HDDs Your Experience

[TechAngel85]

So it worked great for a while but just took a **** and now the computer will not recognize it. Whatever you do, DO NOT purchase a Western Digital Blue. They are completely crap hard drives. This is my third one and all three have failed within the first couple hours of testing. Will be getting a full refund. Now time to talk to Newegg support for my free RMA.

 

Edit:

RMA issued and the expensive paper weight will be sent back on Monday free of charge (one reason I like dealing with Newegg). Time to find a better brand... Looking at Seagate.

---

 

So as some of you know, I've been having a terribly time with finding a HDD that works. I've been through three Western Digital Blues on a new build. The first one would connect intermittently, the second one would connect but refused to format (and failed WD's Data Lifeguard tool) and the third one failed after a couple hours of use. I had gotten Windows 8.1 up and running and it crashed while I was transferring some backup files to it. Now neither BIOS or Windows will recognize it. All three I have RMA'ed and the third I'm receiving a refund instead of a replacement.

 

I'm obviously sick of getting burned by these drives; however, I need a new HDD. I'm currently looking at two:

a Western Digital Black and a Seagate Barracuda

 

What are your experience with these or other brands? What would you recommend?

[EssArrBee]

I've only owned one WD hard drive and it lasted me a while. Back in 500gb 3.5 inch days, so years ago.

 

Right now I'm using Seagate SSHDs for my main storage. I've had few of them for laptop and desktop storage without any major issues. Most were from newegg and I beat the hell out of my stuff.

[TechAngel85]

I've only owned one WD hard drive and it lasted me a while. Back in 500gb 3.5 inch days, so years ago.Right now I'm using Seagate SSHDs for my main storage. I've had few of them for laptop and desktop storage without any major issues. Most were from newegg and I beat the hell out of my stuff.

The funny thing is I'm currently running on an old 250GB WD Caviar that I've have for about 5-6 years. It's still going strong! WD used to be the top brand but they have just lost all my faith that I had in them. I've never owned a Seagate but I will soon... This hard drive situation has simply been a nightmare! I've had this system for over a month and it's still having to run on this tiny (but strong) Caviar drive. Three RMAs in a row is extremely poor quality control.

[phazer11]

WD Blues ARE their worst product line by far, it's often what the use in laptops due to their in general inferior performance, now that you've said it's a WD Blue I can say with some certainty it's just the line of WD drive you bought not the entirety of their products. WD Blue's are really just the leftovers and most of the laptop manufacturers worth their salt have moved to HGST which is a subsidiary of WD and in fact my storage drive on my laptop (the one that came with it is a HGST) so is my 1TB 7200rpm USB3 portable drive. IF you buy anything from WD don't get anything less than a green caviar (What two of the drives in my desktop are), and preferably black or red.

[WilliamImm]

Funny thing is, it appears that the reliability of Seagate and WD has switched. I think I was badly burned when a Seagate drive (bought around 2005-ish) ended up failing completely on me. The 320 GB WD drive that I bought cira-2007 when initially building the computer is still going strong after 7 years, through I'm not actually using it because I've yet to transfer the old computer stuff off of it.

 

Now, the 3TB Seagate I'm using as a data drive hasn't failed on me yet - I've used it activly, and I haven't even yet filled it up (still has 2.43 TB free). Guess it can fit my whole Steam library...

[TechAngel85]

I split this to continue the discussion on a public board and updated the OP with more information.

[phazer11]

Oh so you did wind up buying that Seagate 3TB I was poking you to get eh? I was going to try and split it off last night when I realized which thread we were posting in but I was tired and fell asleep reading a book.

[TechAngel85]

I'm leaning towards the WD Black. Most of what I've read online in many many different forums and reviews are saying "they're about the same, but go with the Black".

[phazer11]

Meh, they are about the same, however, you can get more space with Seagate atm if you spend a bit more money. They have a 3TB Seagate drive (I think it's the one I bullied Will into getting) for $109 whereas for a WD Black of 3TB it's 50% higher or more.

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380 

I know you're looking for something about $50 but I mean $50 (half the cost) for 1/3 the space?

[TechAngel85]

Not looking for a ton of storage. I had a 750GB drive in my laptop and was never able to fill that one up even with around 1/3 of my movie collection ripped to it. 1TB is plenty enough for myself. Not to mention I'm planning on getting a 256GB SSD down the road to host my OS and games on so the 1TB is a solid choice for my needs. My main concern is reliability. Both off similar standards on this front. I read in several places while researching today that the Seagate is more comparable to the WD Blues. That got me a bit concerned. Newegg is also offering an additional $10 off with a promo code on the Black that ends today. Pair that with the Black's 5 year warranty and it appears to be the better option.

 

So I'm thinking I'm going to order the Black today and see how things go. If it's a no-go once it arrives, I'll probably just deal directly with Western Digital and cut out Newegg this time around.

[Octopuss]

Jesus, is this the 3rd bad one in a row? 2 DoA and now this?

[EssArrBee]

It all depends on the line you pick, both Seagate and WD have crap lines and good lines. I use Seagate's SSHD line mostly for speed and it comes with a 3 year instead of 2 year warranty. If you get one, it will half you boot up speed after a couple uses with that Adaptive Memory thingy. I'd still like to see double or triple the size of the flash memory they include, only 8GB right now. I would pay an extra 20-30 bucks for more NAND flash with a 4TB drive and 3 year warranty, that sounds about right for me.

[TechAngel85]

It all depends on the line you pick, both Seagate and WD have crap lines and good lines. I use Seagate's SSHD line mostly for speed and it comes with a 3 year instead of 2 year warranty. If you get one, it will half you boot up speed after a couple uses with that Adaptive Memory thingy. I'd still like to see double or triple the size of the flash memory they include, only 8GB right now. I would pay an extra 20-30 bucks for more NAND flash with a 4TB drive and 3 year warranty, that sounds about right for me.

That is the reason I didn't get it. The extra cost for such a small about of NAND isn't really worth it, IMO. That's just enough to fit your boot files and a few extra things and that's it. Now if it was just enough to fit the OS on, that would be worth every penny. It might be worth it if they upped the NAND to around 20GB and allowed you to choose what gets put on the NAND as well. This way you could install the game you're currently playing to get super fast access to it and then install something else when you're done with the game. For us here on STEP, having that ability to put your modified Skyrim on the NAND would be sweet! Seagate would probably sell more if they did these things.

 

But as those SSHDs stand currently...I'll pass and save my money towards an actual SSD down the road.