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Author Topic: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc  (Read 13563 times)

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Offline yltfan

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External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« on: June 13, 2015, 01:58:20 AM »
I have always had good luck with Seagate external HD's, but this Buffalo one has good reviews:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822165569

I would like to buy locally instead of Newegg, but it seems like Office Depot only carries WD, which I have had fail too many times.

What do other people like? And is it safe to buy bigger ones now (like 4 or 5 TB)?
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Offline Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2015, 04:10:29 AM »
I always buy internal drives and put them in a external case. The reason for this is most internal drives come with a longer warranty than the external drives with the case already included. Installing the HD into the case is about as difficult as operating legos.

As far as who the most reliable drive is now is beyond what I've kept up with lately.

I've been very happy with the WD warranty process. They will (or would the last time I did it) send you a new HD if you have a HD that is failing, but still working, so you can copy the data off the bad HD to the new one. You just need to send the old one back and they won't charge you.

Backblaze usually keeps up with the ratings for durability. You're not going to even pull 1% of what they do to hard drives, but it's still a good source:

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/
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Offline LiveWire

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2015, 07:04:27 AM »
This may not be what you are after but, have you considered Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive.
Connected to your router via LAN cable so you can see it from any PC or streaming device in the house and since its not connected to your PC via USB, the PC does not need to be on for the NAS to be visible. Some NAS can allow you to share files with friends too.
Worth considering if you are going to but a large capacity drive.
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Offline H₂O

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2015, 04:45:14 PM »
buffalo doesn't make the actual Hard Drive in there enclosures


Seagate, WD and Toshiba are the only HDD manufacturers left


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_hard_disk_manufacturers#/media/File:Diagram_of_Hard_Disk_Drive_Manufacturer_Consolidation.svg

« Last Edit: June 13, 2015, 04:48:06 PM by H₂O »
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Offline Brian Skalinder

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2015, 01:48:55 AM »
It's been said here, and elsewhere in a variety of threads, by people far smarter than me, and with more sophisticated setups than mine:  consider buying an external case separately.

It may cost you a little more now to buy an enclosure + separate internal HDDs, but it will be cheaper in the long run since you can simply upgrade the HDDs rather than replacing the pre-fab enclosure / HDDs (or adding a new enclosure with HDDs).  IME, it's well worth buying a good, external case with sufficient ventilation to effectively manage drive temperatures for your intended usage.

As for HDDs, I like to buy bare, internal drives with a strong warranty (3-5 years), including easy advance replacement; typically mid/upper-mid price range; not old technology nor the most cutting edge; and large enough drives to satisfy the near future without springing for the biggest at any given moment.  (Though the latter is easy for me to do, since I don't have the massive data storage needs of some here on TS...I only need ~4-5 TB, not including redundancy).  The above approach provides for plenty of HDD options.

FWIW, after I switched to a well ventilated external HDD enclosure (for my primary storage / redundancy), and a very well ventilated PC case for my redundant "working" HDDs (which I use for heavy I/O & processing, like post-production), my HDD issues -- which I'd encountered with some regularity over the years -- disappeared.

One of these days I'd like to set up a proper NAS, but I haven't had a compelling reason to do so, yet.  I'll get there eventually.
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adrianf74

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2015, 09:26:56 AM »
All of my drives in my HTPC were Hitachi (HGST) 4TB CoolSpin 5K4000 drives.  You can get them for $139 at B&H.   The older drives labelled as Hitachi ran slightly cooler than the newer ones labelled HGST (since WD took over).

As I was running out of room (and didn't want to add more drives to create additional heat), I ended up moving to the Western Digital 6TB Red NAS Drives.  These drives run cooler than the HGST drives, however, they're considerably more expensive at 2x the price for 1.5x the storage.  Seeing that my HGST drives were all approaching 1 year remaining on warranty I went with the the Red Drives as they have a 3 year warranty.  I'll give Fatah Ruark full credit for his comments on WD returns.  I find their RMA policy the best of the bunch as they'll ship out a replacement drive so you can move data.  Also, putting an internal drive into an enclosure is as easy as it gets.

