HDD Failure, what to replace it with

[Detection]

My Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB has decided to start dying today, so I'm off to replace it in the morning and was looking at the Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001)

All about the drive looks great, SATA III, 2TB etc etc, but I am reading review after review of people saying they are arriving DOA or making weird clicking noises / being very loud, needing RMAs straight away

Having not bought a HDD since mid 2010, and that being the F3, I`m slightly out of touch with which ones to steer clear of, and which ones to go for

Any advise / warnings / recommendations ?

Budget ?90-?100

[protocol7]

I've had good success with Western Digital. Depending on how you plan to use it there's three power/performance classes: Green, Blue and Black (in ascending order). I have two Blacks in my PC and use Greens for external storage.

I have a couple of older Seagates and they are a bit on the noisy side but otherwise solid. I've been lucky in general except with Samsung, which have a 100% failure rate for me. Someone will surely follow this up saying they've never had a problem with Samsung, but I wouldn't use one again even it was free.

[Detection]

I've had good success with Western Digital. Depending on how you plan to use it there's three power/performance classes: Green, Blue and Black (in ascending order). I have two Blacks in my PC and use Greens for external storage.

I have a couple of older Seagates and they are a bit on the noisy side but otherwise solid. I've been lucky in general except with Samsung, which have a 100% failure rate for me. Someone will surely follow this up saying they've never had a problem with Samsung, but I wouldn't use one again even it was free.

Yea its my Samsung that's dying, I have an ancient 160GB Seagate in here for storage that still has a 100% pass health status with HD Tune Pro

I'm not bothered about the noise so long as its "a feature" :p and not shoddy hardware

[Argote]

If you don't need the gargantuan capacity I'd recommend an SSD. It's really a day and night perceptible speed difference.

[Detection]

If you don't need the gargantuan capacity I'd recommend an SSD. It's really a day and night perceptible speed difference.

I do fill up a 1TB drive pretty quickly, especially now since getting a Fibre connection (Its mostly crap though :D)

But not having to empty / keep a check on what is where is worth its weight in gold vs having a fast drive that I fill up every week or two and have to start installing games to mechanical drives anyway

Basically once the machine is on, its on for the day, I`m generally on forums, so an SSD would be nice, but not worth it yet really, storage is more important

Just found a review saying the latest firmware for the drive in my OP fixes the "chirping" the heads make, so looks like the noises are just a bug rather than anything failing

[+Warwagon MVC]

I would recommend a ssd for your boot drive if you can afford it and then a big spinning hard drive for your data.

[Detection]

I would recommend a ssd for your boot drive if you can afford it and then a big spinning hard drive for your data.

Naa it would annoy the crap out of me having to rename all the installers to a different drive letter

I did consider it, but I am waiting on SSDs to get higher capacity first, don't think I would enjoy anything under 500GB as C:\

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So are seagate (recent drives) seen as reliable then ? I know youtube is probably not the best place to read reviews but I'm getting mixed opinions everywhere I look

Mainly saying seagate used to make good drives, but modern 2TB+ are flakey

[omganinja]

Naa it would annoy the crap out of me having to rename all the installers to a different drive letter

I did consider it, but I am waiting on SSDs to get higher capacity first, don't think I would enjoy anything under 500GB as C:\

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So are seagate (recent drives) seen as reliable then ? I know youtube is probably not the best place to read reviews but I'm getting mixed opinions everywhere I look

Mainly saying seagate used to make good drives, but modern 2TB+ are flakey

Then don't... Have an SSD for your OS, apps and games and HDD for documents, music, pictures, videos, etc. Also, don't buy a seagate, they're not at all reliable.

[Detection]

Then don't... Have an SSD for your OS, apps and games and HDD for documents, music, pictures, videos, etc. Also, don't buy a seagate, they're not at all reliable.

I can't afford an SSD big enough for games alone let alone apps and the OS

So seagate is a no go then ? I`m not enjoying the seagate forums and reviews and complaints about them, but I figure I`ll find those on any device specific forum

Best HDD manufacturers atm ?

[Ulpian]

SSD or HDD WD, no Seagate !

[Detection]

WD1502FAEX or WD1002FAEX

I`m kinda time limited to getting one from the closest computer shop on a weekend or chance this F3 completely failing and having no machine (Typing this from the dying drive atm, machine freezes up with I/O errors when I try doing anything much file wise)

[Jeston Veteran]

WD1502FAEX or WD1002FAEX

I`m kinda time limited to getting one from the closest computer shop on a weekend or chance this F3 completely failing and having no machine (Typing this from the dying drive atm, machine freezes up with I/O errors when I try doing anything much file wise)

To be honest, I run exclusively Seagate drives. At the moment I've got 4x500GB in RAID 10 for my system drive, 1 more 500GB for easy storage, then 8 1.5-2TB drives for media. Never had a problem with any of them and that's why I continue buying them. However, if your mind is now set on WD, then the two you mentioned are fine drives.

[Detection]

To be honest, I run exclusively Seagate drives. At the moment I've got 4x500GB in RAID 10 for my system drive, 1 more 500GB for easy storage, then 8 1.5-2TB drives for media. Never had a problem with any of them and that's why I continue buying them. However, if your mind is now set on WD, then the two you mentioned are fine drives.

My mind is not really set on any, I just want a new drive tomorrow and the 2TB Seagate was the best looking drive in my price range, the WD ones are also kinda at the top end of the budget and slightly over, so would prefer not to have to go there.

