Fast, Reliable Hard Disk? Suggestions please!

TaKeN · 11 Mar 2013 at 12:44

Hi all.

I'm out of the loop big time when it comes to hard drives

What's the best reliable quick hard disk out there atm? I was looking at 1TB drives, but can stretch to 2TB drives if the speed is better with those.

I currently have a Crucial M4 128gb which I'll be upgrading to a Samsung 840 Pro, I also have a Samsung HD103UJ 1TB which I want to replace for something quicker.

I'll keep the Samsung in the PC for storage, as this will replace the two aging 64GB raptors and the old Samsung HD501LJ which is showing bad sectors!

xlife · 11 Mar 2013 at 19:37

Go for as higher density per platter as you can. Seek times are less important for storage drives and a higher areal density will use less power, be quieter, more reliable and quicker for sequential reads and writes.

I personally use the Caviar Green drives, but I'm not up to date by any means. I think there are there now 1TB platter drives?

FreeStream · 12 Mar 2013 at 16:15

The 2Tb seagate I have is 1TB platters and manages the best part of 200MB/sec tranfers.

WD Black is the fastest overall HD tho.

Admetos · 13 Mar 2013 at 10:15

Fast and reliable I would choose either a Western Digital Black or Western Digital RE drive.

This 1TB WD black is on offer also.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-336-WD&groupid=701&catid=14

NZB · 13 Mar 2013 at 10:56

The thing is WD Blacks aren't twice as fast as the Seagates, they're really not much faster at all yet twice the price.

zakblood · 13 Mar 2013 at 11:25

and as speed goes

raptors are the fastest normal hdd, at 10k speed
Toshiba next
WD black then Seagates

but unless your using a raptor, or benchmarking most wouldn't notice the difference between any of the drives, i love WD drives, but for value v speed i got the 3tb Seagates ones for now as the 4tb WD was a silly price.

i would have loved to have got a WD one, but as poster above says, cost and not twice as good either

deshepherd · 13 Mar 2013 at 12:09

NZB said:
The thing is WD Blacks aren't twice as fast as the Seagates, they're really not much faster at all yet twice the price.

The big difference is probably 5 year warranty vs 1 year warranty - for some people that's a big deal and for others its irrelevant.

Admetos · 13 Mar 2013 at 12:37

NZB said:
The thing is WD Blacks aren't twice as fast as the Seagates, they're really not much faster at all yet twice the price.

I don't know the Seagate you refer to, but the WD blacks are very similar to WD RE drives in terms of quality. They have dual controller processors and motor shaft secured at both ends to reduce vibration that WD blues and greens don't have.

bledd · 13 Mar 2013 at 20:55

Buy two, and manually keep a robocopy backup on the second one. Never trust your data to a single drive

andy_mk3 · 13 Mar 2013 at 20:57

Sadly no longer available mostly now, but the Samsung F3 1TB drives are pretty damn fast drives, especially for the £40 they used to cost new.