives yesterday, 1 is DOA. Need to get it exchanged.

 

[Aikouka]

I believe my 3TB drives are all Seagate and Hitachi, and they all work fine. I have various WD, Seagate and Hitachi drives in other sizes, and I'm pretty certain that Hitachi has the best track record in regard to failures. Right now, I believe Western Digital is the worst for me. I had to pull a Caviar Black because it has 5% bad sectors. I believe I also lost a WD 2TB Green drive a couple weeks ago. 🙁

All of my recent bad storage luck is why I posted (a month or so ago) asking what measures people use to ensure their new HDD isn't a dud. 😛

 

[ronbo613]

Buying hard drives is a crapshoot, plain and simple.

The multi-year warranty dropping to one year on some brands is not exactly a confidence booster.
I have a number of hard drives from different manufacturers, some of which are not longer in the hard drive business, which is another issue as far as warranties go, the only drives that have failed have been Seagates. I used to buy only Seagate drives, now I won't buy them. The largest drives I have are 2TB Samsungs, I don't think I would go larger than that at this point.

 

[BFG10K]

The Barracuda XTs still have 3 year warranties, AFAIK.

Failing that, you could try the Hitachi Ultrastars. They’re enterprise versions of the Deskstars. They’re expensive but they have a 5 year warranty/2 million hour MTBF, and they’re guaranteed for 24/7 operation.