HD: Reliability Of Different Brands/Models ?

[Robert11]

Hello,

Regarding a new 1 TB External HD.

There seem to be a zillion different reliability surveys out there.
You folks are the real experts, so let me ask here:

Is there any consensous as to which Brand and Model is considered "the best" regarding reliability for
an external 1 TB (or 1.5 TB perhaps) HD.

Really confusing knowing which to get.

My Seagate, with very minimal use, lasted only about 3 yrs.
Was only used for backing up, (once every week or two) and unplugged the rest of the time.
Quite disappointing.

Thanks,
Bob

 

[dwarfer66]

Yep, I have had bad luck with the last 2 Seagates I have bought, one was a 2TB and the other 3TB. The 2TB lasted about 14 months, the 3TB (both only used as a backup) only lasted about 8 months, then fried itself, yet I have 2 WD 1TB that have lasted with no probs for 3-4 years, and 1 has games installed on it.

Next week I am buying 2 new HDD's both WD a 3TB & 4TB, then 2 weeks later a Samsung 120GB 850 Evo, for my windows drive as I only use about 75GB as it is, all my other stuff is on other drives.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Is there any consensous as to which Brand and Model is considered "the best" regarding reliability for
an external 1 TB (or 1.5 TB perhaps) HD.

In a word, no.

There is a semi-authoritative study from Backblaze regarding failure rates for the thousands of drives they maintain in their data centers, but as I recall it pertains to drives of larger sizes--2 TB on up. For what it's worth, Seagates were clearly at the bottom, with Hitachi at the top. Western Digital in second place.

There is a similar study from Google, but it's probably 10 years old and outdated.

You will find endless comments to the effect of "I've been using brand X and never had a problem" or "I'd never use another brand Y because 3 of the 5 I've owned failed within 2 years", etc. Such comments are purely anecdotal and do you no good at all.

I'd instead think of stuff like:

Price
Ease of RMA directly to the vendor if the drive was DOA or failed within 30 days
Ease of return directly to the manufacturer if the drive failed at a later time
Warranty length to the extent you'd even consider returning a drive that had your personal data on it.
Speed (this wouldn't be a primary concern for me)
Google for anecdotal evidence of possible design defects or other shortcomings in your candidates

Google to get a general idea of the manufacturer's attitude toward customer service. Some are so disdainful and difficult to deal with that I'd never buy anything from them, despite the products being attractive from a price and performance standpoint. If you have to deal with customer service for ANY reason, you may wish you had bought another brand.

Expect them all to fail at the worst possible time and situate yourself in such a way that it doesn't matter beyond a bit of aggravation and the cost of a replacement (read: multiple backups).

 

[Mellon Head]

In addition to wholeheartedly agreeing with ignatatsonic's advice, I would just add that I all drives will fail. It's a question of when. Backup, backup, and backup again.