The Search for a Reliable Hard Drive

[ps2dragon]

I'm looking to buy a new 2 terabyte hard drive and interested in everyone's personal experience to help me decide.

Back in March this year, I bought a Western Digital 2TB My Book Essential external hard drive, but it ended up failing on me about 1 and 1/2 months later. So I'm looking for something this time that is more reliable. Perhaps there is a common issue with certain hard drives that cause them to fail?

In the past I've had really good luck with Seagate drives, I've only ever had one die on me, and that was because of a power surge I think, so no fault of the drive itself. So far I've come across varying opinions on which drives are the best. I read some where in these forms the newer Seagates tend to have issues, is this true? How about Samsung? I remember dlanor said they are very reliable and work great, but how about the new terabyte Samsung drives? I'm starting to think they're all crap and you're just lucky if you get one that doesn't fail...

[SP193]

I read some where in these forms the newer Seagates tend to have issues, is this true?

Only the most recent Seagate internal 3.5-in HDDs have a CRITICAL design flaw.

Hence you should avoid Seagate Barracuda drives that have a model of:

7200.7, 7200.8, 7200.9 and 7200.10... and especially 7200.11 (!)

The late models have issues in their firmware, rendering the entire drive damaged eventually (Your data would be inaccessible then!).

Information: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...200-11-failing

My Barracuda 7200.7 80 GB IDE drive's PCB blew up (Literally!) 3 months after I bought it... and I lost all data on it.

I remember dlanor said they are very reliable and work great, but how about the new terabyte Samsung drives? I'm starting to think they're all crap and you're just lucky if you get one that doesn't fail...

I have not used Samsung drives before, so I can't comment on them.

I usually stick with Seagate or Western Digital drives though...

[Bootlegninja]

I for one prefer Western Digital hard drives. I have a 40GB I've used for a decade now and it's still working as good as it did out of the box with heavy use.

[Dangwoot]

yeah WD hdd's are okay but ive had lots of bad luck with them...maxtor has rave reviews about it though....

[Bootlegninja]

Maxtor is a good brand. have a 1GB sitting around here somewhere from the dark ages of computing.

[Dangwoot]

lol i got a giant 10gb around here thats about as old as the hills and its huge lol
cant remember the brand but it came out of my wifes old pc it weighs about 3 or 4 pounds lol...anywho back on topic

here ya go dragon give this a read
http://hothardware.com/Articles/Defi...Drive-Roundup/

[garyopa]

I got a 20mb drive that is still working after twenty years.

Today's hard drives are crap.

But for today's hard drives I suggest Seagate, they seem to be the best. -- I had bad luck with WD, but then my friend has had bad luck with Seagate.

One thing I noticed with today's hard drives like 1tb and 2tb ones, they get real real hot, so I suggest extra space above and below the drive, as I see most failures when HDD's are spaced too close together. -- Maybe invest a extra fan to cool off your HDD bay area.

[Dangwoot]

yep i agree today's hdd's just arent built the way they used to be...iv'e had mixed feelings about both wd and seagate iv'e had more seagates fail though odd....

as for the fan definantly get one because as with any electronics heat kills.

[E P]

I'm looking to buy a new 2 terabyte hard drive and interested in everyone's personal experience to help me decide.

I've heard in passing that Samsung has now supposedly became the most reliable brand for hard drives larger than 500GB. I can't verify this myself as I tend to stick with hard drives that are much smaller than the one you seek.

[noetikos]

I've heard in passing that Samsung has now supposedly became the most reliable brand for hard drives larger than 500GB. I can't verify this myself as I tend to stick with hard drives that are much smaller than the one you seek.

yeah i too have heard that samsung hdds are the cream of the crop right now.