Most reliable hard drives nowadays?

silentbogo · Dec 29, 2019

Modern 5400RPM is more than fine. Running a few of 3TB WD REDs at work, and a pair of 4TB Seagate BarraCuda drives in RAID-1 at home. All have adequate speed and neither died yet (though, it still remains to be seen). Barracudas get stable 180+MB/s sequential R/W, which is perfect for a NAS on a gigabit network. So far those are my favorites.

R-T-B · Dec 30, 2019

John Naylor said:
Use server drives in server farms ... no server drives are not tougher, they are missing important desktop features like head parking

My Ultrastar 7K6000 and Constellation.3's sure aren't missing head parking.

WHOFOUNDFUNGUS · Dec 30, 2019

Can't believe I never addressed this post. As Suraswami said, BACK UP your BACK UP. Also, cold storage. What is cold storage you may ask? A: Cold storage is when you make a drive image of everything on your hard drive (make sure it is bootable) to another drive you have no intentions of using except in case of an emergency. Then remove it, put it in a safe, cool, dry, dark place where you will forget about it until you move. Then when your mechanical drive (the one you're using) finally crashes you can go into panic mode and run around your house tearing your hair out and wondering where you put that @#$ other drive in cold storage. When you finally find it, disconnect the crashed drive and connect the drive you kept in storage all those years. VIOLA! It will boot. You have all your stuff that you saved years ago and you can now proceed to write your back up to your once upon a time cold storage drive, or, (and this is likely wiser) you can pop the crashed drive into a toaster and start dragging and dropping files onto your newly reinstalled once-upon-a-time cold storage drive presuming the crashed drive lets you at least access the files. You can also make cold storage drives that strictly only contain data. The whole idea is that they don't stay running in your PC and you only use them for recovery purposes.

We are talking about mechanical drives here. I can't resist the temptation to state that in this day and age mechanical drives are dumb. But they do still have some use as storage drives — especially cold storage drives where they don't experience so much wear and tear. Frankly, it has been my finding that the quality of hard drives in this day is diminishing rapidly because manufacturers cannot afford to stay in the race anymore. They can't compete with SSDs, NVME, and M.2 drives so they sacrifice quality. The sooner the consumer realizes that these companies are on the make & take the better off they will be. Mechanical drives are approaching that threshold where they're not worth the shipping you have to pay for to get them delivered. That said, the OLDER MECHANICAL DRIVES are a different deal altogether. I have some ten year old Velociraptors running in RAID 10 that simply will not die. If I were to purchase a comparable, brand new, WD mechanical drive today it would likely be dead in a week. That has been my experience, that is my story and I'm sticking to it.

R-T-B said:
My Ultrastar 7K6000 and Constellation.3's sure aren't missing head parking.

Yup. My Ultrastar and Constellation 3 are both running strong too. Like I said... Older drives. The new Seagates and Western Digital mechanical drives are veritable nightmares.

freeagent · Dec 30, 2019

I've got 69,457 hours on my first gen 1TB Black.

umeng2002 · Jan 1, 2020

My WD Black from 2009 (FALS) is going strong, but I retired it last month simply because of it's age - not SMART data indicating it's going bad or anything weird.

I have 3 7,200 rpm 1 TB WD Blue drives in my computer now, but the oldest one is from like 2015... so I can't attest to the longevity. I'm never buying an HDD slower than 7200rpm.

I probably won't buy another spinning HDD again anyways.

Deleted member 185158 · Jan 1, 2020

FordGT90Concept said:
If they're used for archival purposes, yes, WD Green and 5400 RPM Seagate drives are fine (Seagate apparently doesn't have low power branding).

Thanks, I like the ones with big cache. So mine have 64mb each. Helps for moving smaller files, never have to see the status bar pop up. It's kinda nice.

I don't do Seagate drives anymore.

WD Green 3TB IntelliPower 3.5" Internal HDD - Newegg.com

Buy WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

What do you guys know about this Intella-Power? Is that just a fancy naming?

I'm looking at a pair of these 3T 64mb cache drives. Whatcha think? Good for storage? (2 for redundancy. I always have 2 drives with the same data)

I should mention this is external storage, they won't be running with PCs.

