Which 1 TB external HDD to buy?
- Thread starter Saket
- Start date
Ironically, most admiration coming for WD HDDs is that the user's got free replacement after it crashed! Although, it is commendable that how WD honors its warranty, but IMO, this should not be the judging criteria for buying an HDD. You can really lose some important data. Just my opinion, not to offend any WD owners.
Well i own 7 WD hdd's and only 2 failed . One was a brand new DOA and the second one had some bad sectors which were not getting repaired. Luckily never lost any data in the last 7 years on WD drives.
Seagate has been bad for me had plenty of failures, firmware issues and also RMA issues. Stopped buying seagate from last 4 years. Also bought a Samsung spinpoint HDD a year back, its working well as of now without any issues.
Recently the online backup company Backblaze came out with some statistical data about the hard drive reliability of the disks that they use in their storage pods. Since they are a large player in online storage, their experience with hard disks would be substantial.
http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/
As per their study, the disks to prefer in reliability are Hitachi, WD and Seagate in that order. My advice is pretty simple, no matter which drive you choose, if you're going to store important data e.g. family photos, documents, etc., you need to have a backup copy somewhere. Just do not rely on the fact that since the HDD is new, it would not fail you till at least a couple of years. It may very well fail the very next day (I hope that does not happen though
)
Have gone through a painful experience when I had one of my external HDD crash with my personal photos on it. Thankfully I had a backup somewhere which I had forgotten about, but I am not going to forget the agony I had experienced realizing that I have lost all the photographs of my son's first year!
Personally I tend to use WD a lot after reading about their service in India (free home pickup for RMA). I have used Seagate internal HDD too but the most reliable one I have used is my 80Gb Hitachi (which is still going strong as the primary disk.
http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/
As per their study, the disks to prefer in reliability are Hitachi, WD and Seagate in that order. My advice is pretty simple, no matter which drive you choose, if you're going to store important data e.g. family photos, documents, etc., you need to have a backup copy somewhere. Just do not rely on the fact that since the HDD is new, it would not fail you till at least a couple of years. It may very well fail the very next day (I hope that does not happen though
) Have gone through a painful experience when I had one of my external HDD crash with my personal photos on it. Thankfully I had a backup somewhere which I had forgotten about, but I am not going to forget the agony I had experienced realizing that I have lost all the photographs of my son's first year!
Personally I tend to use WD a lot after reading about their service in India (free home pickup for RMA). I have used Seagate internal HDD too but the most reliable one I have used is my 80Gb Hitachi (which is still going strong as the primary disk.
Very true. Warranty is secondary and reliability is primary. At the same time when I look at the 5 year warranty offered by WD (Black versions) I feel its quite assuring because they are so confident about their product. Wisdom says that we must back up our important data no matter which HDD we use and however reliable it may be. The % of failures may be small for that brand but it does happen. And we could be that unfortunate customer whose HDD from the most reliable brand died on us.
IndianEars
Well-Known Member
deba said:
I have posted results of a reliability survey off More than 27,000 ( Twenty Seven THOUSAND ! ) HDDs, used for over 1 year.
Backblaze Blog
That provides information based on experience, performance, statistics and science.... NOT Luck !
I have posted results of a reliability survey off More than 27,000 ( Twenty Seven THOUSAND ! ) HDDs, used for over 1 year.
Backblaze Blog
That provides information based on experience, performance, statistics and science.... NOT Luck !
Last edited:
Hi,
I am a loyal fan of Seagate and it is good. Unfortunately desktop HDD crashed although within warranty..tech support was ready to give a replacement but no data recovery....I spent a good 20k to get it recovered....the tech support for Seagate in India is useless.
But, I currently have external 1 TBs of Seagate Backup Plus and GoFlex and so far has not faced any issues in performance and storage.
Would recommend check the deals on flipkart or snapdeal and go for WD as from what I understand through my friends who are computer dealers in Lamington Road Mumbai, there is better tech support and after sales service. My brother in law uses WD and there are no issues reported till date.
The 1 TBs are used to store music, videos etc which gets accessed and played easily on my Blu Ray players...Choice is yours to decide on budget and what appeals to you.
I am a loyal fan of Seagate and it is good. Unfortunately desktop HDD crashed although within warranty..tech support was ready to give a replacement but no data recovery....I spent a good 20k to get it recovered....the tech support for Seagate in India is useless.
But, I currently have external 1 TBs of Seagate Backup Plus and GoFlex and so far has not faced any issues in performance and storage.
Would recommend check the deals on flipkart or snapdeal and go for WD as from what I understand through my friends who are computer dealers in Lamington Road Mumbai, there is better tech support and after sales service. My brother in law uses WD and there are no issues reported till date.
The 1 TBs are used to store music, videos etc which gets accessed and played easily on my Blu Ray players...Choice is yours to decide on budget and what appeals to you.
On hindsight, if your HDD is not one of the 1% of Hitachi or 2% of WD or 14% of Seagate, you are indeed lucky!
ranjeetrain
New Member
(1) The best thing to do is to buy a drive with lower failure rate. Sales after support, ease of returns are good for nothing after the data has been lost.
(2) BUT, since all drives will die sooner or later, it's better to buy one that comes with better manufacturer support and makes returns easy.
Hmmm...
