HD Brands - Good to Bad; in your opinion


Aaron Oz

Recommended Posts

Generally speaking...

 

Retail Box  (best warranty... usually 3 - 5 years)

On Sale    (Best price ... I've seen as low as 16 or 17 cents per Gig...)

 

Other than that, for unRaid use, I don't worry too much about brand.  If the drive fails early in its lifetime, I can get it replaced.  I usually have enough spare capacity to move the data around to free up a failed drive.

 

So far, I've not had a drive fail in my array.  I expect it will be a long time since the drives are mostly spun down.

When one eventually does fail, I'll probably order the best deal I can find at the time to replace it as soon as possible, so I won't have an array susceptible to a second disk failing before the first has been replaced. 

 

Currently I have a mixture of Hitachi, Maxtor, and Seagate drives. All purchased when they were on sale.

I expect that if you poll people you will get a good mixture of drives that have failed across all the suppliers. As a result, many will have favorites (and the favorites may not match from one person to the next)

 

Remember, there are ONLY two basic types of drives...  no, not IDE and SATA

 

The two basic types of drives are:

          Those drives that have already failed/crashed.

          Those drives that have not yet failed/crashed.  (it is only a matter of time, it is why we own unRaid arrays  ;D)

 

Joe L.

Link to comment

Cheap is always good, especially given my belief that most HDDs are FAIRLY close in reliability/performance, in a given price range.

 

That being said, in a "good to bad" list:

 

1) Seagate

2) Western Digital

3) Samsung

4) Hitachi

5) Maxtor

 

But, for what it's worth, I'll be using all 5 brands in my upcoming unRAID box... so yeah ;)

Link to comment

I usually end up buying Seagate or WD, since those are the ones that seem to end up on sale at the local Best Buy. I've never used a Samsung or Hitachi. I tend to avoid Maxtor. It's probably just a coincedence, but I've had only two drives fail on me over the last, I dunno, 10 years or so. Both were Maxtor.

 

I always used to buy Quantum Fireballs. What the heck happened to those guys?

Link to comment

I usually end up buying Seagate or WD, since those are the ones that seem to end up on sale at the local Best Buy. I've never used a Samsung or Hitachi. I tend to avoid Maxtor. It's probably just a coincedence, but I've had only two drives fail on me over the last, I dunno, 10 years or so. Both were Maxtor.

 

I always used to buy Quantum Fireballs. What the heck happened to those guys?

 

Maxtor bought Quantum's disk business in 2001 (I believe) and now Seagate owns Maxtor.

 

 

Bill

Link to comment

does it matter?

 

seriously i used to analyse every single drive option every time i purchased a drive but since all modern drives are fast and reliable.... couple that with unRAID then essentially cheaper the better (as long as its a known brand)

 

By the time a drive fails under normal circumstances it can be replaced by something twice the size at the same cost. unRAID makes sure you don't lose data so in reality it really doesn't matter that much any more.

 

p.s. fyi all my drives are WD cause they always seem good value

Link to comment
By the time a drive fails under normal circumstances it can be replaced by something twice the size at the same cost. unRAID makes sure you don't lose data so in reality it really doesn't matter that much any more.

 

Agreed. With unRAID, the performance equation sort of goes out the window too; for most things, at least for me, the actual speed of the drive doesn't matter. Assuming it's a "name brand", decent warranty, and cheap (cost per gigabyte), that's what I go for anymore.

 

 

Link to comment
  • 4 weeks later...

Seagate - period!

 

I've had several of the other brands and have had failures with them. I have also had a failure with a Seagate. With some drives you quickly find out that the warranty is short - it starts the day the drive is built in some cases. Some companies want you to run diagnostics etc. too and this is onerous. With the one Seagate failure I had the drive was accepted quickly with no fuss and the lengthy warranty made it worth my while. Currently my system has almost nothing but Seagates in it and I'm happy with it. If I had to pick a #2 it would be WD and #3 might be Hitachi. Maxtor I've had some BAD issues with to include losing the firmware which was loaded off of a drive platter. Once that's happened forget recovery, it's not worth it....

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.