Which 2 TB drive should I buy?

[HAVOC]

I have the WD 20 EARX ran it thru 3 cycles of preclear and running as my parity with no hiccups. I would recommended this drive even thou the reviews on newegg are killing it.

[Heretic]

bought 2 earx also since noone had the toshiba green drives wich i prefered in stock.

time will tell how they perform

[Rajahal]

Thanks for the reports.  I added the EARX to the OP.

[generalz]

I wouldn't recommend the ST32000542AS, I bought four last year two from newegg and two from frys. They have all failed within the first year, the replacements seagate sends out are coming back with bad sectors/slow spots on the drive.  I've moved all the drives do a different computer thinking maybe the ps was bad but I'm still having issues.

 

 

[ProfQ]

The ST3200's seem to be notorious, at best. I bought four ST2000 a while back, and they continue to work flawlessly. Since the Hitachi 5K3000 are in short supply or too pricey ATM, if I was in the market, I'd go then for these Seagate 2000's. NO FW issues or nothing. My only WD drive seems slower, hotter and sluggish in comparison.

[generalz]

The ST3200's seem to be notorious, at best. I bought four ST2000 a while back, and they continue to work flawlessly. Since the Hitachi 5K3000 are in short supply or too pricey ATM, if I was in the market, I'd go then for these Seagate 2000's. NO FW issues or nothing. My only WD drive seems slower, hotter and sluggish in comparison.

 

yea some people have had better luck with them. unraid hates mine. I'm going to have to wait for the 5K3000 to come down i don't really want to go with WD either

[ProfQ]

yea some people have had better luck with them. unraid hates mine. I'm going to have to wait for the 5K3000 to come down i don't really want to go with WD either

 

I tried one ST3200, and that was enough for me. Do agree that if you can wait-Flood and all, the 5K3000 are the best option (with current specs). Though if you need a few for now, I'd suggest grabbing a few Seagate ST2000DL drives.

[brian89gp]

Is the EARX still a recommended drive?

[brian89gp]

I am going to be buying some 2tb drives, which is the best currently?  All are the same price.

 

WD EARX  (high rate of DOA but those are the only bad reviews)

Seagate ST2000DL  (normal DOA reviews)

Hitachi 5k3000  (a lot of reviews speaking of high failure rate at 6-8 months)

[prostuff1]

I am going to be buying some 2tb drives, which is the best currently?  All are the same price.

 

WD EARX  (high rate of DOA but those are the only bad reviews)

Seagate ST2000DL  (normal DOA reviews)

Hitachi 5k3000  (a lot of reviews speaking of high failure rate at 6-8 months)

Most like the Hitachi drives right now.  I have used quite a few of them for myself and in client builds and have only had one that has fail to pass 3 passes of preclear.

[Rajahal]

I rate them as:

 

Hitachi - best

WD EARX - second best

Seagate - worst

 

That said, I will buy any of the three if the sale is good enough.

[xformulax]

I am going to be buying some 2tb drives, which is the best currently?  All are the same price.

 

WD EARX  (high rate of DOA but those are the only bad reviews)

Seagate ST2000DL  (normal DOA reviews)

Hitachi 5k3000  (a lot of reviews speaking of high failure rate at 6-8 months)

 

i just spend $114.99 each on a couple EARX... if I could find hitachi at that price I'd buy.... with that said, all of my drives are WD and seagate, and I've lost the same percentage of both (though i avoid problematic model #'s) in the past 5 years... worst models being WD black (FALS), and the ST's from seagate.

[ProfQ]

My two cents after seeing a few drives fail in my server (populated with 2TB drives only)-

 

Hitachis 5K3000-best, but difficult to find at a good price.

Seagates ST2000- second in line. Have no failures or FW updates. Other models should  be avoided.

WD- four out of five WDs in my tower have failed. Only the older EADS drive is still working.

 

Good luck!

 

[c3]

You guys do know Hitachi is no more, right?

[ProfQ]

You guys do know Hitachi is no more, right?

 

Don't know where you get your information. Hitachi Global as well as Newegg, Amazon and any reputable supplier happens to disagree with you. They just announced their 4TB green drives, and their 5K3000 line remains a top seller.