FordGT90Concept · Jan 1, 2020

For a few bucks more, could get 4 TB:

Seagate BarraCuda 4TB 5400 RPM 3.5" Hard Drives - Newegg.com

Buy Seagate BarraCuda ST4000DM004 4TB 5400 RPM 256MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drives Bare Drive - Desktop Internal Hard Drives with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

WD Blue 4TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive 5400 RPM 3.5" - Newegg.com

Buy WD Blue 4TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD40EZRZ with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

It's kind of looking like Western Digital doesn't even make Green hard drives anymore (the one you linked may be discontinued):

Shop Internal Solid State Drives: Internal NVMe SSDs | SanDisk

Shop internal SSDs. Harness the power of NVMe SSDs for your gaming rig, NAS, backups and more applications. Work faster and save more time with fast, reliable data storage with internal SSDs.

www.westerndigital.com

Like Seagate...they may have lost that market to SSDs so they've stopped.

This is a fantastic deal:

Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.com

Buy Seagate Constellation ES.3 ST4000NM0033 4TB 7200 RPM 128MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

They're an older, discontinued model (lower platter density) but they are enterprise drives, 7200 RPM, and 4 TB.

I think if it were me and considering your usage, I'd probably go with Seagate BarraCuda ST4000DM004 because the platters are more dense and it's direct from Newegg instead of third party.

Melvis · Jan 1, 2020

Once you go Black you never go back!

jimleeucf · Feb 16, 2021

ithehappy said:
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.

SSD is reliable

P4-630 · Feb 16, 2021

jimleeucf said:
SSD is reliable

Which

jimleeucf · Feb 16, 2021

las said:
WD, Hitachi, Toshiba >>>>>>>>>>>> Seagate

I used to test used hard drives for a local company, and yes, seagate has much higher failure rate.

kapone32 · Feb 16, 2021

I actually like to buy the Seagate Expansion series. The USB header on that is flaky but the drive (used to be) a 7200 RPM SATA drive. The key was because of the negative reviews they were cheaper than their internal counterparts.

P4-630 · Feb 16, 2021

kapone32 said:
I actually like to buy the Seagate Expansion series. The USB header on that is flaky but the drive (used to be) a 7200 RPM SATA drive. The key was because of the negative reviews they were cheaper than their internal counterparts.

You do know it's a thread necro right..
Last post Jan 1 2020..

W1zzard · Feb 18, 2021

I talked to @jimleeucf, he used to work for buysellram (no longer does) and just wanted to share his experience. So it#s not spam

I've also restored the other posts. @Tatty_One just fyi

HD64G · Feb 18, 2021

Lorec said:
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

Since HDDs tend to show their manufacturing faults early on (first 2-3 months), the known for being reliable are safe enough to buy even used (Hitachi mainly, now known as WD Ultrastar or Gold).

fullinfusion · Feb 18, 2021

ithehappy said:
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.

I only use the Samsung SSD's, NVME and Sata, And NEVER had a problem with any of them.. Thats what I buy and never had to look back :toast:

P4-630 · Feb 18, 2021

fullinfusion said:
I only use the Samsung SSD's, NVME and Sata, And NEVER had a problem with any of them.. Thats what I buy and never had to look back

#MeToo , only Samsung sofar in my rig.

However I use 1 Sandisk SSD as external backup.

Hardcore Games · Feb 21, 2021

freeagent said:
I've got 69,457 hours on my first gen 1TB Black.

Not bad at all

I suggest for vital data use a backup on optical disks suck a DVD or BD media which can live on a shelf in the dungeon for centuries

I was updating my spreadsheet on disks and was thinking of a new report on disk reliability

System Name	WS#1337
Processor	Ryzen 7 5700X3D
Motherboard	ASUS X570-PLUS TUF Gaming
Cooling	Xigmatek Scylla 240mm AIO
Memory	64GB DDR4-3600(4x16)
Video Card(s)	MSI RTX 3070 Gaming X Trio
Storage	ADATA Legend 2TB
Display(s)	Samsung Viewfinity Ultra S6 (34" UW)
Case	ghetto CM Cosmos RC-1000
Audio Device(s)	ALC1220
Power Supply	SeaSonic SSR-550FX (80+ GOLD)
Mouse	Logitech G603
Keyboard	Modecom Volcano Blade (Kailh choc LP)
VR HMD	Google dreamview headset(aka fancy cardboard)
Software	Windows 11, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

