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Reliable 1 TB hard drive?

E

elkinm

Platinum Member
It's that time again when I need additional disk space.

My top choice would be the 7200.11 or .12 if I can find one, but there are to many reported problems, especially recently.
The Caviar Black is another one, but I still hear of more than typical failures.

How would these compare to the classic on the Hitachi 1 TB drives.

Furthermore, would it be truly worth it to go with an enterprise equivalent of these drives for the added reliability, or are they a waste of money in a workstation environment?

Thanks
 
I've had luck with Samsung Spinpoint F1 drives. Fast, cool and quiet. Although I haven't had one for over 6 months, so I can't really say on long term reliability, but I've had no problems yet on 3 drives
 
The only 1tb drive I've heard of any reliability problems with are the Samsung Spinpoint F1, ironically enough. I read mostly good things about the caviar black, and coupled with its winning performance, I went with one myself.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
its just best to buy two...and mirror or manual backup
Click to expand...

Yes.
I have WD Green caviar since black friday...not long time by any means 🙂
Mine is 5400 rpm, but plenty fast for storage.
 
I've been wondering the same thing.

I'm thinking about consolidating hard drives in my htpc with a 1TB drive. I'm not sure if 5400rpm is fast enough for HD dvr duties. I'll have to look into it.
 
Originally posted by: MrPickins
I've been wondering the same thing.

I'm thinking about consolidating hard drives in my htpc with a 1TB drive. I'm not sure if 5400rpm is fast enough for HD dvr duties. I'll have to look into it.
Click to expand...

i think the areal/ aureola/ whatever density of the drives means there's
more data passing under the drive heads (per second) than a 7200 RPM
320 GB drive, as a comparison.
 
Originally posted by: wwswimming
Originally posted by: MrPickins
I've been wondering the same thing.

I'm thinking about consolidating hard drives in my htpc with a 1TB drive. I'm not sure if 5400rpm is fast enough for HD dvr duties. I'll have to look into it.
Click to expand...

i think the areal/ aureola/ whatever density of the drives means there's
more data passing under the drive heads (per second) than a 7200 RPM
320 GB drive, as a comparison.
Click to expand...

So sustained transfer speeds should be good. What about seek latency? Does the areal density help that, or is it a function of spindle speed?
 
Originally posted by: MrPickins
Originally posted by: wwswimming
Originally posted by: MrPickins
I've been wondering the same thing.

I'm thinking about consolidating hard drives in my htpc with a 1TB drive. I'm not sure if 5400rpm is fast enough for HD dvr duties. I'll have to look into it.
Click to expand...

i think the areal/ aureola/ whatever density of the drives means there's
more data passing under the drive heads (per second) than a 7200 RPM
320 GB drive, as a comparison.
Click to expand...

So sustained transfer speeds should be good. What about seek latency? Does the areal density help that, or is it a function of spindle speed?
Click to expand...

seek is based on rpm alone.
desnity only helps read/write speeds.
storagereview.com has benchmarks. and well all the drives in a line are usually based on multiples of a platter size. so yes if an old 320gb drive used smaller platters then its speed would probably be lower than the new drives. i think the newest drives are 500gb per platter.
dvr read write speeds aren't that stressful to modern drives.

 
The Seagate 7200.11 has a serious firmware flaw that causes the drives to die after a few weeks. Been there, done that. What happens is that the firmware enters 'safe mode' and prevents the drive from detecting in the BIOS, if it detects a potential problem, thereby protecting the data on the platters. The bug is that sometimes safe mode can be triggered randomly. Once triggered, the drive is disabled until it is repaired by the manufacturer (under RMA, in which case you won't get your data back) or an authorised data recovery company (swapping circuit boards doesn't help, as the new electronic board will enter safe mode for the same reason).

Thankfully, seagate do have a firmware update patch that can update drives that have not yet gone into 'safe mode'. This patch seems to fix the problem completely. However, even though the bug was found 2 months ago, and the firmware patch has been available for a few weeks, drives with teh faulty firmware are still in the distribution channel and being shipped to customers.

So, if you are thinking of this drive, either look elsewhere, or make sure you are happy flashing the drive's firmware if you get one with the faulty (SD15) firmware.



 
I am still looking. I guess the caviar black is my current top choice as it has the best overall reviews being rated 4.5 stars or higher most places while most others do worse.

It certainly does not help that I look more at the bad reviews when looking for products.
 
Before anyone says "not seagate" (actually looks like I'm too late) realize that is a fluke and once they fix it their HDDs will be fine (again).
 
Not Seagate

😛;

I just ordered a WD Green 1TB drive since I absolutely love the two WD6400AAKS drives I already have. And my VelociRaptor.
Haven't bought a Seagate drive since 7200.9
 
WHEW BROWSING AT SAVED ME!
I have my life storage on my 1TB drive.. i can't imagine how i'd feel if i lost it all.
Doing the firmware upgrade now.
 
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