 

 

http://www.hitachigst.com/internal-drives/desktop/deskstar/deskstar-5k3000

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475

[c3]

Pretty well covered in the industry papers;

 

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/03/08/roundup-western-digital-buys-hitachi-gst/

 

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/western-digital-buys-hitachis-storage-unit-for-43-billion-eyes-enterprise/45737

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-07/western-digital-to-buy-hitachi-unit-for-4-3-billion-in-cash-stock-deal.html

 

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/western-digital-to-buy-hitachi-unit-for-4-3-billion/

 

 

[ProfQ]

A buyout has been documented for a while, as well as a thousand and one rumors and speculations about what will happen next. Unless you know more...it is not a death of Hitachi drives, they are still actively sold and marketed as such.

[c3]

A buyout has been documented for a while, as well as a thousand and one rumors and speculations about what will happen next. Unless you know more...it is not a death of Hitachi drives, they are still actively sold and marketed as such.

 

Actually, it is the end of Hitachi drives as neither Hitachi nor Samsung sold their brands, only manufacturing.

 

As to what will happen next, the disk drive industry is not exactly hard to forecast. Even the flood and capacity reduction were in forecast. I'm not sharing any secrets when I say this is a declining industry. The end of brands and manufacturing sites is expected.

 

You still call them IBM drives? Same plant.

[marcusone]

 

As to what will happen next, the disk drive industry is not exactly hard to forecast. Even the flood and capacity reduction were in forecast. I'm not sharing any secrets when I say this is a declining industry. The end of brands and manufacturing sites is expected.

 

You still call them IBM drives? Same plant.

 

What do you mean declining industry? Demand is climbing and with the increase in HD/3D content thats not going to change anytime soon.

 

Sent from my SGH-I727R using Tapatalk

[ProfQ]

Same plant, same excellent manufacturing, same QC.

 

Point remains that As of today, the Hitachi 5K3000 drives are Alive and well, as is the Storage industry.  In this I agree with marcusone.

 

Besides, If anyone wants a Hitachi, they're in stock in a lot of places, and fully warranted.

 

The evolution of the storage industry is and continues to be upon us, whatever the next brand name or storage type might be we just need to follow the technology and limit our willingness to assume ...

[c3]

What do you mean declining industry? Demand is climbing and with the increase in HD/3D content thats not going to change anytime soon.

 

Sure storage demand is growing, but this does not translate into revenue growth, which is the measure of industries.

 

I hunted a bit, but could not find it in the forums. Pretty sure it was posted here. There was an very excellent post including the recent financials for WD and Seagate showing year over year and quarterly revenue shrinkage. Seeing those numbers, you would sell your plants too. I thought is was in the Seagate drops LP drives post, but no joy. Point being, the hard drive manufacturers are not seeing revenue grow, nor profits. The Seagate fluff article on Tom's shows they are going to move to reduce lines and SKUs, a very normal business move based on financial performance. I would no different from WD.

 

Have no fear that the $/TB will continue to decline, and hopefully the Watt/TB will too. The recent consolidation will slow things, but no biggie.

[Grobalt]

Hello Did someone try the Seagate Pipeline HD disks ? The power consumption is below 5w - and in germany we have about twice the power costs then in US So i ordered a low power xeon etc and now looking for good harddiscs

 

AFR 0.55%, up to 75°C, 24x7 support - http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/Pipeline-Data-sheet-en-us.pdf

[althoralthor]

So, I recently bought a 2 TB WD EARS drive and set it up for use in my unRaid box.  3 weeks later, red ball.  I bought a replacement and started the rma process.

 

So now I have my brand new drive in use, and the replacement drive just arrived from Western Digital.  I'm considering just leaving this drive on the shelf for now as I have enough space so far (2.5 TB available out of one 1.5 TB, and the 2.0 TB drive.

 

What have others done?  Do you guys keep a spare hard drive to swap in in the event of a failure?  Its almost painful to think about that drive not being used, but I really don't have a use for it right now, so maybe it makes sense to keep a spare?

 

Thanks

[ProfQ]

Hi,

I keep a 2TB Seagate as a warm spare (unassigned) in my tower. Warm spare proved very useful and simple to fix a recent drive failure.

[althoralthor]

Thanks Prof.  Im still using the basic license, so im at my max drives, but just knowing that someone else leaves a spare around makes me feel better about doing it