(3) But backups must be kept regardless of manufacturer support, ease of returns. Afterall, what is all this good for after the data is lost?
Hmmm...
(4) So, reliability is unreliable. Warranty and returns are useless (from the perspective of data loss). And backup must be kept.
Hmmm...
Then why bother? Just buy more disks and make regular backups or use in RAID.
By definition: RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. The very purpose of RAID is to allow for redundancy with the help of inexpensive disks. And technology has made sure that disks indeed have become inexpensive. So folks, go for the no regret solution. Don't buy the best or the most reliable disks (because there is no such thing). Just buy more than what you need and make a Redundant Array!
(2) BUT, since all drives will die sooner or later, it's better to buy one that comes with better manufacturer support and makes returns easy.
Hmmm...
(3) But backups must be kept regardless of manufacturer support, ease of returns. Afterall, what is all this good for after the data is lost?
Hmmm...
(4) So, reliability is unreliable. Warranty and returns are useless (from the perspective of data loss). And backup must be kept.
Hmmm...
Then why bother? Just buy more disks and make regular backups or use in RAID.
By definition: RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. The very purpose of RAID is to allow for redundancy with the help of inexpensive disks. And technology has made sure that disks indeed have become inexpensive. So folks, go for the no regret solution. Don't buy the best or the most reliable disks (because there is no such thing). Just buy more than what you need and make a Redundant Array!
That is what will be the purpose of this HDD that I have ordered. I was having a feeling these days that with about 500 GB of data, some worthless and some really important, I am riding on my luck too much (& probably for too far too - 4 years without a failure except for one file system corruption). The data deserved a secured back up!
IndianEars
Well-Known Member
Guys .... PARTICULARLY Dosbelievers and proponents of SeaGate.
Another Victim, on our Forum:
http://www.hifivision.com/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-pc/50492-seagate-hdd.html
What more can i say ?
A survey of 27,000 TWENTY SEVEN THOUSAND HDDs .... ( 27,134) and still people prefer to look the other way ....
Backblaze Blog
Another Victim, on our Forum:
http://www.hifivision.com/home-theater-pc-htpc-media-pc/50492-seagate-hdd.html
What more can i say ?
A survey of 27,000 TWENTY SEVEN THOUSAND HDDs .... ( 27,134) and still people prefer to look the other way ....
Backblaze Blog
Dear All,
I personally own Seagate GoFlex and Backup Plus which are external 1 TB each and both have completed 3 and 2 years respectively...touchwood....no crashes or issues till date...I did have an issue with a 500GB internal Seagate hard disk where I ran pillar to post to get it sorted out...customer service etc in Mumbai sucks.....I had a bad experience...what was important was my Daughters photos n videos since she was born..to add to it the numerous family snaps etc...I ended up paying a private recovery company to restore my data as I didn't have the relevant tools to do stuff at my end..although I had the required data recovery softwares...recuva and stellar....Seagate gave me a replacement...
Anyways...considering the experience I went through...I read a lot of reviews and accordingly shortlisted a few brands...I checked on warranty options and after sales services..finally settled for a WD My Passport Ultra which is too good...picked up the same from flipkart for a bargain price when compared to the wholesale market (Lamington road). It works well for USB 2.0 or 3.0 and it is really fast and reliable.
You may want to consider this brand....check for after sales and warranty in your respective areas before making any purchase.
I personally own Seagate GoFlex and Backup Plus which are external 1 TB each and both have completed 3 and 2 years respectively...touchwood....no crashes or issues till date...I did have an issue with a 500GB internal Seagate hard disk where I ran pillar to post to get it sorted out...customer service etc in Mumbai sucks.....I had a bad experience...what was important was my Daughters photos n videos since she was born..to add to it the numerous family snaps etc...I ended up paying a private recovery company to restore my data as I didn't have the relevant tools to do stuff at my end..although I had the required data recovery softwares...recuva and stellar....Seagate gave me a replacement...
Anyways...considering the experience I went through...I read a lot of reviews and accordingly shortlisted a few brands...I checked on warranty options and after sales services..finally settled for a WD My Passport Ultra which is too good...picked up the same from flipkart for a bargain price when compared to the wholesale market (Lamington road). It works well for USB 2.0 or 3.0 and it is really fast and reliable.
You may want to consider this brand....check for after sales and warranty in your respective areas before making any purchase.
Rockfella
Active Member
WD USB3. Go for it, even the 5400 rpm drives are almost three times faster.
IndianEars
Well-Known Member
Yes, USB-3 is MUCH faster. I would even recommend the Pen Drives in USB-3. SUPER fast ( ore than 3x faster than USB-2 pen drives in actual practice.
Now if only Intel can promote its Thunderbolt standard amongst PC ( not just Maxc) users it would bring down the price and be super ....
Now if only Intel can promote its Thunderbolt standard amongst PC ( not just Maxc) users it would bring down the price and be super ....
Rockfella
Active Member
Rockfella
Active Member
Your computer assembler needs to be in sync with time.
Hi, I'm using the 4TB drives from Seagate and they are great indeed. Infact these are 5900 RPM and emit low heat and noise.
I have 4 of them and use them in my NAS in RAID configuration which runs 24/7. The first one is more than 6 months and all are going strong, fingers crossed.
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