Most reliable hard drives nowadays?

[ithehappy]

I only have a WD Black 1 TB and 500 GB Evo for my system and finally I am in need of upgrading to a 4TB hard drive as the space I have simply is way too low. I had an external Sony HD-E2 hard drive, 2 TB, but it isn't working anymore, didn't even use it that much at all, but it just doesn't work suddenly! So I have lost faith on these external drives.

Now I don't want to spend much. I see that some folks are selling WD Red drives at good price. Can I get one of those? I mean are WD Reds reliable drives (4TB versions)? Also I see that the Reds are actually 5400 RPM while the Black I am using is 7200 RPM. For day to day usage how much will I notice this performance difference? I play my movies, load photos and stuffs from this drive, only those need an installation go to the SSD, so you get what I mean.

I am just looking for the most reliable internal drive which is available in current market. A hard drive which I can rely upon, should run for long time and won't crap out on me like the external Sony did.

PS- It doesn't necessarily be an internal one anyway, I can go for a Passport Ultra or something, but like I said, I have lost faith on them external drives.

 

[Athlonite]

You wont go wrong with another WD Black unless it's purely for storage then you can go Red if you want

 

[EarthDog]

Pick one. The overall difference between the popular brands and most models are with a percent so. Sometimes bad drives wont fail and good drives fail. It's a crapshoot outside of anomalies.

 

[newtekie1]

Pick one. The overall difference between the popular brands and most models are with a percent so. Sometimes bad drives wont fail and good drives fail. It's a crapshoot outside of anomalies.

This, they're all good enough. I wouldn't get a 5400RPM drive though unless it was just for storage.

 

[ithehappy]

You wont go wrong with another WD Black unless it's purely for storage then you can go Red if you want

WD Black or WD Red Pro, 7200 rpm ones, both cost a lot, like 1.5 times more than a regular 5200 rpm WD Red drive. Hmm. My usage like I said it is, mainly storage, but movies/tv shows and other media consumption stuffs will be done from that only.
Should I completely rule the external ones out? They can't compete in reliability with internal ones?

 

[Final_Fighter]

i just buy white label drivers that have the specs i want. check the smart info to insure new then put them to work. saves money too.

example https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-4TB-64...ty!96019!US!-1&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=1000

 

[potato580+]

5xxx rpm, becouse the price drope, i got my used baracuda 3tb just for $20+, altho 7k rmp might have btter write speed but the price still not cheap
pretty reliable $20 storage drive

health checker pointing to 70%, but i tested and no single bad sector

 

[Lorec]

5xxx rpm, becouse the price drope, i got my used westren digital 3tb just for $20+, altho 7k rmp might have btter write speed but the price still not cheap

There are two things in this world I would never do:
1)Eat yellow snow
2)Buy a used hard drive (well if seller show screenshots in crystal disk then maybe...)

Too much risk, better to save on something else

 

[potato580+]

y

There are two things in this world I would never do:
1)Eat yellow snow
2)Buy a used hard drive (well if seller show screenshots in crystal disk then maybe...)

Too much risk, better to save on something else

yes but forjust daily use excell extension backup, ive been use this for a year, the health still tend on 70% or so, this is the buck bang

 

[Athlonite]

WD Black or WD Red Pro, 7200 rpm ones, both cost a lot, like 1.5 times more than a regular 5200 rpm WD Red drive. Hmm. My usage like I said it is, mainly storage, but movies/tv shows and other media consumption stuffs will be done from that only.
Should I completely rule the external ones out? They can't compete in reliability with internal ones?

Should you completely rule an external HDD short answer no. I have a 2TB WD Elements drive which is about 7yrs old now and still going good so it's paid for itself a few times over by now but it mostly sits idle until I want something on it or to put something on it I also have a 4TB WD Passport which I use for Movies and TV programs which gets used far more often for streaming and never skips a beat aswell so really it's up to you and how you want to use it

 

[ithehappy]

Should you completely rule an external HDD short answer no. I have a 2TB WD Elements drive which is about 7yrs old now and still going good so it's paid for itself a few times over by now but it mostly sits idle until I want something on it or to put something on it I also have a 4TB WD Passport which I use for Movies and TV programs which gets used far more often for streaming and never skips a beat aswell so really it's up to you and how you want to use it

Ok sir, Thanks. I will either get a WD Red 5400 rpm one or a My Passport unit, while the latter being pretty cheap due to is demand in current market. I just need storage, don't care how it comes internal or external.
One more thing, as my Sony one crapped up after just using it for a handful occasions only, does the external drives degrade if they sit idle or something? I mean more usage is better or something like that? I know sounds weird but I can't find a reason for a hard drive to be dead only after 10-12 sessions of usage!

 

[Roddey]

I have a WD black 1tb for about 7 years and since going to ssd maybe access it a few times a year for photos. Sleeping most of the time. Still going strong.

 

[timta2]

Ok sir, Thanks. I will either get a WD Red 5400 rpm one or a My Passport unit, while the latter being pretty cheap due to is demand in current market. I just need storage, don't care how it comes internal or external.
One more thing, as my Sony one crapped up after just using it for a handful occasions only, does the external drives degrade if they sit idle or something? I mean more usage is better or something like that? I know sounds weird but I can't find a reason for a hard drive to be dead only after 10-12 sessions of usage!

The two major issues with external drives is that they are portable and get beat up, through abuse and lack of care, and they also are usually in cheap plastic cases, that make great insulators, and cause them to run hot.

