Which brand and model would you recommend for a 1TB drive?

I tried searching the forums but the new search function for this forum sucks. In fact, I don't like any of the forum changes.

Okay, back on topic: Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital or Samsung 1TB?

I thought the Samsung Spinpoint F1 Series HD103UJ has the best specs/performance and wins most of the benchmarks tests but there are some concerns about reliability and defective drives. It could have been some bad QC but perhaps, these issues have been sorted out? They have the platter differences along with the 640GB WD drive so they are at the top of the list so far.

But, I have already had a Hitachi 500GB that I had to RMA. I hope to avoid another lemon but it can happen with any brand. However, I want to make sure that those Samsungs only had a bad batch and that the issue isn't consistent or continuing.

Which drive do you recommend? I like the Seagates but they still seem to give off a bit of heat (49 degrees on TH's charts). Comments?

I have two Western Digitals and they work great! Lower power consumption. Very little noise.

These are the ones i purchased

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136151

No matter what brand you go with, you will have DOA parts

Samsung is the fastest
WD is the easiest on your system (least noise, lease juice)
Seagate is probably the most reliable.

I do not think it matters that much. Some will always be DOA. The slowes (WD) is still a fine data drive. I use Seagates for by BOOT and APP drives and I use WD for my archives. I am happy with my current drives, but would not mind trading them out for Samsungs F1s.

If you opt for Seagates, make sure you get the lastest version. Supposedly a little cooler and definately a little faster (though not as fast as the Samsungs).
For occasional files, the WD is THE drive. It is slower, but not SLOW. Plus it draws so little juice and is so quiet.

To put it in perspective, my dad just took a small trip to the states. I gave him some cash and asked him to get me a couple more of any of the these three so long as they are all the same brand. I want to extend/expand how I do my backups.

Thanks for the feedback and comments, guys!

I think I will take a chance on the Samsung but I gotta order it. My local shop doesn't have it. I can't order from Newegg because they'e USA-only. They don't ship to Canada. Probably, because of our postal system being inferior! ;-)

I like the Seagate as 2nd choice but it produces more heat than the other two and this drive is going into an enclosure. Hmmmm....

how about two 500 gig 7200.11 in raid

1TB drives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] rder=PRICE

Samsung is the cheapest model, but not the fastest, with average seek time at 8.9ms and average latency at 4.17ms.

The Seagate model is slightly faster, with average seeks time at 8.5ms and latency at 4.16ms. Not a noticable difference though. It cost $40 more.

The Hitachi model is slightly faster than Samsung, and slightly slower than Seagate. The speed difference between the 3 are not noticable though.

The WD model is a step below the rest, with 16mb cache, compared to
32mb for others, 5.6ms average latency, and slower rpm of 5400-7200.
The slower spinning rate is what gives it its power savings. It's
noticably slower than other 1tb drives.

Sorry but there is no testing to support this theory of yours. Go to storagereview.com and read reviews on tom's, anand's etc.
They actually test the performance of a drive and do not just quite the access specification time, which even if true is not the speed of the disk just one of many parameters.

"32mb cache" is a parameter, "8.5ms average seek time" is not a parameter.

The new WD Caviar Black looks quite promising...

Sorry but it is. You did NOTHING technical. It was bad advice based on ignorance. All you did was go and quote from the MFG specs on a single parameter and then incorrectly claim this translates in to disk speed.

Do as I suggested, actually read some of the disk reviews. One of the things they typically test for is access times claimed vs actual. But, transfer times have a bigger impact on over-all disk performance. Which do you think is more important, how quickly a game starts to load your level to the time it completes loading it?
And, bear in mind that the worst to the best in access times is measures in fractions of a thousandth of a second. While the worst to the best in actual typical transfer times is measured in several seconds. Me, I am more likely to notice the several second lag over the .0001 second one.

Based on your logic(?) there is no point in testing anything nor in reading anything more complicated than a single spec on a mfg's supplied sheet.

The thing is, with a 2 millisecond difference in access time, it adds up fast, because most program or game loads consist of loading thousands of files from different locations across the disk, and each time it has to seek again. If it has to retrieve 1000 files, and has 2ms faster access time, the overall time will be 2 seconds faster.

First off there is not a 2ms difference anywhere quoted. He was talking like a fraction of that. Don't make stuff up. More to the point these were not tests that were being used incorrectly the spec sheets. In otherwords theoretical or mfg claimed vs actual.
And your example is also not so good because what uses 1000s of files to load other than the OS itself?

The thing is you can make stuff up all day long. Or you can just quote spec sheets all day long. But until you test it, you are just talking crap. Good testing will tell you the truth.

Since everyone else here is misquoting crap, I will misquote CSI. Follow the evidence.

There is good testing available here, storagereview.com, etc. Don't take my word for anything. Do your homework. Learn the truth. In this case it won't set you free, but at least it will show you what is a good drive.


damn, I can't believe I am on a major hardware site argueing about the value of testing. This should be 2nd nature to everyone here. Seriously, if you have no idea what the hell you're talking about take the time to ask questions and don't waste yours and our time with fantasy or what have you.

True, there are no 2ms differences here. I was stating a hypothetical. As long as we're nitpicking here though, a normal operation on your computer involves far more than 1000 operations as well, offsetting it in the other direction.

Of course testing is important - I always trust it over anything else, but if the drives are specified correctly, some inferences can be made based on the specs alone, in the absence of tests.

Not really...

In this case there is testing available. Plenty of it. Argueing as to the relative value of disprove MFG claims is just you enjoying the feeling of your gums flapping... or in this case the clicky clicky of your keyboard.

besides this particular claim is akin to being able to sort out which is the faster race car by it's 0-60 time... A .001 diff in 0-60 time might be enough for bragging rights (assuming that testing bears out this claim, and in this case it does not) but 0-60 time has nothing or very little to do with top speed or lap times.