Which 2tb hard drive?

OpenToSuggestions · 29 Aug 2011 at 23:41

Hey all.
I need a 2TB 3.5" internal Sata 2 hard drive for storage of music, films etc. I want a quiet, reliable drive. The speed of the drive isn't really of importance.
It will never be used to run an OS off.
I am stuck between the Samsung F4 ecogreen and the WD Green.

My other hard drives (ignoring the SSD for the OS) are all Samsung F1 drives as they were the best at the time of purchase.

Thanks

.

gothic_hobbit · 30 Aug 2011 at 00:10

I can vouch for Western Digital for reliability.

david_xr · 30 Aug 2011 at 00:30

gothic_hobbit said:
I can vouch for Western Digital for reliability.

me two

Surveyor · 30 Aug 2011 at 00:37

There's little point in asking about the reliability of HDD's as there are no published statistics to show failure rates of the different makes.

Depending on who wanders past this thread you'll get the my WD/Samsung drive is wonderful/crap depending on their personal experience. You'll be getting a sample of a few people out of millions.

But I'll offer my statistically meaningless opinion.

I'm currently using 12 Samsung and 2 WD Drives. The WD drives are 2TB WD20EARS and 4 of the Samsungs are 2TB F4 EcoGreens.

I've had no problems with WD or Samsung and there's no discernable difference in noise between them.

Having said that I'd go for the Samsung F4.

I know you've said speed isn't an issue but the Samsung is noticably faster. In my own test the average read speed of the Samsung F4 was 115.5MB/s and the WD20EARS was 87.5MB/s.

The final deciding factor for me is that the Samsung is a good few pounds cheaper.

To summarise: Equal reliability as far as I'm aware, no difference in noise level, the Samsung is faster and cheaper.

I hope this is more helpful than "I like/hate WD/Samsung".

Surveyor · 30 Aug 2011 at 00:59

Sorry, double post.

I might as well add some benchmarks:

2TB Samsung F4:

2TB WD20EARS:

OpenToSuggestions · 30 Aug 2011 at 10:04

OK thanks! I will get the Samsung.

Surveyor · 30 Aug 2011 at 10:47

mglover070588 said:
OK thanks! I will get the Samsung.

Good choice

ristac · 30 Aug 2011 at 10:49

I was going to get two samsung f4 and pop them into a NAS but I see they need a patch first as they are unstable which put me off. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386

Surveyor · 30 Aug 2011 at 11:55

ristac said:
I was going to get two samsung f4 and pop them into a NAS but I see they need a patch first as they are unstable which put me off. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386

That's months old.

If you buy one now it will have the updated firmware unless someone is sitting on very old stock.

ristac · 30 Aug 2011 at 13:46

Surveyor said:
That's months old.

If you buy one now it will have the updated firmware unless someone is sitting on very old stock.

Okay thanks for that, didn't realise, I only found the link because a rival company to OCUK had sales suspended and another had a clause saying no returns unless you follow these instructions with the link to Samsung.

JasonM · 30 Aug 2011 at 17:38

Surveyor said:
There's little point in asking about the reliability of HDD's as there are no published statistics to show failure rates of the different makes.

No published statistics true, however WD also make their RE (Raid Edition) drives that are some of the most reliable on market.

Of course a £50 WD Green is not a £150 WD RE of same capacity, but would expect some dna/quality/knowledge to pass down from the RE drive to the Green drive. For this reason if prices are similar would always choose WD over another manufacture.

Surveyor · 30 Aug 2011 at 18:01

JasonM said:
No published statistics true, however WD also make their RE (Raid Edition) drives that are some of the most reliable on market.

Of course a £50 WD Green is not a £150 WD RE of same capacity, but would expect some dna/quality/knowledge to pass down from the RE drive to the Green drive. For this reason if prices are similar would always choose WD over another manufacture.

Samsung also produce the F3R range of Enterprise Class disks so the same could be said of them.

JasonM · 30 Aug 2011 at 23:15

Surveyor said:
Samsung also produce the F3R range of Enterprise Class disks so the same could be said of them.

Was not aware Samsung produced enterprise drives, so stand corrected on my point.