 

[MazeFrame]

Pick one. The overall difference between the popular brands and most models are with a percent so. Sometimes bad drives wont fail and good drives fail. It's a crapshoot outside of anomalies.

This

Also: For a NAS, have drives from various brands so they will fail at different times.

 

[oobymach]

The difference between 5400 and 7200rpm is 2ms, 11ms seek on a 7200 and 13ms seek on a 5400, not enough to notice. I use wd black drives and have a 4tb and 2x 2tb hdd's in my rig rn.

 

[micropage7]

I still running seagate and so far i'm pretty happy with that, but one of my drive shows unusual spins up although the health shows 100%, it looks i need to back it up then before sorry

Now i'm eyeing WD red since the price especially in here little bit lower

 

[s3thra]

Here's some HDD failure rate stats for reference - reported on earlier in the year by TPU. Note though these are enterprise HDDs used in a data center.

TPU article:

Backblaze Releases Hard Drive Stats for Q1 2019

As of March 31, 2019, Backblaze had 106,238 spinning hard drives in our cloud storage ecosystem spread across three data centers. Of that number, there were 1,913 boot drives and 104,325 data drives. This review looks at the Q1 2019 and lifetime hard drive failure rates of the data drive models...

www.techpowerup.com

Direct link:

2019 Update on Hard Drive Failure Rates: Seeing More Failures

This review looks at the Q1 2019 and lifetime hard drive failure rates of the 104,325 data drive models currently in operation in our data centers.

www.backblaze.com

 

[freeagent]

I’ve got a little more than 68k hours on my original wd 1tb black. That thing is two days older than dirt. I think I bought in 2007 or so.. whenever they first came out. I recently moved my important stuff off and is now my steam drive until the end of its days. Never had any problems.

 

[micropage7]

Toshiba and HGST looks good but actually i dunno here

 

[silkstone]

I only have a WD Black 1 TB and 500 GB Evo for my system and finally I am in need of upgrading to a 4TB hard drive as the space I have simply is way too low. I had an external Sony HD-E2 hard drive, 2 TB, but it isn't working anymore, didn't even use it that much at all, but it just doesn't work suddenly! So I have lost faith on these external drives.

Now I don't want to spend much. I see that some folks are selling WD Red drives at good price. Can I get one of those? I mean are WD Reds reliable drives (4TB versions)? Also I see that the Reds are actually 5400 RPM while the Black I am using is 7200 RPM. For day to day usage how much will I notice this performance difference? I play my movies, load photos and stuffs from this drive, only those need an installation go to the SSD, so you get what I mean.

I am just looking for the most reliable internal drive which is available in current market. A hard drive which I can rely upon, should run for long time and won't crap out on me like the external Sony did.

PS- It doesn't necessarily be an internal one anyway, I can go for a Passport Ultra or something, but like I said, I have lost faith on them external drives.

Take that external drive out of it's enclosure and hook it up internally. It might still work.

Otherwise, best bet for storage are the WD external drives 4-8 Tb. Take them out of their enclosures and you either get a Red Drive or something very similar.
Extremely reliable drives that are one of the best options for storage, rather than boot.

 

[newtekie1]

The difference between 5400 and 7200rpm is 2ms, 11ms seek on a 7200 and 13ms seek on a 5400, not enough to notice. I use wd black drives and have a 4tb and 2x 2tb hdd's in my rig rn.

If it is noticeable really depends on the usage. It is definitely noticeable if you are trying to load programs/games or even run Windows off it. It's not so noticeable if you are just using it for storage.

Where I live the 7200RPM drives are only $10-20 more than the 5400RPM drive, so it doesn't make any sense to go with the 5400RPM drives.

 

[oobymach]

If it is noticeable really depends on the usage. It is definitely noticeable if you are trying to load programs/games or even run Windows off it. It's not so noticeable if you are just using it for storage.

Where I live the 7200RPM drives are only $10-20 more than the 5400RPM drive, so it doesn't make any sense to go with the 5400RPM drives.

I put windows on a wd green 5400rpm a few years ago for a friend and it had almost identical boot speed to the wd blue 7200rpm I had in mine. At 5400rpm it runs with less vibration too, but I've always used 7200rpm drives myself. As an enthusiast a couple ms is worth the extra little bit to me.

 

[Mussels]

Only advice i've got is to avoid drives with power saving functions like WD greens, the hardware power downs cause excessive wear for no reasons. Fine for occasional USB storage, bad for internal drives.

 

[EarthDog]

Here's some HDD failure rate stats for reference - reported on earlier in the year by TPU. Note though these are enterprise HDDs used in a data center.

TPU article:

Backblaze Releases Hard Drive Stats for Q1 2019

As of March 31, 2019, Backblaze had 106,238 spinning hard drives in our cloud storage ecosystem spread across three data centers. Of that number, there were 1,913 boot drives and 104,325 data drives. This review looks at the Q1 2019 and lifetime hard drive failure rates of the data drive models...

www.techpowerup.com

Direct link:

2019 Update on Hard Drive Failure Rates: Seeing More Failures

This review looks at the Q1 2019 and lifetime hard drive failure rates of the 104,325 data drive models currently in operation in our data centers.

www.backblaze.com

ahh, the support for just 'picking one'

 

[las]

WD, Hitachi, Toshiba >>>>>>>>>>>> Seagate