Latest hard drive reliability data reveals it may be best to avoid 3TB drives

To the
This data doesn't mean much. I had a 3 TB drive for about 10 years now. The only differences I added a fan on top of it where the electronics board sits says who the top of the bottom Benz and I install it. All is Elizabeth use that dries performance or temperature about 10° which is sufficient enough to make the drive last a very long so mind you it doesn't matter what kind of manufacture is if you reduce the temperature is it for drive just by 10° can make it last a lot longer

LOL. 10 half years? You couldn't even stack 3x 1TB drives to make your 3TB 10 years ago since 1TB drives started appearing in 2007.

I have 10x 3TB WD Red, only 1 failed and subsequently its replacement failed... but the replacement after that has been working perfectly fine. All of those were purchased in 2012/2013.
 
Interesting how in australia seagate is considered the better brand.

Everyone I know recommends them and whenever someone comes in with a faulty hdd it is ALWAYS a Western Digital drive.
 
I think it has more to do with the fact that in order to increase the storage capacities in the form factors that we have they have to do one or both of the following things.
1. Increase the areal density.
2. Increase the amount of physical platters in the drive.

Increasing the areal density introduces a number of issues that can contribute to premature drive failure and/or data loss. In order to increase the areal density the drive's read/write head has to be closer to the drive's platter and that of course increases the chance of the read/write head hitting the spinning platter causing catastrophic drive failure. Increasing the number of physical platters in the drive also causes a number of issues as well. Higher temperatures, more heads, more vibrations, more chances for things to go wrong.

I myself would rather have a number of smaller drives than to have one huge drive in case the huge drive dies. Better to lose some of your data than all of your data in one shot. The larger the drive the longer you're going to cry like a baby when the drive dies.
 
I looked up the Barracuda 7200.14 3TB - and it clearly states it is a desktop drive. Too often companies live with lower end drives, and then just live with failures as if they are a part for business. Try using a enterprise or NAS rated drives. Investment up front is more, but you reap the benefits later.
Have to be careful there. NAS drives is a bit of a misleading marketing term. Many would presume a NAS drive is suitable for RAID. WD Red for example are not. Their UBER (unrecoverable bit error rate) is 1 in 10^14. That is too high rate for RAID and can result in total data loss due to array rebuild failure (eg one drive dies, you rebuild the array and one of the remaining drives has an unrecoverable bit error).
 
Interesting how in australia seagate is considered the better brand.

Everyone I know recommends them and whenever someone comes in with a faulty hdd it is ALWAYS a Western Digital drive.
I'm in Australia and can't find anyone I know who rates Seagate. Personally I think they are trash and even the enterprise grade drives I've had have died well within warranty period.
 
As much as I like sarcasm and cynicism, its best to remain dedicated to being either serious or sarcastic for a whole post. Unless it was sarcastic that "my 480 GB SSD and portable 1GB GB HDD coupled with a 32 GB pen drive are more than sufficient for all my storage needs." The change in tone from serious does not lend itself to sarcasm. Better yet, capitalization for emphasis on syllables that would vocally be pronounced with an inflection of the voice would also indicate sarcasm. PLEASE treat the art form of sarcasm with a little bit more respect. :p
Yes daddy, I'm sorry daddy. ;)
OK you're right, the 1st part of my remarks were serious but I should've started a new paragraph and not a new line for the 2nd and sarcastic part, I will next time, I promise, and I'll insert a silly face just to make things a little clearer.
You must realise that I completed my schooling in the early 70's, I think my mind must be fading now because I tend to forget the basics from time to time. :(
I've had long time to perfect the art of sarcasm and although I'm experienced I'm still human, I do slip up every now and then. :p
 
Guess I'm switching soon then. I've had a Barracuda 3TB for 18 month now with all my important stuff on.

Drive has been totally fine but yeah those are some pretty unnerving stats.
 
I believe you are misinterpreting the data here. Seagate's failure rate is much higher then the competition and I haven't in any recent years recalled it being any different. WD has always been the brand I've gravitated to for mechanical spinning drives. Seagate is the one that doesn't seem to be keen on reeling in their competition.

someone's sarcasm detector needs a tune-up. Seagate wins one metric, everytime. (wink wink, nudge nudge)
 
Interesting how in australia seagate is considered the better brand.

Everyone I know recommends them and whenever someone comes in with a faulty hdd it is ALWAYS a Western Digital drive.

This must have to do with the Coriolis effect, it can even effect hard drives too now apparently.

Knock on wood, I've never had a HDD fail catastrophically where I was unable to recover it and lost data. The only instance where I came close was with a Seagate 750GB unit, the infamous bricked firmware, but this was something one could fix with the right equipment. That drive is still working to this day. That one occurrence made me steer clear of the brand ever since, minus the 4TB model I gave a chance to last year, glad to see them being the more reliable format.
 
No problems here. Jumped between Hitachi 2TB and now-HGST 5TB. New ones working like charm. Old drives were quite noisy, but NAS ones with vibration sensor are amazingly quiet. Running in RAID off Adaptec 71605 straight and true.

Seagate should have slogan like: We deliver untold misery and depression to millions of users. Got shafted during SCSI years - never again. Amazingly they still sell drives... From my personal experience Hitachi/HGST all the way.
 
No problems here. Jumped between Hitachi 2TB and now-HGST 5TB. New ones working like charm. Old drives were quite noisy, but NAS ones with vibration sensor are amazingly quiet. Running in RAID off Adaptec 71605 straight and true.

Seagate should have slogan like: We deliver untold misery and depression to millions of users. Got shafted during SCSI years - never again. Amazingly they still sell drives... From my personal experience Hitachi/HGST all the way.

No wonder, Hitachi is Japanese owned.
 
Interesting how in australia seagate is considered the better brand.

Everyone I know recommends them and whenever someone comes in with a faulty hdd it is ALWAYS a Western Digital drive.
It's because the earth is spinning upsidedown below the equator and neither manufacturer wants to issue a drive designed for it. ;)
 
That checks out. I have had WD, Segate, and Samsung and Segate alway, ALWAYS, died first. That doesnt mean that all their series are bad. But I would only buy Segate hdd if I felt extremely lucky, which I am not.
Apparently you've had bad luck because you were buying cheap knockoffs. I've never heard of this "Segate".
SEAGATE, on the other hand, has always been the more reliable brand vs WD. Ever wonder why WD is so much cheaper? No QC.
 
Apparently you've had bad luck because you were buying cheap knockoffs. I've never heard of this "Segate".
SEAGATE, on the other hand, has always been the more reliable brand vs WD. Ever wonder why WD is so much cheaper? No QC.
LOL... Seagate has more often than not been junk. Used them and WDs for years and always had better experience with the WDs. Far more reliable at the mid to Enterprise level. I use the WD Blacks though - not the Greens or Reds.

Just look at Backblaze reliability charts. Some Seagate models like 3TB in excess of 25% failure rate. That's just trash. There's no other way to put it.
 
To the

LOL. 10 half years? You couldn't even stack 3x 1TB drives to make your 3TB 10 years ago since 1TB drives started appearing in 2007.

I have 10x 3TB WD Red, only 1 failed and subsequently its replacement failed... but the replacement after that has been working perfectly fine. All of those were purchased in 2012/2013.
2007 is 10 years ago.
 
You do realize that my post was from January 2015... and that 10 years before that would be January 2005...
Sorry- my bad. Somehow I keep assuming that the Techspot articles that are getting delivered to my mailbox are current, because that would only seem... logical. I'll remember to check the dates on this stuff in the future. :)
 
Back