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Veovis · ‎01-21-2016

Howdy everybody!

I know I have a thread asking about parts but this is unrelated to Blinkenlights and Shiny appearences of a new rig. This concerns my current one.

My main C drive is a WD 256GB Solid State and that's doing fine.

The bad one's the D drive:

A Western Digital Green 5300RPM 2TB internal drive I have has reached its threshold for Sector Failures and My computer keeps warning me that it's gone bad and needs replacement.

Luckily I have a HGST 4GB 5900RPM (E drive) that I backed up the files to.

So I can manage, but I need to decide if it's a good idea to Remove the bad drive, and replace it; remove the bad drive and keep the current one as is; or (and probably what I'll end up doing) remove both drives. Turn the 4TB into an external and set up two 4GB drives as RAID 1, copy the files back over and use the old 4TB as a backup. (There's a deal on Refurbished HGST for 126 each at 7200RPM)

In either case of replacement, what are the best hard drives for this sort of set up (or any variation) in your experience? I'm trying to stay at around 300$ USD, so solid state isn't an option (500$ for 1TB)

I'm open to suggestions.

as for the motherboard? It's an ASUS ROG Impact VI (To clue you in to what I can do as far as setup is concerned. I only have 4 Sata ports and all are in use. [The last one is a blu ray drive])

InfernoStorm · ‎01-21-2016

For 3.5" hard drives I personally have had better track record with Seagate. Just last year 2 of my 1TB WD Green drives failed practically at the same time and both just outside the warranty period. I contacted their support and they refused to help me even though it was just 1 month over the warranty expiry and it was 2 drives...

To be honest what you're trying to ask is not that clear but I think it's best to keep the still working 4TB drive and buy another Seagate 4TB and set it up in RAID 1 so you can have the data redundancy.

If you're trying to ask something else then please clarify.

Veovis · ‎01-22-2016

Ok to clarify:

My old storage drive is going bad. (2Tb)

I moved all the files to the second storage drive (4tb)

Given that the 4tb is slower than I'd like I want to turn it into an external and replace both bays with fresh empty drives to mirror data, and use the current 4tb drive as a USB backup. (preferably with faster drives for quicker access and read speeds)

However I currently am trying to budget for RAID 1, so in the meantime I'm considering my options on what to do.

Since I do not want to minimize drive failure and I want this set up to last, I need to figure out which drives would be best.

InfernoStorm · ‎01-24-2016

The 4TB Seagate Hybrid Drives imo right now are the best deal you can find (blend of performance + value):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178379&cm_re=4TB_hard_drive-_-22-178-379-_-...

Unfortunately not available in all regions so really depends if you can find them at that price range.

Veovis · ‎01-25-2016

Ah, thanks! I was originally looking at this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8HW37X5618&cm_re=4tb-_-1Z4-0005-00117-_-Product

But the Hybrid drive would be handy for faster access speeds.

InfernoStorm · ‎01-25-2016

Never go with Hitachi, remember the days of the IBM Deathstar.

I started selling Hitachi Hard Drives with my systems since 2008-2009 because their drives were the lowest price in bulk quantities through distributor. Before and after this period I only sold system with only WD or Seagate drives. Samsung was never even a consideration to me ;/

I keep track of all the systems I sell to my clients.

Here's my data up to 2014:
2008 - 52 systems sold with Hitachi hard drives
2009 - 89 systems sold with Hitachi hard drives
17 drives returned for RMA within 6 months (12%)
38 drives reported by users to have loud clicking noise (26%)
53 drives returned for RMA from 2008 to March 2014 (37%)

These stats are scary so I never buy any Hitachi drives ever again because they're unreliable. I think WD drives are only a tiny bit better, but Seagate is better by quite a large margin.

Veovis · ‎01-26-2016

Hunh. I originally decided on HGST because they got better due to recent reports after that.
What you're talking about is something that happened 8-7 years ago.
This is what I was using to measure:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/

That said, I'm looking into those hybrid drives for faster access and better reliability.

Also with advances in technology, the overall failure rate for any manufacturer seems to be going down:
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

(Mistakes of the past can be corrected, heck OCZ was aiming to turn around when they realized they couldn't float on name-brand alone.)

InfernoStorm · ‎01-29-2016

I don't disagree with what you're saying as technology is getting more refined to the point where DOA rates are going down. However, even if it's just maybe 1-2% difference it may prove to go along way, it's still better to go with what we know based on track record to be more reliable.

Veovis · ‎01-29-2016

Right, and with what I've seen with track record from my own experience (talking about me here, no facts to back that up) is that after that issue with HGST there was a major improvement to the quality and reliability that's been proven with recent tests. A recent drive now should not fail as much as a drive from 8 years ago from that same company given that data posted. Compared to WD now (given the charts) HGST fails 1-3% on their 2014 drives compared to WD's 2014 dri...

Brand name is no longer a measurement of quality in my view. Quality is the measurement of quality. Any company can make a bad product but if they improve, learn and make a better one as a result. Then that new product is worth consideration. Scratching the brand off the list because of a previous generation failed is rather short sighted and can result in a pattern of defaulting to "well this hasn't failed me so it must be good."

InfernoStorm · ‎01-29-2016

The statistics shown is great improvement, so props to them but normally data like this doesn't mean they're all good now. When Hitachi bought the IBM hard drive business, they also claimed that their technology has much improved and will offer the same quality service and products as the other competitors. However, that never was true, which is shown through my personal experience and data I provided. Once you lose confidence with a brand, it's actually normal to not consider buying them again regardless how positive the new data may be. Many research and surveys have been done about this so you can find a lot of this data online.

Let's say it hurt my business a lot by using their drives in my systems and it cost me a lot of trouble and money. So for someone like me, it would take a miracle to convince me to buy their brand again, let alone a small bit of positive data.

S.M.A.R.T. status BAD (Time to get new drives)