I was basically looking for some pointers from people who have good / bad experiences with different drives, I guess if you are exclusively Seagate and have no trouble with them, especially with that many running at once, I`ll go with the 2TB I originally found, if it all goes pear shaped, the shop isn't too far away, but 13 Seagate drives and no problems is good enough for me thanks :)

Unstable sector count went from 6 > 1 earlier, then > 34 atm

[Jeston Veteran]

My mind is not really set on any, I just want a new drive tomorrow and the 2TB Seagate was the best looking drive in my price range, the WD ones are also kinda at the top end of the budget and slightly over, so would prefer not to have to go there.

I was basically looking for some pointers from people who have good / bad experiences with different drives, I guess if you are exclusively Seagate and have no trouble with them, especially with that many running at once, I`ll go with the 2TB I originally found, if it all goes pear shaped, the shop isn't too far away, but 13 Seagate drives and no problems is good enough for me thanks :)

Unstable sector count went from 6 > 1 earlier, then > 34 atm

Yeah, most people started hating on Seagate when they released their 1.5 TB drives a couple years ago, I believe. Apparently there were some bad batches on release (even though I have two of them in my collection that are fine) and, well, you know how people on the internet are... A couple bad batches of one particular model on release and suddenly all of their drives are crap and unreliable.

Good luck with the change over, never fun having a drive die on you.

[+Warwagon MVC]

I like western digital just for their RMA procedure.

[Detection]

Yeah, most people started hating on Seagate when they released their 1.5 TB drives a couple years ago, I believe. Apparently there were some bad batches on release (even though I have two of them in my collection that are fine) and, well, you know how people on the internet are... A couple bad batches of one particular model on release and suddenly all of their drives are crap and unreliable.

Good luck with the change over, never fun having a drive die on you.

Thanks, I just hope I can recover all my Technet ISOs from it, subscription has ended and I've got nearly 100GB ISOs I saved lol

Good excuse to make the SATA II > SATA III move though I guess, I was going to go RAID 0, pleased I didn't now

[xendrome]

I like western digital just for their RMA procedure.

That's funny, it's like this car commercial that is on right now

Buyer "How reliable is it?"

Car Salesperson "The warranty is super reliable"

Car Salesperson "If something breaks, you can rely on the warranty"

Buyer "So it's not the car that is reliable, but the warranty"

[Detection]

That's funny, it's like this car commercial that is on right now

Buyer "How reliable is it?"

Car Salesperson "The warranty is super reliable"

Car Salesperson "If something breaks, you can rely on the warranty"

Buyer "So it's not the car that is reliable, but the warranty"

Yea that's what I was thinking lol

I love WD because WHEN it breaks I can easily RMA :p

[TCA]

Since you tend to fill a 1TB HDD up quickly here are some 3TB drives reasonably priced

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=3TB+Internal+Hard+drives&x=0&y=0

[ToneKnee]

Personally, in the near future I'd start looking into RAID-5 for future storage as people who start using 1TB or more have a lot of data to lose unless they have 1TB worth of backs up. Just some food for thought.

[Asrokhel]

Someone will surely follow this up saying they've never had a problem with Samsung, but I wouldn't use one again even it was free.

Fine, I'll be that someone. I've got two Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB from 2008, and they are still both going strong! They are separate drives, C & D.

[hjf288]

Fine, I'll be that someone. I've got two Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB from 2008, and they are still both going strong! They are separate drives, C & D.

D:\ Seagate ST3320620AS - 320GB - STATUS: Good (0 Reallocated sectors), Power on hours: 39986 hours (707 Power on count)

E:\ Samsung HD103SJ - 1000.2GB - STATUS: Good (0 Reallocated sectors), Power on hours: 9120 hours (58 Power on count)

F:\ Samsung HD502HJ - 500.1GB - STATUS: Good (0 Reallocated sectors), Power on hours: 20543 hours (129 Power on count)

I:\ WDC WD740GD-75FLA1 - 73.9GB - STATUS: WARNING (167[140] Reallocated sectors[Threshold]), Power on hours: 55951 hours (1153 Power on count)

O:\ ST2000DL003-9VT166 - 2000.3GB - STATUS: Good (0 Reallocated sectors), Power on hours: 476 hours (8 Power on count)

So yeah a good mix of most brands and all going strong apart from the WD Raptor which is a bit old now, only keep non vital stuff on it..

[Detection]

Well I got my Seagate 2TB installed and windows finally installed after 30 minutes of pure dumbness trying to work out why the SATA Controller drivers weren't working so that windows 7 would see the drive in setup, only to finally read the popup and see it was asking for CD/DVD drivers because I had put my flash drive into a USB 3.0 port, doh... restarted setup in a USB 2.0 port and all is well.

Copied 200GB+ over from the dying drive at 100-130MB/s :D Don't know if that is the new drives max write speed or the old drives max read speed but was nice to see it not drop to 30MB/s after a while :)

Looks like I might be able to recover most of what is on the old drive, then a LL Format and see if it can be salvaged for more than a spinny thing I scrape screwdrivers against at 7200RPM

[neo1911]

RAID6 is the future. I myself being paranoid, use 2Tb x 4 drives in RAID6 with 2 spares. My worst nightmare with RAID5 is possibility of failure while rebuild during 1drive failure. If you know what I mean.

But for a start, having atleast RAID1 with 2 identical capacity drives is a must if you care for your data.

I suggest this to the OP if that means spending a little extra.

[scaramonga]

WD all the way. They actually bought out Hitachi way back whenever? lol, kinda why you don't see their drives no more lol. Never had any probs with Seagate's either mind you, my 3 x 500 running in RAID 0 for 4 years on several motherboards are maybe due to pack in now that I have spoke about them :D