Which 2TB hard drive?

[Roman5]

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.

 

[kbrady1979]

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!

 

[Roman5]

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]

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!

 

[Roman5]

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.

 

[kbrady1979]

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.

 

[Roman5]

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.

 

[kbrady1979]

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.

 

[Roman5]

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.

 

[M1GU31]

I've had better luck with WD,my seagate went out on me. I would probably go with WD.

 

[kbrady1979]

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.

Smokin deal, you will be very happy with the 830!

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Good man enjoy that 830 and then score the Seagate or the WD. I just bought a 2TB WD Green with 64mb cache and it's amazing for what it is. Green as advantages and disadvantages you need to decide just what you'll be using it for.

 

[kbrady1979]

If you are just storing music/pictures/movies, then a lower RPM Green drive is perfect. Some people store games on their HDD and in that case I would go with a 7200rpm HDD. I personally have plenty of room on my SSD to install all the games I play. Basically you buy a HDD from a reputable maker, with the capacity you need, at the best price......FIN.

 

[Roman5]

Thanks guys. I can't wait to experience the difference

kbrady, yeah, I think 7200rpm will be better for me as I have quite a few games on my 1TB drive, along with media. What I'm going to do is transfer all the stuff from my 300GB and 120GB IDE drives (there's 250GB of stuff on there) to my 1TB drive, and that'll leave about 130GB free on the 1TB. Then remove the IDE drives for good and install the 2TB and SSD. Then I'm all sata and out of the dark ages of IDE!

I'll transfer stuff from the 1TB to the 2TB as I need it, and over time, get rid of all the crap that's built up on the 1TB, format it, and use it as a backup drive, such as for Acronis backup images. I've never had a very organised system, so now's a good time to do it!

I'm ordering this http://www.scan.co.uk/products/akas...d-adapter-allows-a-25-ssd-hdd-35-pc-drive-bay

as well as some more sata cables, and of course, the Seagate 2TB.

 

[Roman5]

I've now placed an order for the Seagate ST2000DM001 at an even cheaper price of £67 but haven't completed the purchase as I'm now having serious doubts. So many people say that it makes this chirping noise which means extra load cycles, which apparently means a probable reduced lifespan of 2 to 3 months. And Seagate's warranty is only a year, reduced from 2 years I think. Probably because they don't have much confidence in the drive? Should I be put off by this? Also, several people report failures. I know WD have failures too, but it seems WD is known to be more reliable. This Seagate 2TB is an absolute bargain at under £70 but should I steer clear and spend almost twice as much on a 5 year guarantee 2TB WD drive? Or do you think it'll be ok?

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I popped for the WD as I still feel it's the better drive and warranty but I have (3) Seagates circa 2005 and they are all running good today. I believe in redundancy so unless you have a back plan to another drive then I would suggest critical data to a flash drive or better yet go to a cloud back up and then buy the cheaper Seagate but spend the money with a quality cloud based service.

 

[Roman5]

I popped for the WD as I still feel it's the better drive and warranty but I have (3) Seagates circa 2005 and they are all running good today. I believe in redundancy so unless you have a back plan to another drive then I would suggest critical data to a flash drive or better yet go to a cloud back up and then buy the cheaper Seagate but spend the money with a quality cloud based service.

Hmm, that's a possibility. Tbh though, think I'll grit my teeth with the extra cost and plump for this Caviar Black 2TB. Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black WD2002FAEX Hard Drive - Scan.co.uk

It's £131, but has a 60 month warranty. I'd feel more confident, plus two of my current three drives are WD, one Sata and one IDE, no problems with either. 1TB is 3 years old and the 320GB IDE drive is older.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Roman5,
The warranty is nice but remember it doesn't help one bit regarding data. The black edition would make a great primary drive. Remember there are only two types of drives:"Those that have died and those about to die". That being said you must have redundancy other wise you will suffer a loss and it's only a matter of time and really the longer it's out in the future the worse it will be. As soon as you can get another drive to sync a back up plan to and or go cloud. I have a triple back up plan in place and if one goes then there is two back up's......but that's just me.

 

[Roman5]

linnemeyerhere, thanks for your help, and yea, I'm using my old 1TB RE3 as my backup drive.

Well I got my Samsung 830 SSD, (beautiful shiny black brushed metal with silver edging), Akasa 2.5" to 3.5" bracket and in the end, decided on a WD 1TB caviar black, not 2TB. All installed. Wow, the SSD is quick! 10 seconds from 'starting windows' logo to desktop. 26 seconds from a reboot to desk, and 26 seconds from pressing power button on cold boot to desk. Amazing! That has shaved off about 70 seconds, my pc used to boot in over a minute and a half. So this is greased lightning by comparison, lol.

So anyway, here's my question. SSD worked fine (as only sata device connected) in AHCI mode, but when I connected either the DVD or HDD to a sata port,the SSD took a very long time, well over a minute. The only way I've overcome this is changing back to native IDE in bios and not having AHCI. Is there a way to fix it so I can use AHCI, is there any benefit to AHCI? I believe I can't now, in IDE mode, use a particular intel rapid storage file a friend told me to install that would have improved speed again.

Tried ''Onchip SATA Port 4/5 Type 'as 'As SATA Type', connected SSD to port 4 and also tried port 5, worked fine in both until other devices were connected. Then changed it to IDE as in my screenshot, still no difference. So I changed the one above 'Onchip SATA Type' from 'AHCI' to native 'IDE' and it all works. But it should work in AHCI, right?

Also, I can't say I really understand what it means where it says "Set SATA Port 4/5 mode as SATA Port 0-3'.