3Tb drives

Orionaut

Orionaut

Orionaut

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I am wanting to have new 3Tb drives as data stores (Like most, OS and apps are on an SSD)

Couple of years ago I foolishly thought I would never go to 1Tb.

My 1Tb drive is now Full (13Gb left! :eek:)

My current "price point" will not go to larger drives.

The ones that are of interest are;

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/seag...64mb-cache-hdd-oem-st3000dm001-hd-352-se.html

And

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tosh...-64mb-cache-hdd-oem-dt01aca300-hd-027-ts.html

Because they both have high spin speeds and therefore (I would hope) would have a better load time in day to day use.

Now, clearly, the customer reviews on both are actually quite poor :(

Is the Seagate actually that unreliable?

Is the Toshiba actually that noisy?

Would OCUK really continue to sell either if the returns/complaint rate was really significant (I would hope not)

Would anybody be willing to add their own experiences?

I am looking to buy three or four of these to last me for the next 3-4 years so I want a reasonably good chance of getting it right.

Regards.
 
I've returned one of those Seagates, the replacement is still going fine though.

Frankly it depends on your usage scenario more than anything, in my case the drive was (and the replacement still is) a games repository, and with games like GTA5 that stream the gameworld and textures from the disk almost constantly it's easy to stress the hardware to the point of failure.

Practically everyone has their own personal preference when it comes to mechanicals though, some swear by Western Digital yet I've had to replace a bunch of them, others have replaced a bunch of Seagates yet I've only ever had a single failure in over 10 years of use etc. Any and all drives can and do fail, so any testimonials can and should be taken with a pinch of salt (especially since those with drive failures tend to shout loudest).

Unless the data you'll be storing is irreplacable, find the drive with the best warranty period that is within your budget and don't worry too much about it.
 
I've bought 5 of those Toshiba drives now. 4 of them are absolutely fine and one vibrates quite a lot but is otherwise fine. Since I use them in a server in my cellar, the noise from that one drive isn't an issue for me, but it would be if it was in the house somewhere. I daresay that I could and would have returned it if it had been for my desktop PC.

Just my experience.
 
So I got the Tosh, It seems quiet enough (But then I have a noisy machine)

But Crikey! It takes a long time to fully format a fresh 3Tb drive!:eek:

Going to take a good 24Hrs at this rate (And then I have to copy stuff over to it)

And then I have two more to do! :eek:

(Is there a quicker way? Say a command line from safe mode dos?)
 
Those Seagates have like a 20% failure rate. But formatting a fresh drive should take no more than a couple of minutes. Something does not sound right.
 
Orionaut said:
This is full format rather than quick format. :cool:
Click to expand...

Why would you need more than a quick format on a new drive? <- genuine curiosity as i would never bother doing that personally always just done a quick format.

I know the format tool when doing fresh windows is pretty snappy not sure if it's a " full " format though.
 
harry5522 said:
Why would you need more than a quick format on a new drive? <- genuine curiosity as i would never bother doing that personally always just done a quick format.

I know the format tool when doing fresh windows is pretty snappy not sure if it's a " full " format though.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough, I have always done a full format on a new disk as a matter of course.

I suppose I (for whatever reason) have the idea that doing so gives the new drive a good checking over and workout (As it were)

(It certainly gives it a work out, It is actually quite hot! (I am using it in a USB 2.0 external caddy, which might also contribute to the formatting being a bit slow, but even so))

It has been running for 5 hours and is now reporting 25% done.

Oh well!

If it takes what it takes then fair enough. My main question is can I do this quicker by using some sort of "Nerdy" technique? :p

(Command line interface, DOS commands, etc.)

Oh and another thing, where is the "DOS for windows 10 for Dummies" Book?

It seems that when you get to the nitty gritty, the best fixes are still DOS based command line utilities.

Where is the manual that tells people how to use them?? :)
 
Im going to go ahead and say there is probably no way to make it faster in that case. As if the drive is working as fast as it can then it's not going to get any faster unfortunately.

The only other way i know how to format them in CMD is this

open CMD as a admin and then type diskpart it will open a new cmd window in witch type list volume first.

Then type select volume " number of the drive you want to sellect "

followed by format fs=ntfs full label=(name IIRC)


This might help if my explanation sucks.
 
The drive can go much faster, but USB2 is a major bottleneck.

TBF if your using in a caddie like that for hours on end without cooling, put a desk fan on it, excessive heat is a major contributor to failure.
 
i have had an 8 bay synology NAS for about 4 years now. Initially i filled it with 8 3tb seagate drives. Over the course of time 5 of those have failed and have periodically been replaced with Western Digital RED nas drives, NONE of which have failed. For reliability, i really can't fault them thus far.
 
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