most reliable hard drive

[fliper16]

Dear Gurus,

Could any tech guru here recommend the most reliable hard drive (preferable to be SATA) for a industrial system?

I do not need high capacity (in the 60-80GB region is good for me) or speed but I really need the hard drive to run for years (24/7) without replacement.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions....

 

[slicessoul]

Western Digital, Seagate has good reliability, IMO.
Reliability is a good question though. It doesn't only depends on the manufacturer but it depends on the installation way too.
Taking care for heat, power supply, movement and other aspects is a good start on reliability as harddrive has active moving peripherals.

Buy S-ATA HDD, put it in enclosure with fan, get a good power supply, get a good shielded connector S-ATA cable, fix it in a good place / rack.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Slicessoul is right, Seagate and WD are good manufacturers in terms of reliable drives. It does really depend on how you take care of the drive though (e.g. not dropping the computer, keeping the drive consistently cool (under 35C), having it properly mounted.... etc).

 

[sturm]

Which ever manufacture you go with look for drives that are designed for raid setups. They may cost you a little more but they are designed for 24/7 operation. I think WD marks their with an RE in the model number. Not sure about seagate.

 

[derek101700]

dont ever expect a HDD to go for 5 years and 24/7

and i would recommend useing raid if you want it to go on for ever

 

[fliper16]

Thanks to all for your kind advice.

I am leaning towards WD Raptor which state 1.2 million MTBF in their website.

Sounds too good to be true

 

[BustedSony]

Thanks to all for your kind advice.

I am leaning towards WD Raptor which state 1.2 million MTBF in their website.

Sounds too good to be true

The WD RE2 series is also rated at 1.2 Million MBTF, is designed for Raid, and has much greater capacity for less cost than the Raptor. But yes the Raptor is good.

 

[chuckshissle]

I have good experience with WD as all my current hd's and older ones I have purchased years before are still running.

 

[Vip68]

Thanks to all for your kind advice.

I am leaning towards WD Raptor which state 1.2 million MTBF in their website.

Sounds too good to be true

I've had very good experience with the WD raptor... have 2x 36Gb raptors running almost 24/7 in raid 0 ... (bought the drives April '04) I only turn the rig off if i shut down the pc for cleaning. Even with 2x probability of failure.. so far, no problems encountered.

 

[Doughbuy]

I prefer Seagate more, I've bought 5 Seagate drives in the past 2 years. The 5yr warranty is what clinches it for me, because it tells me that they expect their drives to last 5 years. I've had a Maxtor die on me, but that could have just been me, luckily, it was still under warranty.

http://www.seagate.com/products/enterprise/barracuda_es.html

Seagate has the Barracuda ES, or Enterprise version. Don't know how much difference it is from the regular Barracuda, prolly the same amount as the WD's.

 

[Talon]

Speaking from personal experience and taking into account up until the last year I used my PC 12hr + per day, I've owned hitachi, western digital, maxtor and seagates over the years.
So far the only one that didn't die on me in around 4-5 yrs has been the seagate so far. Its going strong still with no signs of "death throws". Western digital, first one I ever had lasted 2 yrs, after that the ones I had tended to last 3-4 yrs.
I've only had two maxtors, and two was enough for me, they both were in the clickety death throws between 1-2 yrs of use.
I've owned two hitachi drives and both lasted a moderate 3ish years under HEAVY use.
I've had seagate drives last beyond the 5yr warranty and the one in my current system is 3 yrs old and showing no signs of slowing down.

Having gotten a bit long-winded there I'll just close by saying for the forseeable future I'll only buy more Seagate drives making a note that the 5yr warranty(longest in the industry atm) makes my wallet sleep better at night as well. Peace.

 

[enewmen]

Does it make sense to spend the extra $50 and get the Enterprise version of a hard-drive? Such as the Barracuda ES or NL35 Series?
I won't use it 24/7, but I might have a light RAID 5 setup. I'll have 4 drives in the case at the most.
I care about this because I want to put a lot of stuff on big drives and I don't want to worry about it for years,

I guess keeping the drive cool with steady power will be the biggest factor.

Thanks!!

 

[digitaldoc]

It wasn't mentioned above, but I really like the Samsung drives lately. They're really quiet as well. I have a Samsung 250 GB SATA and it's been great over the last six months.

Then again, I had one Western Digital that went for a decade (it probably would keep going but the one gig capacity just wasn't useful anymore).