Should I get a 3TB or 4TB HDD? Are they reliable?

[geokilla]

I'm running out of space on my HDDs right now and I have two options. I can either sell all my existing HDDs (Western Digital Black 1TB WD1002FAEX, Western Digital 250GB WD2500KS, and Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB WD5000BEVT) and get a Western Digital or Seagate 3TB or 4TB, or I can give the 250GB hard drive to my sister and take her Western Digital Scorpio Blue 640GB WD6400BEVT. My main concern with option 1 is, how reliable are the new 3TB and 4TB hard drives? Ever since the flooding a couple years ago, prices skyrocketed on hard drives and hard drive warranties shrunk, with a lot of people on the Internet saying that the new hard drives do not seem to be as good as the old one? Of course, it could be one of those 1 in a million cases, but I'm not really sure. I know I probably won't get much from selling my old hard drives.

Off topic, but my friend said Windows doesn't recognize 3TB hard drives correctly? I did a quick Google search and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Off topic, but my friend said Windows doesn't recognize 3TB hard drives correctly? I did a quick Google search and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

What OS are you running? Booting off of a >2TB HDD requires a mobo with a UEFI BIOS, and an OS installed in UEFI mode, with GPT partitions. Using a 3TB HDD as a data drive only is much easier, and just requires an OS that supports GPT partitions.

Win7 64-bit or newer, with a Sandy Bridge or newer mobo, will support both.

 

[Elixer]

Nothing is reliable.
That means, that sooner or later, everything fails, so keep backups.

Check out http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/ for some more info.

BTW, there is a market for old HDs, lots of recovery places want to buy them.
Sure, you still won't get much... but, better than nothing I guess.

 

[geokilla]

What OS are you running? Booting off of a >2TB HDD requires a mobo with a UEFI BIOS, and an OS installed in UEFI mode, with GPT partitions. Using a 3TB HDD as a data drive only is much easier, and just requires an OS that supports GPT partitions.

Win7 64-bit or newer, with a Sandy Bridge or newer mobo, will support both.

I boot my OS off my SSD. Using Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

Nothing is reliable.
That means, that sooner or later, everything fails, so keep backups.

Check out http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/ for some more info.

BTW, there is a market for old HDs, lots of recovery places want to buy them.
Sure, you still won't get much... but, better than nothing I guess.

That is true, but I heard a lot of people say their hard drives failed within a year because theirs was post flood. And manufacturers know they aren't as good as before, hence the reduced warranty period.

 

[Charlie98]

The 3TB drives are a pretty decent bargain right now, I wouldn't buy a 4TB just because it's not a very good price/GB ratio.

I have 2 3TB drives, a WD Red and a brand new Barracuda. The WD was a warranty refurb from when my 2TB Red had bad sectors out of the box... so, like Elixer says, you never know. The 3TB Red has been solid all the way in my HTPC; I just installed the 3TB Seagate this week, so the jury is out.

I wouldn't hesitate to buy a 3TB drive...

I did have to use GPT partitions to get the system to recognize all 3TBs of space... no biggie with W7.

 

[ronniedavisk2_9]

I'd get the 3TB drive. 4TB drives are still too expensive for my taste.

 

[Red Squirrel]

With drives 1TB or larger you should really be using raid anyway. I can't imagine having that much data and not using raid. Even with backups it's still a pain in the ass if a drive fails and you have to recopy everything and make sure permissions are the same etc...

4 3TB drives in raid 10 will give you about 5.4TB or so of usable space and even if a drive fails you don't lose access to data nor have to use backups.

Raid + backups is the only way to go. You can replace raid with similar techs like ZFS as well. You just want something where if a drive fails you don't lose anything.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

My main concern with option 1 is, how reliable are the new 3TB and 4TB hard drives? Ever since the flooding a couple years ago, prices skyrocketed on hard drives and hard drive warranties shrunk, with a lot of people on the Internet saying that the new hard drives do not seem to be as good as the old one?

Off topic, but my friend said Windows doesn't recognize 3TB hard drives correctly? I did a quick Google search and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

I've seen the same horror stories and bad reviews, but gritted my teeth and bought a WD Green 3 TB drive yesterday for 99.99. It's just a backup drive and I was getting low on space.

Ran the WD Data Lifeguard Extended Test on it, which took 7 hours and showed no bad sectors.

Speed tests show it is the fastest spinning drive I've ever owned in spite of the 5400 RPM speed--about 10% faster than my primary data drive, a 3 year old 7200 RPM Samsung 1TB 103SJ and 50% faster than the WD Green 1.5 TB that it replaced.

Runs 2 or 3 degrees cooler than the Samsung.

Some of the 3 TB Greens have 4 platters, but the one I got has 3.

It could drop dead tomorrow, but what can you do? All brands have a lot of negative reviews, so when the time comes, you just have to hold your nose and hope. And have your stuff backed up.

