Which 2TB hard drive?

I was thinking of getting one of these.


Seagate 2TB SATA III Performance HDD ST2000DM001 7200rpm 64MB Cache 7200rpm SATA II Compatible - Scan.co.uk

Western Digital WD20EARX 2TB Caviar Green Quiet SATA 6Gb/s IntelliPower 64Mb Cache 8ms HDD - Scan.co.uk


Would I be better going for the Seagate? It's got faster rpm, but I'm wondering if Seagate are as reliable as WD? Reviews on amazon give similar good (and bad) opinions on both, but mostly good. Also, I've been told that it'd be better to get a 1 platter drive. Would that make much significant/noticeable difference in speed (and price) and which might you recommend? I've no idea how many platters these two drives have. Thanks.

Seagate and WD consumer drives are both subject to the same shortcomings so unless you have a brand loyalty, neither of them are "better". I've seen more WD drives go bad than Seagate, but a lot of people have had trouble out of older Seagates. Also, since the flooding of the HDD manufacturing facilities, you are taking a gamble with any HDD. I personally have that Seagate 2TB drive and I use it for data storage and it has performed flawlessly. It is just a few more bucks than the 1TB model, so it is the better value for sure. These drives are what Seagate refers to as "Power of One" drives.........i.e. one TB per platter. It's suppose to be faster with lower access times, etc, but I can't confirm any of their claims as it is more than fast enough for holding movies/vids/music/etc.

I personally would buy the Seagate again......in fact, since I am quickly filling this drive up, I will be looking into buying another one soon, and have no reservations in doing so. Hope this helps!

kbrady1979 said:

Seagate and WD consumer drives are both subject to the same shortcomings so unless you have a brand loyalty, neither of them are "better". I've seen more WD drives go bad than Seagate, but a lot of people have had trouble out of older Seagates. Also, since the flooding of the HDD manufacturing facilities, you are taking a gamble with any HDD. I personally have that Seagate 2TB drive and I use it for data storage and it has performed flawlessly. It is just a few more bucks than the 1TB model, so it is the better value for sure. These drives are what Seagate refers to as "Power of One" drives.........i.e. one TB per platter. It's suppose to be faster with lower access times, etc, but I can't confirm any of their claims as it is more than fast enough for holding movies/vids/music/etc.

I personally would buy the Seagate again......in fact, since I am quickly filling this drive up, I will be looking into buying another one soon, and have no reservations in doing so. Hope this helps!

Helps very much, thank you! I'll be buying the Seagate then. Scan are doing it for £70.07, so I'll buy it there. :)

While I'm here, I'm also buying a 128GB SSD. Apparently the Samsung 830 is marginally better than the Crucial M4. I can get the Samsung 830 for £74 on amazon, cheapest I've seen it and cheaper than the M4. Shall I go for that then?

linnemeyerhere said:

I have WD's, Seagates, Hitachi's of all sizes and I have to say they have all performed well to day.....knock wood. Now in a 2.5" I had a string of issues with WD's but the last spinner is performing well but all my rigs are running various Crucial (1) 64gb C300 and (3) 128gb M4's. I too have considered and just missed the 830 Samsung SSD @ 128 for 79.99 usd but having just scored a OCZ Vertex III 120gb for 59.99 usd I'm calling it quits for the moment. I can tell you the Crucial's are great but I've also heard fantastic raves from the Sammy's. If I was doing the purchase and the 2 TB is going to be working hard and not just back up light duty then go for the faster rpm spinner and the Samsung SSD.....you'll freak'n flip at how it will transform the rig!

Yea, I can't wait to see this PC boot up in a few seconds instead of a minute and a half. It's gotten so slow, hasn't been formatted or had the OS reinstalled since I built it 3 years ago, so, not surprising it's slowed down so much.

I highly recommend Samsung SSD's. Myself, along with many other members here, have the 830 series and it doesn't get much better. However............the Samsung 840 Pro is suppose to be coming out Oct 15th and it is absolutely going to violate the speeds that the 830 hits. In fact, in MOST tests....benchmark and real-life simulated tests.........the 840 Pro beats out everything, even the Plextor M5 Pro which is what I would consider the king of the hill right now. If you can wait a couple more weeks, get the 840 Pro, if you absolutely have to have it now, go ahead and catch a good deal on an 830....you won't be disappointed.

kbrady1979 said:

I highly recommend Samsung SSD's. Myself, along with many other members here, have the 830 series and it doesn't get much better. However............the Samsung 840 Pro is suppose to be coming out Oct 15th and it is absolutely going to violate the speeds that the 830 hits. In fact, in MOST tests....benchmark and real-life simulated tests.........the 840 Pro beats out everything, even the Plextor M5 Pro which is what I would consider the king of the hill right now. If you can wait a couple more weeks, get the 840 Pro, if you absolutely have to have it now, go ahead and catch a good deal on an 830....you won't be disappointed.

I'll probably end up with the 830. I'm almost ready to pull the trigger on it as it's cheap and I know it'll be fast enough for my needs, especially compared to what I'm used to!

Overclockers.co.uk are one of the first online sellers of the 840 and 840 Pro series as of a couple of days ago, and they're selling the 128GB 840 Pro for £119.99, which is £46 more. OTOH, I might just wait few weeks to see what early adopters think of it. There's also some people that say in real world terms, it'll be hard to notice any difference between the 830 and the 840. Like, I was just reading a review on anandtech, and someone posted this:

"The thing is, you're not going to ever notice the difference between the 830 and the 840, or even the Crucial M4. I've seen the 256GB Crucial M4 for as low as $140 in the past couple weeks. That is a much better purchase than the 840 if the 256GB 840 is any more then $180 or so."

So, perhaps I'll hold tight for a bit and see what the general concensus is.

The jump in performance going from a HDD to an SSD is literally night and day different. The jump in performance going from the 830 to an 840 Pro will not be that huge......but the increase in 4K random read/write performance is something you can see and feel.....i.e. program load time, OS load/unload time, restart times. Either will be a world faster than a HDD.

kbrady1979 said:

The jump in performance going from a HDD to an SSD is literally night and day different. The jump in performance going from the 830 to an 840 Pro will not be that huge......but the increase in 4K random read/write performance is something you can see and feel.....i.e. program load time, OS load/unload time, restart times. Either will be a world faster than a HDD.

Damn, my trigger finger was itching a lot. Guess I didn't wait then
When I was watching prices on amazon when Ivybridge came out, it was at ridiculously low prices one day then shot up the next and kept fluctuating. So I figured I might as well take advantage of the 830 in case it increases.