Video Editing: 3TB or 4TB HDD?

[dsc106]

Any word/thoughts on reliability of the newer 4TB drives? What of speed VS 3TB drives?

Looking at a Seagate 4TB for $180 (OEM/Amazon) for my Windows video editing machine (Adobe CS6), AVCHD primarily.

Or a 3TB Hitachi/WD/Seagate...

recommendations/thoughts for my purposes?

 

[smitbret]

HDD speed won't be much of an issue for video editing. Size is a whole different issue. If you are editing RAW HD footage then you can chew through huge amounts very quickly.

In general, I'd be more concerned with just getting the biggest I can afford and get the fastest CPU possible.

 

[smitbret]

The Seagates will be 1TB platters whether you go with 3TB or 4TB.

 

[dsc106]

Ok, good to know.

Thoughts on any particular brands and their warranties as of late?

Hitachi, Seagate, WD, etc. wondering if its worth paying more for the hitachi drive, or worrying about warranty or enterprise drive?

 

[smitbret]

If you're worried about speed, I have 3 of the 2TB Seagates and HDTune reports that since install they get an average of about 135-145MB/s, depending on the drive. They'll peak much higher than that, too. They are just the consumer grade drives, too, but they've been running in my NAS 24/7 for about 3 months without a blip.

If you are setting up a true 24/7 workstation, the WD Red drives will be a little slower but are made for that kind of environment. If it's just casual editing or for a couple of hours a day, just balance performance vs. price vs. warranty. The Reds may still win that one because of the longer warranty.

If you don't know if you need enterprise drives, then you probably don't.

 

[dsc106]

Thank you for the input!

I edit about 40 hrs/week. AVC-HD files but sometimes larger files like ProRes HQ etc

Reliability is of course huge, followed by speed (I need good speed but not ultimate speed).

I guess the big question is, which 4tb HDD?

 

[24601]

Seagate 3TB HDs are the fastest hard drives on the market at the moment.

WD's 4TB drives are just Hitachi drives, and are slow comparatively.

Seagate's 4TB drives are 1TBx4@5900 RPM and have same speed as WD Black 4TB@7200 RPM
If you can get them somehow, Seagate's 4TB 800gBx5 drives are actually the fastest 4TB drives not on the market
They used to put them into the 4TB externals before the 1TBx4 drives came out.
I think they are the same drives as the 4TB Constellation 7200 RPM server drives and have 128mB of cache.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178306

My Seagate 3TB 1TBx3 does 200-220 mBps and my Seagate 4TB 800gBx5 does 160-200 mBps

 

[Elixer]

Thank you for the input!

I edit about 40 hrs/week. AVC-HD files but sometimes larger files like ProRes HQ etc

Reliability is of course huge, followed by speed (I need good speed but not ultimate speed).

I guess the big question is, which 4tb HDD?

Hold on, if reliability is #1 priority, then you need to get multiple drives, and make backups. If you depend on this for a living, then you need offsite backup as well.

Best thing to have when video editing is as much RAM as your system can support, followed by a fast SSD, then secondary storage.
Also remember that RAID isn't backup.

 

[dsc106]

Hold on, if reliability is #1 priority, then you need to get multiple drives, and make backups. If you depend on this for a living, then you need offsite backup as well.

Best thing to have when video editing is as much RAM as your system can support, followed by a fast SSD, then secondary storage.
Also remember that RAID isn't backup.

Yes I have backup, any drive I buy I buy two of. Reliability is #1 because I want the drive to last a long time for financial reasons, not because I don't backup. When I say #1 I mean within around a $180-$250 price point for 4TB, I don't want to spend twice as much for a slightly more reliable drive, and I still need a fast drive - only that in a close call, reliability is something I would choose over speed.

I currently have 32gb RAM and am about to upgrade to 64gb (for Premiere CS6 in Win7 64-bit). I also have fast SSD.

So is the general consensus...

1.) Seagate 4tb 5900rpm
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Deskto...ds=seagate+4tb

2.) Hitachi 4tb 7200rpm deskstar
http://www.amazon.com/HGST-Deskstar-...ds=hitachi+4tb

3.) WD 4tb
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Desktop-...ds=western+4tb

Making the Seagate the best choice for my needs/preferences?