System Name	Pioneer
Processor	Ryzen 9 9950X
Motherboard	MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk Wifi
Cooling	Noctua NH-D15 + A whole lotta Sunon, Phanteks and Corsair Maglev blower fans...
Memory	64GB (2x 32GB) G.Skill Flare X5 @ DDR5-6200 CL30
Video Card(s)	XFX RX 7900 XTX Speedster Merc 310
Storage	Intel 5800X Optane 800GB boot, +2x Crucial P5 Plus 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs
Display(s)	55" LG 55" B9 OLED 4K Display
Case	Thermaltake Core X31
Audio Device(s)	TOSLINK->Schiit Modi MB->Asgard 2 DAC Amp->AKG Pro K712 Headphones or HDMI->B9 OLED
Power Supply	FSP Hydro Ti Pro 850W
Mouse	Logitech G305 Lightspeed Wireless
Keyboard	WASD Code v3 with Cherry Green keyswitches + PBT DS keycaps
Software	Gentoo Linux x64 / Windows 11 Enterprise IoT 2024

System Name	My Little Bad Boy
Processor	i7 6900K
Motherboard	ASUS X99 E WS USB 3.1
Cooling	By Noctua
Memory	128 GB CORSAIR DOMINATOR
Video Card(s)	EVGA GEFORCE GTX 1070 FTW
Storage	Many TB's of storage of all kinds
Display(s)	ASUS 27" Monitor
Case	Thermal Take Level 10 GT
Audio Device(s)	onboard sound
Power Supply	Corsair Platinum HX1000i
Mouse	I use whatever mouse works best at the time. I have dozens
Keyboard	LOGITECH PRODIGY keyboard
Software	Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8.1 Pro, Linux Mint
Benchmark Scores	3.91 GHz on this. Happy with it as it is. Not a gaming rig.

Processor	AMD R7 5800X3D
Motherboard	Asus Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
Cooling	Thermalright Frozen Edge 360, 3x TL-B12 V2, 2x TL-B12 V1
Memory	2x8 G.Skill Trident Z Royal 3200C14, 2x8GB G.Skill Trident Z Black and White 3200 C14
Video Card(s)	Zotac 4070 Ti Trinity OC
Storage	WD SN850 1TB, SN850X 2TB, SN770 1TB
Display(s)	LG 50UP7100
Case	Fractal Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s)	JBL Bar 700
Power Supply	Seasonic Vertex GX-1000, Monster HDP1800
Mouse	Logitech G502 Hero
Keyboard	Logitech G213
VR HMD	Oculus 3
Software	Yes
Benchmark Scores	Yes

System Name	BY-2021
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (65w eco profile)
Motherboard	MSI B550 Gaming Plus
Cooling	Scythe Mugen (rev 5)
Memory	2 x Kingston HyperX DDR4-3200 32 GiB
Video Card(s)	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Storage	Samsung 980 Pro, Seagate Exos X20 TB 7200 RPM
Display(s)	Nixeus NX-EDG274K (3840x2160@144 DP) + Samsung SyncMaster 906BW (1440x900@60 HDMI-DVI)
Case	Coolermaster HAF 932 w/ USB 3.0 5.25" bay + USB 3.2 (A+C) 3.5" bay
Audio Device(s)	Realtek ALC1150, Micca OriGen+
Power Supply	Enermax Platimax 850w
Mouse	Nixeus REVEL-X
Keyboard	Tesoro Excalibur
Software	Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Benchmark Scores	Faster than the tortoise; slower than the hare.

Most reliable hard drives nowadays?

silentbogo

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WHOFOUNDFUNGUS

freeagent

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umeng2002

Deleted member 185158

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WD Green 3TB IntelliPower 3.5" Internal HDD - Newegg.com

FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

Seagate BarraCuda 4TB 5400 RPM 3.5" Hard Drives - Newegg.com

WD Blue 4TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive 5400 RPM 3.5" - Newegg.com

Shop Internal Solid State Drives: Internal NVMe SSDs | SanDisk

Seagate Constellation ES.3 4TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.com

