Is there anything I should look out for when buying a new hard drive?

[Pvt_Martin]

Hello, I'm looking to get a new 1tb+ hard drive and I'm just wondering if there are any brands I should look out for and which ones will last. I'd just like to hear about your experiences with different brands and find out if it even makes a difference. If there is anything else I need to know about purchasing or installing a new hard drive please let me know as my only real experience with the hardware side of computers was replacing my graphics card and power supply. I've been browsing newegg but if there are any other sites I should take a look at I'd appreciate the advice.

Thanks in advance.

 

[hell_storm2004]

With HDD's its more luck than buying good. You may buy the most reliable and still end up loosing data after a year.

Brand: Get something from WD. Samsung, Hitachi and Seagate are also good. But with Seagate you must remember to get the 7200.12 drives.
Seagate with a very recent firmware issue have really rocked their boat with reliability questions.

Within that there are different models. Like WD has Caviar Black, Blue and Green along with Velociraptors.

RPM: Higher the RPM, more the speed. But noise and energy consumption would go up as well.

Size: If you want more capacity i would recommend getting smaller more drives. If you lose one drive then you dont lose all your data. Larger the drive, more the chances of failure.

From my experience i would say the WD Caviar Black 1TB is the best option.

I am using it and its fast and reliable till now.

 

[Pvt_Martin]

With HDD's its more luck than buying good. You may buy the most reliable and still end up loosing data after a year.

Brand: Get something from WD. Samsung, Hitachi and Seagate are also good. But with Seagate you must remember to get the 7200.12 drives.
Seagate with a very recent firmware issue have really rocked their boat with reliability questions.

Within that there are different models. Like WD has Caviar Black, Blue and Green along with Velociraptors.

RPM: Higher the RPM, more the speed. But noise and energy consumption would go up as well.

Size: If you want more capacity i would recommend getting smaller more drives. If you lose one drive then you dont lose all your data. Larger the drive, more the chances of failure.

From my experience i would say the WD Caviar Black 1TB is the best option.

I am using it and its fast and reliable till now.

I've heard good things about WD from one of my friends. Right now I have the 500gb HDD that came with my computer and was planning on setting it up as a slave drive. I was also planning on getting an external hard drive for back up purposes, however at the moment I figured I'd stick with getting some more internal storage.

I am using it and its fast and reliable till now.

What do you mean by "till now"? Did it fail or are you starting to have other issues with it?


I'd definitely appreciate some more feed back from other people so keep it coming.

 

[hell_storm2004]

"till now" means today. I cant predict the future. Its just a figure of speech! I have absolutely no issues with it.

You can do a Google on these drives and check its specs and reviews.

For the drive that houses your OS, SSD's are best. But way too expensive for me!
For normal drives, WD Caviar Black is the best way to go.
For just backup and storage the WD Caviar Green!

 

[Trashit]

I'll second what hell_storm2004 has said, I've got the exact same setup: WD 1TB Black drive for game installs, 2 x 1TB Green drives for storage and an SSD for my OS. I also have an external 500gig drive which i find is very very handy. Basically if you're just looking for storage space then it doesnt really matter that much what type of drive you get, however if you can get two 1TBs and mirror raid them then that would be ideal in case one does fail unexpectedly. And yes brand new drives can fail without any prior warning as has happened to me. If you want to use the drive to run games off then its worth getting a 7200RPM 64MB cache drive like the WD Black drive, costs a few bucks more but well worth it. And then cos if you have money burning a hole in your pocket buy an SSD.

 

[Pvt_Martin]

Thanks for the info. Just one more question. I went on newegg and looked for the WD Caviar Black and got 4 results and I'm not sure what the stuff behind the name means. For instance:
"WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive"

 

[jsc]

I also am using WD drives. My last 1 TB Green also had a 64 MB cache.

WD1001FALS (model) 1TB (size) 7200 RPM (rotation speed) SATA (interface) 3.0Gb/s (max theoretical data transfer speed - SATA II) 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (physical size) -Bare Drive (not a retail box with accessories such as data cable or even mounting screws)

 

[Pvt_Martin]

I also am using WD drives. My last 1 TB Green also had a 64 MB cache.

WD1001FALS (model) 1TB (size) 7200 RPM (rotation speed) SATA (interface) 3.0Gb/s (max theoretical data transfer speed - SATA II) 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (physical size) -Bare Drive (not a retail box with accessories such as data cable or even mounting screws)

So is the higher the number generally better?

 

[lihuahellen]

Hello, I'm looking to get a new 1tb+ hard drive and I'm just wondering if there are any brands I should look out for and which ones will last. I'd just like to hear about your experiences with different brands and find out if it even makes a difference. If there is anything else I need to know about purchasing or installing a new hard drive please let me know as my only real experience with the hardware side of computers was replacing my graphics card and power supply. I've been browsing newegg but if there are any other sites I should take a look at I'd appreciate the advice.

Thanks in advance.

The most important consideration is the Interface. Just look at the transfer rates of the hard disk drive. Long transfer rates can considerably slow down your computer when transferring larger files. Look for specifications listing the RPM (Rotations Per Minute) General speaking, the price range can vary depending upon what type of interface the drive uses (SATA / IDE / SCSI / USB), capacity of the drive, and the RPM (Speed) of the drive.

 

[Pvt_Martin]

-Bare Drive (not a retail box with accessories such as data cable or even mounting screws)

With that in mind what do I need to get it up and running besides screws and a data cable?