 

[rsutoratosu]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2182/1/

Shows wd slightly faster than seagate ST4000DM000

Also check here

http://www.storagereview.com/wd_black_4tb_review_wd4001faex

hitachi 4tb slightly faster than the WD. They seagate drive used is ST4000DX000 which has the 128mb cache and 7200rpm

If you need warranty, i think wd black is 5 year, hitachi is 3 year, seagate 1;2;3 year (varies by drive and reviews)

 

[rsutoratosu]

Seagate drive on sale for 149
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2Bkn0QKt5yXlFA

 

[Elixer]

Seagate drive on sale for 149
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...2Bkn0QKt5yXlFA

Don't forget to add the cost of shipping the drive back to tiger, since they still have horrible packing.

I tend to buy whatever has the longest warranty (which is WD Black drives), seagate seems to be in the 'throw away' after 2 years mindset, and their "certified repaired" drives are a joke.
I miss competition in the HD market.
There are only two major players left, and it shows by the crap they are making, it really looks like a lottery on if you get a good drive or not, and things haven't gotten back to pre-flood stage in terms of reliability with lots of reports of drives being DOA, have bad sectors, and so on from both major manufacturers that are left.

 

[rsutoratosu]

i rarely buy from tiger and have not had issues... sale is a sale

 

[dsc106]

I don't really order TigerDirect all that often, but that is a good deal. After shipping, $20 cheaper than Amazon. And it is a "Google Trusted Store" which means they have had 99.9% issue free shipping

Sounds like speed is a very close call and a toss-up on all these drives, as is reliability?

The main difference sounds like warranty. For $100 more I can get a 5-year warranty with a WD which may or may not be more reliable... but then again, in 2-years if a Seagate failed, I'd probably be able to get a new 4TB HDD for around $100 so it sounds like a wash?

Makes me think the $150 TigerDirect Seagate is probably the way to go?

 

[24601]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2182/1/

Shows wd slightly faster than seagate ST4000DM000

Also check here

http://www.storagereview.com/wd_black_4tb_review_wd4001faex

hitachi 4tb slightly faster than the WD. They seagate drive used is ST4000DX000 which has the 128mb cache and 7200rpm

If you need warranty, i think wd black is 5 year, hitachi is 3 year, seagate 1;2;3 year (varies by drive and reviews)

look closely at the storage-review article and you'll see that they purposely did not do pure transfer rate tests. The use case of video editing is pure transfer rate bound. The Seagate 7200 RPM is faster in all pure transfer rate tests.

@OP, Warranty over 2 years is pointless if the competing drives are $100 more. In 2 years time 4TB drives will definitely be $100 or less as you mentioned.

Make sure you turn off all kinds of drive spin-down gimmicks on any drive before you start using it though. Spinning down and spinning up drives constantly is significantly more likely to brick drives than just letting them run at a steady RPM.

 

[rsutoratosu]

okay but we're really comparing the 4tb to the seagate 4tb off the legit review site.

the storage review site was use to compare the hitachi and wd, they just happened to put a seagate 7200 in there. My point was Hitachi is faster than the wd black which are both own by wd

 

[rsutoratosu]

Heres another seagate 4tb on sale @ 169

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178326

Seagate STBD4000400 4TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - 5900 RPM drive

 

[MrX8503]

WD Reds are enterprise level if you're looking for reliability. A 4TB Red hasn't been released yet though.

In any case, you want 1TB platters

 

[tweakboy]

Dont get seagate not reliable. Ever since they hopped in bed with Maxtor. Horrible drives both are, and both made by maxtor facility.

Grab a WD ........

 

[Elixer]

WD Reds are enterprise level if you're looking for reliability. A 4TB Red hasn't been released yet though.

In any case, you want 1TB platters

No, they are not enterprise-class drives.
These are supposed to be for NAS, 24/7 operation, but, they are still cheaper than the enterprise-class drives.
As I have mentioned before, seems the Reds aren't that much better(if at all) than the blues, your only paying extra for slightly different firmware.

The real enterprise-class drives are XS (SAS), RE (SAS) and RE (SATA).
RE= raid edition
Each of these has a 5 year warranty.

 

[rsutoratosu]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822178338

seagate 4tb 149 at newegg... this is bare drive

 

[rsutoratosu]

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1071&Itemid=60

heres another seagate 4tb vs seagate 3tb review.. it does seem a lot slower than a 7200 version