Is this a good HDD?

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fwfaulkner

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Mar 21, 2018
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Im looking to buy a good Mass Storage drive and im wondering if the Toshiba - P300 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive is good and has a decent access time, if not could someone suggest a better one for Mass Storage?
 
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Solandri

Toshiba had a worse failure rate simply because until a couple years ago they only made 2.5" drives. That's the size drive put into laptops and portable external enclosures, so they experience more shock and drops than 3.5" drives, leading to a higher failure rate. I haven't had to return a Toshiba in 5 years so I dunno if they still do this, but Toshiba used to conduct warranty service by simply giving you credit in their online store for the retail price of your returned drive. You could then use that credit to buy a new drive, not get a refurb. And if the failed drive was several years old, you...
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/simon-crisp/toshiba-p300-3tb-hdd-review/8/

Solid enough drive.

The 2 year warranty is disappointing though, vs 5 on something like a WD Black.

Drive itself seems perfectly adequate, but I wonder how confident Toshiba are in the product given the warranty.
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Any of the major hard drive vendors these days are fine, however, I tend to stick to those sold by WD, Seagate and HGST/Hitachi, with preference to WD and Hitachi. I can't remember exactly why I started avoiding Toshiba drives but I know I've had a couple of them fail fairly early in client builds. Especially the really cheap external models. They weren't micro-board failures either. They were hard failures that could be duplicated outside the enclosure.
 
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Solandri

Solandri

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Toshiba had a worse failure rate simply because until a couple years ago they only made 2.5" drives. That's the size drive put into laptops and portable external enclosures, so they experience more shock and drops than 3.5" drives, leading to a higher failure rate. I haven't had to return a Toshiba in 5 years so I dunno if they still do this, but Toshiba used to conduct warranty service by simply giving you credit in their online store for the retail price of your returned drive. You could then use that credit to buy a new drive, not get a refurb. And if the failed drive was several years old, you could actually end up getting a higher capacity drive for your warranty replacement due to prices coming down over the years. But again, with all the financial problems they've been having, I dunno if they still do this.

And I would suggest not spending an extra $30-$40 on a drive. Get the most cost-effective drive that you can afford, then spend the extra money on another drive which you use to make backups. A 5 year warranty doesn't restore your data if the drive dies. A backup does. Your data is far more valuable than the drive.
 
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Barty1884

Barty1884

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Wow, you're right - hadn't looked into specifics for a while - looks like WD and Seagate dropped from 5 or 3 years to 2, outside of a couple of specific lines (3 years each for Red and Purple, 5 for Black)

Nevermind the warranty comment then, I stand corrected :lol:



Actually, given that the 3TB Toshiba is $76.80 there's much, much more than a 30-40% / $30-40 premium currently.
The cheapest Black I can find is $167.39 !!
So there's a $90 / +118% premium on them. Ouch!
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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I have one Seagate and two Toshiba 3.5" drives in a bag on my work bench. All of them had irreparably damaged internals from something failing inside. All three had been to labs for data recovery and returned with zero data reclaimed. These were client drives. I know and understand that all drives fail, and that having a backup is the BEST insurance policy, but personally I'd rather the drive didn't die in the first place. I have WD drives that are fifteen years old and still 100% pass intensive health checks.

I've also had some very poor experiences with both Seagate and Toshiba on drives that failed within the warranty period. So for that reason alone, I will stick to WD and I'll recommend that others do as well. It might ONLY be my experience and may not reflect the experiences that others have had, but it IS my experience, and I've had a lot less headache resulting from WD and Hitachi/HGST drives than I have from other brands. For what it's worth.
 
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