Which 3TB should I buy?

Craiig · 22 Jun 2015 at 19:46

hiya,

Just after some advice, haven't bought a spinning disk in a while and wanted to know which one you guys would go for?

Needs to be 3TB+
Going in my main computer as storage drive.

I was thinking the seagate barracuda, already have the 1TB version and its done me well.

any advice is welcome, thanks in advance

Glanza · 22 Jun 2015 at 20:08

Red if your using it purely for storage, Green if you want it near silent.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD30EFRX - OEM HDD £94.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD30EZRX) HDD £85.99
Total : £190.58 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).

Boogieman_WD · 23 Jun 2015 at 11:07

Hey there, Craiig.

If you decide to go with a WD HDD to be used as a secondary storage drive, I'd recommend the WD Green drive. @Glanza has made a pretty good suggestion when it comes to WD Green, but I'd have to disagree about the WD Red drive, as it's specifically designed with firmware, which improves its performance when it comes to NAS/RAID environments. As for the WD Green drive - it's a simple, large capacity, cool and quiet secondary storage drive, which should do the job just fine in your case.

If you want to check their features for yourself, take a look at the links below:
WD Red
WD Green

Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD

Craiig · 23 Jun 2015 at 23:38

hey guys, thanks for your help.

So why WD Green over a seagate barracuda?

On Holiday · 24 Jun 2015 at 07:10

Because Seagate have the highest failure rates of them all

MagicBoy · 24 Jun 2015 at 07:29

Toshiba 3TB. Good price and performance with a low failure rate.

kayomani · 24 Jun 2015 at 07:50

Wd greens still ship with over eager head parking issue so i don't think i could recommend them.

boxman2000 · 24 Jun 2015 at 09:00

Been perfectly happy with the 4x 3tb reds I own (1 in signature rig, other 3 in N54L microserver).

I don't find them noisy.

Boogieman_WD · 24 Jun 2015 at 09:16

Craiig said:
hey guys, thanks for your help.

So why WD Green over a seagate barracuda?

Well, I never meant to sway you towards either option. I just wanted to make you aware of the differences between the WD Red and the WD Green drives, so that you can make an informed decision if you decide to go that way. Of course, you should pick whichever drive suits you best.

kayomani said:
Wd greens still ship with over eager head parking issue so i don't think i could recommend them.

Yup, the head parking is still there and it's a part of the "green" features (less power consumption), but this can be disabled with the Idle Mode Update Utility

Cheers!

bledd · 24 Jun 2015 at 14:21

Whatever you go for, buy two of them.

One for your data, the second as a backup of that data.

Never trust a hard drive

levontraut · 27 Jun 2015 at 18:57

I have a segate NAS, segate baracuda, WD Black, WD Red and WD green and I am actually very happy with them all for the prices you have to pay.

If it is pure storage/performance/price the baracuda is probably your best option.

performance/support/warranty the WD black or red is what you want...

Dirk Diggler · 28 Jun 2015 at 11:01

Is a WD red pretty much the drive to buy for a 24/7 media server? I'm not worried about noise as it is in my garage.

I've got all my data on a 3TB standard Seagate drive and I'm pretty sure it's on the way out as it's starting to make thumping noises pretty regular.

Cheers

demon8991 · 29 Jun 2015 at 05:20

Boogieman_WD said:
Hey there, Craiig.

If you decide to go with a WD HDD to be used as a secondary storage drive, I'd recommend the WD Green drive. @Glanza has made a pretty good suggestion when ti comes to WD Green, but I'd have to disagree about the WD Red drive, as it's specifically designed with firmware, which improves its performance when it comes to NAS/RAID environments. As for the WD Green drive - it's a simple, large capacity, cool and quiet secondary storage drive, which should do the job just fine in your case.

If you want to check their features for yourself, take a look at the links below:
WD Red
WD Green

Hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Boogieman_WD

I disagree!

I would go for the RED drive, is only £9 more expensive and comes with a 3 year warranty rather than 2. Has the ability to be put in a NAS or server at a later stage.

String said:
Is a WD red pretty much the drive to buy for a 24/7 media server? I'm not worried about noise as it is in my garage.

I've got all my data on a 3TB standard Seagate drive and I'm pretty sure it's on the way out as it's starting to make thumping noises pretty regular.

Cheers

Get a new drive now before you lose everything! Avoid Seagate they have the highest failure rate.

zakblood · 3 Jul 2015 at 10:09

warranty only replaces the drive, not the data on it, so pick the cheapest and get a pair so you can back up when one fails and hope the other doesn't.

seems the reliability is better on 2tb drives than 3tb, then again 2 have been out longer... so makes sense...

demon8991 · 5 Jul 2015 at 01:40

zakblood said:
warranty only replaces the drive, not the data on it, so pick the cheapest and get a pair so you can back up when one fails and hope the other doesn't.

seems the reliability is better on 2tb drives than 3tb, then again 2 have been out longer... so makes sense...

And an extra years warranty will provide you with a free drive if it were to fail, you should have backups anyway!

It is a no brainer.

wetpants · 5 Jul 2015 at 07:35

Did you get this sorted?

The best thing to do is to use this as a secondary drive with another hard drive <2tb as a boot drive.

lude1962 · 6 Jul 2015 at 09:52

zakblood said:
warranty only replaces the drive, not the data on it, so pick the cheapest and get a pair so you can back up when one fails and hope the other doesn't.

seems the reliability is better on 2tb drives than 3tb, then again 2 have been out longer... so makes sense...

StableTrac - The motor shaft is secured at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking, during read and write operations. (2 TB models only)
...suspect adds to reliability

Boogieman - is it still only the 2tb's that have this?

Boogieman_WD · 6 Jul 2015 at 14:49

Besides some enterprise models, StableTrac is a feature of WD Black (2TB models and above) and WD Red Pro. Both have a 5-year limited warranty. Unfortunately the WD Green drives don't have that feature.

sunama · 6 Jul 2015 at 19:24

I bought a new hard disk yesterday as my 3 yr old Seagate is dying.
During my research I came across an article from blackblaze, which listed the failure rates of the drives they use.

Hitachi is by far, their most reliable drive. This also happens to be the most expensive on the market.
Now, previously, Seagate were the least reliable drives, however, in the last few months, that (dis)honour has passed onto the WD RED drives.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

Western Digital Red 3 TB
(WDC WD30EFRX) 3TB 1045 0.9 12.87% (failures, so far)

Now, my own take on things is that if you can afford it, buy Hitachi. However, if money is a consideration, buy the hard disk with the cheapest £/GB. All HDs have the potential to fail. And sometimes its just the luck of the draw.

I'd certainly like to know what Boogieman_WD's opinion is of this.
WD certainly need to address this issue, as potential customers will look at Blackblaze's numbers as an approximate guide of which drives are the most/least reliable.

10-15 years ago IBM got a very bad reputation when their 75GXP range of drives had a high failure rate. It took them years to get over this. IIRC they even sold their HD division to Hitachi as they just couldnt shake their tarnished reputation. I think WD need to deal with this head on.

Boogieman_WD · 7 Jul 2015 at 08:50

Hey sunama.

Unfortunately, as this data is coming from tests performed by a 3rd party, I can't really comment on it or make any conclusions base on the results.
However according to our annual data, the failure rate is less than 0.8%.

For reference you can check this link: How drive reliability is measured and the MTBF of WD drives