Need new internal hard drives.

[hamerhead]

Since my 1TB Seagate storage drive crapped out, I need replacements. I'm going with 2 drives this time (having one back up the other), figuring that both won't die at the same time. They'll just be storage drives, 250 - 500GB each.

I'd like to find something more reliable as opposed to being the cheapest. Know of anything?

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

I always used Maxtor but I think Seagate bought them out. Any brand name should do...

[ZR]

Seagate has been better than WD for me, but
I'm sure it varies over the years as ppl buy it each other out etc. Samsung for SSD is quite good but I don't think that applies to you right now.

[scottcald]

Whichever you prefer, personally I have had good experience with WD drives, off and on with Seagate, Samsung/Crucial/SanDisk SSDs are all good.

Get a dual drive enclosure that does RAID 1, then you don't have to think about doing the one to the other copying.

[tomteriffic]

Been through dozens of WD's over the past 20 years, only one or two failures, both from a known-bad series that I picked up used. That said, the Seagate that was in this machine before it filled up was a champ for 4 + years. Still is.

[kenjones]

All of my Seagate drives died within 4-5 years. They were 1.5TB/7200RPM drives. I had one bunch that had a five year warranty and I think each of those was eventually replaced by Seagate under warranty. I've since switched over to Hitachi (HGST) Deskstar and have had good luck so far (knock on wood). HGST makes an "Enterprise" drive called the Ultrastar that has a five year warranty, but my gut feeling is that these are the same drives as the Deskstar with a three year warranty, but they charge a lot more for them because they will have to replace more of them.

[ZR]

I JUST had a Toshiba drive go bad on me in 2 months. I think it's like a roll of the dice anymore!

How are OCZ and AMD SSDs, both Hitachi I believe?

[mrjamiam]

Whichever you prefer, personally I have had good experience with WD drives, off and on with Seagate, Samsung/Crucial/SanDisk SSDs are all good.

Get a dual drive enclosure that does RAID 1, then you don't have to think about doing the one to the other copying.

I don't regret going big and getting a Drobo. Picked a model that accepts varying number and sizes of drives, and no single failure will result in data loss.

[mathman]

I've had better luck with Western Digital than with Seagate. If you get a large drive consider getting two or 4 TB rather than the three tv. 3 tb seem to be a little less reliable. If you can afford it get an ssd drive for the main drive and use sata for the backup. Then buy another external for a second backup for anything really important.

[Armitage]

My backup Seagate drive failed... it's four years newer than my regular WD drives it was backing up... all it did was back stuff up!

[hamerhead]

My backup Seagate drive failed... it's four years newer than my regular WD drives it was backing up... all it did was back stuff up!

My case EXACTLY. I have a solid state drive for the operating system (that I try to keep uncluttered) and had a 1TB Seagate just for storage. It was less than 5 years old with probably 900GB free still.

My best guess is I have 6 months to a year's worth of stuff (pictures mostly) not backed up to externals. I just never think to plug the damn things in, which is why I'm leaning towards 2 smaller internals.

I've heard the local place gets $500 to take the drive apart and recover files, but haven't contacted them yet. A valuable lesson being learned.......

[mathman]

It's just my personal opinion but seagate sucks lately.

[Thundersteel]

How about solid-state drives? I know they're more expensive, but they don't crap out like mechanical drives do. Well, at least I don't think they do!

[tbonesullivan]

aren't pretty much all hard drives coming out of the same factories in thailand these days?

anyway, I'm a WD user, and I have had very good luck with their stuff. I would recommend getting some type of RAID setup, as others have suggested. RAID1, for mirroring. It's the simplest RAID setup, and you get 100% backup. Then you can have a larger drive to dump stuff onto.

[veatch]

Every manufacturer has had their issues. Every one. There was a time when certain Seagate FC drives were rock solid. Then they had issues. Hitachi SAS drives were rock solid about 5 to 7 years ago - they've had issues since as well.

And. regardless of the manufacturer, *all* drives will fail given time. The half life of the coating used on the platters will only last so long.

Whatever you get - get two and mirror the drives. Or buy a hardware RAID unit. I really like the Buffalo units. Mine have ran great for a few years now, and when a drive fails, you can easily replace with a new drive (unless they changed something to make replacements proprietary) Reasonably priced, too. There might be smaller units - this is a dual drive 4TB for $320:

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/desktop-hard-drives/drivestation/drivestation-duo-2

Or back it all up to the cloud and wait a week and a half to download the backup if (when) a drive fails.

Good luck.

Edit to add: I think the unit above has two 2TB drives in it, so you would net 2TB usable space for $320.

[Armitage]

I have an external drive I plug in once in a while as well and copy my stuff onto it as a second back up. I've lost tons of stuff over the years.

[gorch]

Main harddrive replacement two years ago. Went for SSD. They are not so large, but even more fast and quiet. For large data and long time storage, I'd go for an external like a NAS including raid functions, accessible from various devices. It's a one time investment opening a wider usage environment.

I.e.:

- video recording from TV, watching from mobile phone or tablet.

- watching photos on TV

- record with the mobile, listen from anywhere with dyndns.

[Tres Aardvarks]

the big guys seem to go in cycles. I remember when Seagate was the hot shit, then Maxtor, then WD. I have a friend in the industry who has bounced around a bit, and he is way, waaaaaaay more change adverse than a lot of people. Evidently a lot of higher up brainie types tend to just go from place to place to place every few years. Nobody blacklists them, they just accept that's how the game is played.

[Armitage]

I use a SSD as my boot drive, with my operating system and software like Office and Photoshop... everything else goes to a hard drive... SSD drives are only good for so many writes...

[HAMERMAN]

I've since switched over to Hitachi (HGST) Deskstar and have had good luck so far (knock on wood).

For any manufacturer it's so hard to know which are the good ones. Hitachi bought that division from IBM and one of the old Deskstar models was bad enough to be nicknamed Deathstar! :-)

[LordOfTheThighs]

If (when) my HD craps out, I'll probably hang an SSD in it, and run storage and backup to 2 separate external HDs.

I learned the hard to back up my HD. I run Time Machine on my iMac, in case the internal HD takes a dump.

[scottcald]

If (when) my HD craps out, I'll probably hang an SSD in it, and run storage and backup to 2 separate external HDs.

I learned the hard to back up my HD. I run Time Machine on my iMac, in case the internal HD takes a dump.

Also make a bootable clone. TimeMachine is great because it backs up often, but restoring a whole drive can take some time. Use CarbonCopy Cloner at bombich.com.

It's like $40 but well worth the price.

[hamerhead]

I got a couple 500GB WDs to replace the Seagate.

What's a good and cheap raid controller?

[scottcald]

I got a couple 500GB WDs to replace the Seagate.

What's a good and cheap raid controller?

You looking for an internal card? Not familiar with current ones. Do a search at Newegg for highly rated ones.

Remember, RAID isn't a backup. It just allows for high availability.

Still do a backup separate from that. I cannot stress this enough.

[Harkonnen]

I got a couple 500GB WDs to replace the Seagate.

What's a good and cheap raid controller?

You looking for an internal card? Not familiar with current ones. Do a search at Newegg for highly rated ones.

Remember, RAID isn't a backup. It just allows for high availability.

Still do a backup separate from that. I cannot stress this enough.

Well, RAID1 mirrors the data on all the disks in the array. As long as you make sure that all disks are

functioning properly, why would you want an extra backup? Is it a common occurrence that all disks in

the RAID1 array fail simultaneously?

[mathman]

What happens if the raid controller goes bad. if the data is important, have many copies. at least one more than you think you need.