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Best 1TB HD

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I would go with the Western Digital 1TB Caviar Blue, model WD10EZEX. It's the largest single-platter drive they make so far, meaning it smokes even their Black lineup in benchmark tests. In theory the single platter should be more reliable in the long-term too. I just picked up a pair for two different systems and love them. Same 64mb cache as the more expensive WD drives as well. Can't beat it for performance/reliablity/value as a package. Benchmark just ran:



Details: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=wd10ezex&source=...

The only other route I would even consider is their Red models, which are designed for use 24/7 in servers. They obviously would seem to be more durable, but that's taking it to the extreme.
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vash_021 said:
@ocumusicjunkie
are you saying that even their latest black series are no better than the blue series you mentioned obviously not including the 5 year warranty

i would run my OS and store files on it would it still be advisable to get that hdd?


As it stands at the moment, apart from the warranty and the reputation based on previous models, the 1tb Caviar Blue is a better drive than the current 1tb Caviar Black, in my judgement. I was just weighing out the same choice just over a week ago, and cost not even being a consideration, I went with the blue model. I suspect that soon enough they will release a single-platter 1tb Caviar Black, but there are only rumors, no ETA yet. Whenever that happens, it will likely fly past the performance of the blue again, but that's not very relevant in the here-and-now. I don't trust passmark for all their benchmarks, but I actually think their hard drive comparison chart is pretty useful. Below are the Blue, then Black, and lastly the Seagate mentioned after my suggestion.

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=WDC+WD10E...

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=WDC+WD100...

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=Seagate+S...

You can see the Seagate is a bit better in the performance arena, but not by a whole lot. I would argue with the reliability issues Seagate had with their drives in recent years, it would be crazy to trust 3tb on one of their drives. To back this up, 23% of reviews on Newegg for the Seagate drive are 1-egg (basically DOA drives or total failures), compared to 16% for the WD Black and 10% for the WD Blue.

If I wasn't going to run an SSD, I'd pickup the Blue for my primary drive in a snap. I'd just partition off perhaps 100-150gb at the start of the drive for the OS and application files so it might keep seek time down on such a large drive, and use the rest for data.

ocmusicjunkie said:
As it stands at the moment, apart from the warranty and the reputation based on previous models, the 1tb Caviar Blue is a better drive than the current 1tb Caviar Black, in my judgement. I was just weighing out the same choice just over a week ago, and cost not even being a consideration, I went with the blue model. I suspect that soon enough they will release a single-platter 1tb Caviar Black, but there are only rumors, no ETA yet. Whenever that happens, it will likely fly past the performance of the blue again, but that's not very relevant in the here-and-now. I don't trust passmark for all their benchmarks, but I actually think their hard drive comparison chart is pretty useful. Below are the Blue, then Black, and lastly the Seagate mentioned after my suggestion.

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=WDC+WD10E...

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=WDC+WD100...

http://www.harddrivebenchmark.net/hdd.php?hdd=Seagate+S...

You can see the Seagate is a bit better in the performance arena, but not by a whole lot. I would argue with the reliability issues Seagate had with their drives in recent years, it would be crazy to trust 3tb on one of their drives. To back this up, 23% of reviews on Newegg for the Seagate drive are 1-egg (basically DOA drives or total failures), compared to 16% for the WD Black and 10% for the WD Blue.

If I wasn't going to run an SSD, I'd pickup the Blue for my primary drive in a snap. I'd just partition off perhaps 100-150gb at the start of the drive for the OS and application files so it might keep seek time down on such a large drive, and use the rest for data.


thanks for the reply i did'nt start a new thread as I and the Topic Starter had the same question i wouldve given you a BA but im not the TS :) 

thanks anyway for you input

They are all more or less the same! Unless you plan on running benchmarks on it to see how many milliseconds it is faster than an other you wont be able to tell the difference. Wether its WD or Seagate the differences are too small to distinguish in daily use. What you need is a durable disk that will last long, and any one of the known brands would be a decent choice. The chances of the disk failing are slim, and if it does, simply consider yourself unlucky RMA the disk and start over.

ngrego said:
What you need is a durable disk that will last long, and any one of the known brands would be a decent choice. The chances of the disk failing are slim, and if it does, simply consider yourself unlucky RMA the disk and start over.


I have to respectfully disagree with this statement. The fact that certain drives have nearly twice as many negative reviews that cite failure or data loss than others, especially when those trends are consistent across different merchant sites, most definitely speaks for some legitimate differences existing. Similarly, DOA complaints went sharply higher after the flooding in Asia caused some manufacturers to source their products from different facilities. There is definitely reason to be studious in researching any model HDD prior to purchase. Here is one example of 1tb failure rates from 2011:

- 5.76% Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B
- 5.20% Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C
- 3.68% Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
- 3.37%: Samsung SpinPoint F1
- 2.51% Seagate Barracuda 7200.12
- 2.37%: WD Caviar Green WD10EARS
- 2.10% Seagate Barracuda LP
- 1.57%: Samsung SpinPoint F3
- 1.55%: WD Caviar Green WD10EADS
- 1.35%: WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS
- 1.24%: Maxtor DiamondMax 23

(source http://forums.storagereview.com/index.php/topic/29329-s...)

You can see that there would be a good reason to opt for a Samsung F3 over an F1 or Hitachi at that time.
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