Oddball Harddrives

[seekermeister]

With the third failure of some Seagate HDs that I have had, I'm looking for a new replacement HD. From what I have found so far, it seems that the cheapest in the 1TB range is Hitachi, or possibly Samsung. Neither of these seem to be popular choices, but since I've added Seagate to my blacklist, and quite possibly WDC, I'm considering a different choice. The Hitachi is ~$20 cheaper than the front runners, but that may represent a lesser value. Anyone have experience with either of these drives, that can make a comparison?

 

[fireberd]

I have a 1TB Hitachi that I bought from CompUSA. I installed Win 7 on it back when Win 7 came out and so far no problems.

But, I have a WD 500GB and a Seagate 750GB drives that are about two years old and no problems with those either. I did see that some model Seagates had problems, after I bought the Seagate, but apparently the model I have is not one of the "problem" drives.

 

[OpSysWiz]

StorageReview.com

See LeaderBoard tab.

Over the years I've had fewer problems overall with Western Digital.

 

[dugduggooddugdu]

I have a Samsung Spinpoint SP2504C that came with my system. Orginally running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit, now W7 HP 64-bit. No issues with the hard drive. Decently fast for what I am doing and quiet. Been running for nearly three years.....

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I don't currently use Samsung, but I have owned 3 of them previously and had no issues.

They tend to run cooler than most of the competition, which is a good thing.

Usually among the cheaper drives, too.

Having said that, they all have failures and you may just have had bad luck with Seagate or WD. You could just as easily have a terrible experience with Samsung or Hitachi.

 

[Tepid]

Well I am a Seagate person having had several WD fail very quickly.

However,,,, the Seagate 1TB did have problems,,, and it was mostly the ones made in China.
Ones made in Thailand did not have any (or as many) issues.
I believe the 1.5TB's are much better with Seagate.
And any under 1TB are pretty solid.

 

[thefabe]

I guess I've been fortunate cause for 11 years all I have used is WD and have only had 1 failure, and I bought it used so I don't know what it had been through.

 

[seekermeister]

ignatzatsonic,

Having said that, they all have failures and you may just have had bad luck with Seagate or WD. You could just as easily have a terrible experience with Samsung or Hitachi.

Quite true, but I consider having 3 out 4 Seagates fail within a year of purchase to be more than just bad luck.

Tepid,

However,,,, the Seagate 1TB did have problems,,, and it was mostly the ones made in China.
Ones made in Thailand did not have any (or as many) issues.

The problem with this is that it is not easy to determine the origin of a harddrive when buying online. However, the 4 Seagates that I previously purchased were made in Thailand, so I won't put too much stock in that.

 

[seekermeister]

I guess I've been fortunate cause for 11 years all I have used is WD and have only had 1 failure, and I bought it used so I don't know what it had been through.

You've been far much fortunately with WDC than I've been.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Seeker:

"Bad luck" may be the wrong phrase. I should have said "coincidence". Unfortunately, neither of us can know if it is coincidence---the other choices would be bad design, maltreatment, etc.

But I am with you. If I had 3 out of 4 fail, I wouldn't be lined up to buy another of that brand.

 

[computersplus]

Hard Drives

In my years of building and repairing computers for a living I have seen pretty much every brand fail it happens with hard drives.... the brands I seen fail the most are Seagate/Maxtor and Western Digital but I think this is due to the fact that there seems to be a lot more of them in service than other brands.

With that being said I still prefer to use Western Digital drives but if I had to pick a next best drive I would have to say Samsung they make a well built quiet drive with good performance.

 

[seekermeister]

I just got off the phone with Seagate warranty, and I was surprised that this drive is among those with the firmware problem. When I had called about a previous drive problem with another of the quartet, they said that it wasn't effected, so I guess that what I was sent was from a potpourri of souces, even though they came from the same seller at the same time.

This being the case, I may give Seagate another shot, primarily because their 1TB drive is the fastest in class + it is slightly cheaper than it's WDC counterpart.