No problems at all initializing as GPT on Win 7 to get a single large partition.

 

[Charlie98]

and have your stuff backed up.

x10000

 

[geokilla]

What hard drive would you buy, if I do go that route? I have no intentions of getting a Western Digital Green as I heard they aren't that good. People say Seagate are terrible as well, for some weird reason.

Also, what's the difference between a NAS and normal internal hard drive?

With drives 1TB or larger you should really be using raid anyway. I can't imagine having that much data and not using raid. Even with backups it's still a pain in the ass if a drive fails and you have to recopy everything and make sure permissions are the same etc...

4 3TB drives in raid 10 will give you about 5.4TB or so of usable space and even if a drive fails you don't lose access to data nor have to use backups.

Raid + backups is the only way to go. You can replace raid with similar techs like ZFS as well. You just want something where if a drive fails you don't lose anything.

Isn't RAID a pain to set up and use? And it requires two of the same hard drives? So that means I would have to get rid of all my current hard drives and replace them with say, two 3TB hard drives?

I have nothing important to back up. Only anime, TVB, and some random stuff. The rest of my important data is already on a large USB drive.

 

[Red Squirrel]

What hard drive would you buy, if I do go that route? I have no intentions of getting a Western Digital Green as I heard they aren't that good. People say Seagate are terrible as well, for some weird reason.

Also, what's the difference between a NAS and normal internal hard drive?


Isn't RAID a pain to set up and use? And it requires two of the same hard drives? So that means I would have to get rid of all my current hard drives and replace them with say, two 3TB hard drives?

I have nothing important to back up. Only anime, TVB, and some random stuff. The rest of my important data is already on a large USB drive.

Less of a pain to setup than it is to restore backups if you lose everything. Provided you do software raid. Hardware raid IS a pain, and you can't expand/transform or do anything without having to reboot to go in the raid's bios, depending on the controller. Kinda defeats the purpose. But yeah they should be the same size. You could technically do smaller raids then combine them, but personally I like to try to stick to all the same size. The oddball drives I just use as individual backup drives.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

What hard drive would you buy, if I do go that route? I have no intentions of getting a Western Digital Green as I heard they aren't that good. People say Seagate are terrible as well, for some weird reason.

I dare you to find a currently available drive that is not badmouthed.

I double dog dare you.

All you can do is find anecdotes. And the anecdotes condemn them all and don't provide any sort of statistically valid sample anyway.

Why would people finding problems with Seagates strike you as "for some weird reason"? What would be weird is if they DIDN'T find problems with Seagates. Or Western Digital. Or Hitachi, Samsung, Toshiba, and on down whatever list you dream up.

If you are relying on "I heard" and "people say" you will never buy any drive.

So you hold your nose and hope.

The better SSDs are likely more reliable than HDDs, but you pay through the nose if you need high capacity.

 

[Charlie98]

All you can do is find anecdotes. And the anecdotes condemn them all and don't provide any sort of statistically valid sample anyway.

That's why there are failure rate statistics...

But I agree with you, pick one and roll with it... you could pick the worst drive evarr (based on available statistics) and wind up with a golden drive... or vice versa. And that includes SSDs, too.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Just be sure to post what drive you bought so everybody can ask why you did not buy XYZ drive instead.

 

[Topweasel]

Keep in mind that 90% of the complaints are on OEM drives. These don't go through the same QC that a normal retail goes for. Hence the savings. Basically they are meant to be sold to Dell and HP for their builds and would be checked for failures during this process by the system builder (where they would get re-credited for failed drives). Not only that but when we order single OEM drives from retailers we get them shipped in packaging their weren't really intended for.

The only thing smaller drives have going for them is less platters which means less moving parts. But comparatively a 4 platter drive from today is likely to be just as reliable as a 4 platter drive from 8 years ago.

There is some anecdotal evidence that for Seagate their Chinese drives are less reliable. But I have to believe its because that location is pretty much solely intended for OEM sales, therefore make the bulk of their OEM offerings, and therefore out of all untested OEM drives would make the baulk of the DOA's.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The WD Green I got a couple of days ago was bought from Newegg and delivered by Ontrac.com, which is apparently Newegg's partner for the "Eggsaver" free shipping (4 to 7 days).

It was OEM and arrived in a cardboard box measuring about 4 inches high, 6 inches wide, and 8 inches long.

No hard plastic clamshell around the drive.

The packing was something I had not seen before--similar to bubble wrap, but actually a pre-made air-padded clamshell of a sort. The clamshell appeared to be custom made to fit that particular size box. The drive could move slightly in the clamshell, but the clamshell could not move around inside the box due to the tight fit.

Probably an improvement on what I'd previously seen from Newegg.