Melvis

jimleeucf

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P4-630

jimleeucf

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P4-630

Hardcore Games

System Name	Night Rider \| Mini LAN PC \| Workhorse
Processor	AMD R7 5800X3D \| Ryzen 1600X \| i7 970
Motherboard	MSi AM4 Pro Carbon \| GA- \| Gigabyte EX58-UD5
Cooling	Noctua U9S Twin Fan\| Stock Cooler, Copper Core)\| Big shairkan B
Memory	2x8GB DDR4 G.Skill Ripjaws 3600MHz\| 2x8GB Corsair 3000 \| 6x2GB DDR3 1300 Corsair
Video Card(s)	MSI AMD 6750XT \| 6500XT \| MSI RX 580 8GB
Storage	1TB WD Black NVME / 250GB SSD /2TB WD Black \| 500GB SSD WD, 2x1TB, 1x750 \| WD 500 SSD/Seagate 320
Display(s)	LG 27" 1440P\| Samsung 20" S20C300L/DELL 15" \| 22" DELL/19"DELL
Case	LIAN LI PC-18 \| Mini ATX Case (custom) \| Atrix C4 9001
Audio Device(s)	Onboard \| Onbaord \| Onboard
Power Supply	Silverstone 850 \| Silverstone Mini 450W \| Corsair CX-750
Mouse	Coolermaster Pro \| Rapoo V900 \| Gigabyte 6850X
Keyboard	MAX Keyboard Nighthawk X8 \| Creative Fatal1ty eluminx \| Some POS Logitech
Software	Windows 10 Pro 64 \| Windows 10 Pro 64 \| Windows 7 Pro 64/Windows 10 Home

System Name	AlderLake
Processor	Intel i7 12700K P-Cores @ 5Ghz
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master
Cooling	Noctua NH-U12A 2 fans + Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme + 5 case fans
Memory	32GB DDR5 Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 6000MT/s CL36
Video Card(s)	MSI RTX 2070 Super Gaming X Trio
Storage	Samsung 980 Pro 1TB + 970 Evo 500GB + 850 Pro 512GB + 860 Evo 1TB x2
Display(s)	23.8" Dell S2417DG 165Hz G-Sync 1440p
Case	Be quiet! Silent Base 600 - Window
Audio Device(s)	Panasonic SA-PMX94 / Realtek onboard + B&O speaker system / Harman Kardon Go + Play / Logitech G533
Power Supply	Seasonic Focus Plus Gold 750W
Mouse	Logitech MX Anywhere 2 Laser wireless
Keyboard	RAPOO E9270P Black 5GHz wireless
Software	Windows 11
Benchmark Scores	Cinebench R23 (Single Core) 1936 @ stock Cinebench R23 (Multi Core) 23006 @ stock

System Name	Best AMD Computer
Processor	AMD 7900X3D
Motherboard	Asus X670E E Strix
Cooling	In Win SR36
Memory	GSKILL DDR5 32GB 5200 30
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Pulse 7900XT (Watercooled)
Storage	Corsair MP 700, Seagate 530 2Tb, Adata SX8200 2TBx2, Kingston 2 TBx2, Micron 8 TB, WD AN 1500
Display(s)	GIGABYTE FV43U
Case	Corsair 7000D Airflow
Audio Device(s)	Corsair Void Pro, Logitch Z523 5.1
Power Supply	Deepcool 1000M
Mouse	Logitech g7 gaming mouse
Keyboard	Logitech G510
Software	Windows 11 Pro 64 Steam. GOG, Uplay, Origin
Benchmark Scores	Firestrike: 46183 Time Spy: 25121

Processor	Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory	48 GB
Video Card(s)	RTX 4080
Storage	2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s)	30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software	Windows 10 64-bit

Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 5600@80W
Motherboard	MSI B550 Tomahawk
Cooling	ZALMAN CNPS9X OPTIMA
Memory	2*8GB PATRIOT PVS416G400C9K@3733MT_C16
Video Card(s)	Sapphire Radeon RX 6750 XT Pulse 12GB
Storage	Sandisk SSD 128GB, Kingston A2000 NVMe 1TB, Samsung F1 1TB, WD Black 10TB
Display(s)	AOC 27G2U/BK IPS 144Hz
Case	SHARKOON M25-W 7.1 BLACK
Audio Device(s)	Realtek 7.1 onboard
Power Supply	Seasonic Core GC 500W
Mouse	Sharkoon SHARK Force Black
Keyboard	Trust GXT280
Software	Win 7 Ultimate 64bit/Win 10 pro 64bit/Manjaro Linux