Hard Drive choice

oxygene · 14 Nov 2009 at 12:04

Ok time to get myself a new harddrive to ease the pressure on my current capacities.

Basically through extensive use of excel its obvious that 1.5tb is still the sweet spot. The most GB per £. So that's no problem, I will buy a 1.5TB.

The problem I have atm is. a long time ago before even buying my first 500gb hd, I would lose a hd a year to failures and they were from lots of different brands. Maxtor, WD, Samsung, etc. But my Seagates would never fail, so all the hds I bought since then have been Seagate. And none have failed. Now obviously hd tech has come on a long way and failures are less common, which is why I am now split. A new seagate 1.5tb will cost me £88.99, which is 16.86gb per £. Whereas a new Samsung is £72.99 which is a lot less and packs in 20.55gb per £.

So do I maintain loyalty to Seagate who've never done me wrong, but will cost like £15 more, or do I sell my soul to the lowest bidder?

TAC4U · 14 Nov 2009 at 12:24

I too have had problems with other drives but never with Seagate. I know they're slightly more expensive but personally I'm happy to pay the difference. Personally I wouldn't feel confident with a Samsung drive, even though they're probably fine.

danb21t · 14 Nov 2009 at 13:04

I agree, I have had only bad experiences with the likes of Maxtor and WD, and have been loyal to Seagate. However we had a load of machines at work that had very slim Samsung drives and in all honesty they were very quiet and not one failed.

Which is making me think about buying up a load of these F3's as they seem to get good praise and excellent transfer rates.

Saying that Seagate have now taken over Maxtor so hmmmmm

AbsenceJam · 14 Nov 2009 at 15:37

No drive is more reliable than others, well, Seagates 7200.11's had serious issues actually.

Are you buying for performance or just storage? The F2 is 5400rpm whereas the F3 is 7200 and only goes up to 1TB. Either way, both drives are quicker and quieter than the Seagate offerings.

oxygene · 14 Nov 2009 at 15:49

Storage tbh. Whats the transfer rate difference between 7200 and 5400 rpm atm? when I first bought my 1tb seagates I was getting around 150mb/sec copying to the empties. Its not a major buying point in the long term as once I've moved a load of stuff over to the new drive the hardest thing it will need to do is play HD, and I think 5400's have no trouble there.

AbsenceJam · 14 Nov 2009 at 15:58

oxygene said:
Storage tbh. Whats the transfer rate difference between 7200 and 5400 rpm atm? when I first bought my 1tb seagates I was getting around 150mb/sec copying to the empties. Its not a major buying point in the long term as once I've moved a load of stuff over to the new drive the hardest thing it will need to do is play HD, and I think 5400's have no trouble there.

If it's for storage then get 5400.

No mechanical drive can do 150, the F3's are the quickest drives and can do 110 on average. The F2's are around 85.

oxygene · 17 Nov 2009 at 11:03

Was just about to order the samsung 5400rpm 1tb when on a whim I did a forum search on it. Seams a lot of people have problems with them being faulty!

Nate Silvers · 17 Nov 2009 at 15:15

got me a 1.5 western digital green other day. That's 4 in 1.5 years and none failed yet (touch wood)

sastusbulbas · 18 Nov 2009 at 20:44

A few months back I had a Sammy F2 1.5 which didn't seem to work for me, so I RMA'd it.

Should be receiving a 1.5 TB WD green on Friday though I am still wondering if a 1.5 TB was the right choice.