I toyed with the idea of buying a retail version, thinking it might have better padding or even possibly better testing at the factory, but couldn't find any Green retail packs. Not sure there is such a thing.

Heard on the news a day or two ago that some shippers (UPS?) may start charging by box volume rather than weight and I'm wondering what that might mean for computer parts shipping.

 

[Charlie98]

I got my 3TB Barracuda from Tiger Direct last week... and just like the last drive I got (a Hitachi about 2 years ago) it was in a giant box with one turn of bubblewrap around it. Thankfully, the Seagate came in some sort of weird retail hanging plastic clamshell thing (that you had to destroy to get open) which may have provided a little shelter... but that will be the last HDD I get from TD.

 

[stlc8tr]

Meh. Drives are rated at 300G shock when off. They'll be fine. 5%-10% off at TigerDirect and no sales tax means that they are the first place that I look when it comes to drives.

 

[hoorah]

Speed tests show it is the fastest spinning drive I've ever owned in spite of the 5400 RPM speed--about 10% faster than my primary data drive,

+1. For awhile I was keeping most of my important data on my older WD black 1TB because, you know, the black drives are the faster ones than the greens right? Nope. The platter density is a real speed enhancer and the newer drives are just plain faster.

 

[hoorah]

To the OP, I find that I have plenty of uses for my older drives and its usually not worth selling them. Despite preaching to my whole family about backups, I generally have my data in 2 places but my offsite backup is spotty at best.

-Make a periodic copy of all of your important stuff and take the drive to work, let it sit on the shelf there. Don't get too wrapped around the axle trying to set up a rotation system or a complicated offsite setup that you don't end up implementing.

-Make a drive image of your OS and put it on a 250GB drive and let it sit in a drawer. Always good if you want to test some software or drivers that have a chance of hosing things.

Drive docks make internal drives just as easy, if not easier, to work with than externals. Drop the drive in the dock, copy files, stick in static bag and cardboard box and bring it somewhere.

 

[h9826790]

I am now using a 4T WD HDD. No problem so far, but I am with OSX, may be that's a little bit difference.

 

[Wuzup101]

I have 6 4TB Segate NAS drives and they have been working well since installed (only a few months ago so take it for what it's worth - not much). They are running off an older raid card (in raid 6) that I picked up on e-bay for under a hundo w/ battery backup. I shouldn't have to upgrade my storage for quite some time, and I could still buy 2 more and add them to the array.

 

[geokilla]

How does this look? Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB - $99.99 - $30 Coupon = $69.99 + tax

On June 25, Staples will have a $30 off $99 any hard drive coupon activated. This means that the Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB will only be $69.99 + tax. Pretty good deal I think? It has 1TB per platter which makes it awfully quick as it is a very dense hard drive. Only downside is the one year warranty. Lowest price right now is $84.99 + $5.99 shipping at Newegg.

Less of a pain to setup than it is to restore backups if you lose everything. Provided you do software raid. Hardware raid IS a pain, and you can't expand/transform or do anything without having to reboot to go in the raid's bios, depending on the controller. Kinda defeats the purpose. But yeah they should be the same size. You could technically do smaller raids then combine them, but personally I like to try to stick to all the same size. The oddball drives I just use as individual backup drives.

I should be looking at mirrored RAID (1) right? I found this on Google. Also I assume I need two identical sized hard drives? Meaning all my current hard drives are useless if I get the above?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/36504/how-to-create-a-software-raid-array-in-windows-7/

 

[bononos]

The WD Green I got a couple of days ago was bought from Newegg and delivered by Ontrac.com, which is apparently Newegg's partner for the "Eggsaver" free shipping (4 to 7 days).

It was OEM and arrived in a cardboard box measuring about 4 inches high, 6 inches wide, and 8 inches long.

No hard plastic clamshell around the drive.

The packing was something I had not seen before--similar to bubble wrap, but actually a pre-made air-padded clamshell of a sort. The clamshell appeared to be custom made to fit that particular size box. The drive could move slightly in the clamshell, but the clamshell could not move around inside the box due to the tight fit.
........

Could it survive rough handling by courier/postal employees better than the old peanut foam packaging?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Could it survive rough handling by courier/postal employees better than the old peanut foam packaging?

Maybe not---if the box was say one foot by one foot by one foot and fully filled with peanuts surrounding a single drive in a standard plastic clamshell. And if the clamshell was placed near the midpoint of the box.

But in a small box such as was actually used, I'd guess that the packing I got would be better than filling that box with peanuts.

I guess the trend is toward smaller boxes to reduce shipping volume if the shipment is just for a single hard drive. I have no idea what kind of packing you would get nowadays if the order consisted of several items. This was the first drive I've bought in over 3 years.

Shipping remains a crap shoot. I'd prefer to buy locally but I can't match the online prices and I have no assurance the locally available drives haven't been brutalized somewhere along the line.