In today's day an age there's no such thing as a "great drive manufacturer" as it's all a crapshoot.  If you're buying multiple drives to build a NAS or HTPC, the suggestion of buying your drives from DIFFERENT suppliers is a strong recommendation in case there's a bad batch (but you also run the risk of getting "X" bad drives).  With S.M.A.R.T. monitoring software available, you'll be alerted to any problems as soon as they arise.   There are also smarter software RAID options (such as FlexRaid) that allow both drive pooling as well as some means of a partial backup where you can rebuild data that's lost on a drive due to bad sectors, etc.   You can still run a full mirror solution but it gets very expensive the larger number of drives involved; in this case, consider multiple "offline backups" of critical data such as your masters and photos along with documents.  I keep one drive in my condo, another drive in my storage locker and a third drive at work.  Should there ever be a fire in my unit and my data is destroyed, I still have a backup available elsewhere.


stevetoney

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2015, 09:28:55 AM »
...and I always say when I read these threads that there's never a truly reliable drive because they all fail.  Remember that the most reliable drive is two separate drives.

adrianf74

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2015, 11:08:39 AM »
...and I always say when I read these threads that there's never a truly reliable drive because they all fail.  Remember that the most reliable drive is two separate drives.

That too.  They've got moving parts and will fail - it's just a matter of whether it ends up being 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years or 8 years or more.   That's the million dollar question.  :)

Offline 2manyrocks

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2015, 01:36:28 PM »
For drives that are rarely used, I prefer a docking station. 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182308&cm_re=external_drive_rosewill-_-17-182-308-_-Product

I put the drives themselves back in the plastic padding and then store them in a sealed metal box. 

Offline willndmb

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2015, 05:50:33 PM »
I have had nothing but trouble with wd externals
Had great luck with seagate and maxter

Anyone have links to enclosures they like for internals?
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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #10 on: June 15, 2015, 08:01:28 AM »
I assume that all drives are about to fail at all times.

The best drive is the least expensive, x2.
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Offline bombdiggity

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #11 on: June 15, 2015, 12:04:23 PM »
It can be a bit of a crap shoot but one factor will narrow it dramatically:

Make sure the drive is made in Thailand. 

Drives are only made in Thailand or in China and at this point "by" only two or three manufacturers.  The "made by" may be a bit loose since the ones from China may be contracted out rather than made in the manufacturers' own exclusive dedicated facility. 

I used to strongly recommend Seagate but you have to be a lot more careful with them now.  Seagate used to be made in Thailand only but as of my last trip to the store they now have ostensibly the same drive in the same retail box that can be made in either Thailand or in China (you have to read the labels on the back of the boxes to see which is which).  Maybe they're shifting manufacture of the lower end of their line.  They used to not make cheap disposable drives but they may be splitting their product line and/or trending that way now.   In the past Seagate used to differentiate the location of manufacture using different model numbers (so you could get a 2 TB Seagate from Thailand or from China and they had different part numbers - and prices).  As it turned out they were also made completely differently (I may have the technical aspects not quite right but the Thailand ones were better made with four plates vs. the China ones that only had two plates). 

The tsunami wiped out manufacturing in Thailand a few years ago and as supplies dried up and the prices spiked I would up having to buy some WD's, which were the only made in Thailand drives I could find at that point.  So far those have been OK.  On the other hand we bought a number of HP desktops at one point which had WD drives in them and those drives all (every one of them!) failed just outside the one year warranty, while with nearly every other computer we've had the system becomes obsolete before the drive dies.  Either way a warranty doesn't help if you lose data (and a failed drive is really a PITA if it was the primary OS drive of a system).  I was glad the Thailand plants did come back but all that may have shifted the manufacturing dynamic somewhat. 

I would not buy any drive that's not Seagate or WD.  Buffalo, Maxtor, etc. are relabeling the cheapest components from other manufacturers.  In the past Seagate used to make more of theirs in Thailand while WD made more of theirs in China.  That may be changing.  WD now has a variety of warranty terms and price accordingly.  I'd suspect the strongest ones are better made in Thailand.  Whether they are worth the extra expense probably depends on price.  If you can buy two solid ones for the price of one expensive one it seems better to image the contents of one onto the other one that stays in storage.   The key is redundancy with anything irreplaceable.  A free replacement drive does not necessarily offset the trouble of rebuilding all the contents and certainly won't replace anything that can't be replaced.   Sometimes I think the warranty is just a gimmick or an excuse to lower the quality (we've all seen products that last just a few days longer than their warranty, which seems to be a design specification with those types of manufacturers).  Warranty terms on drives have come down a lot over the years.  WD more recently had a longer warranty than Seagate (after Seagate reduced theirs) but I never put much stock in that.  WD certainly offers a longer term now if you buy their premium longer warranty versions.  I'm a little suspicious that they're just building the replacement costs in rather than making that much better of a product, though I'm sure the more expensive grades are at least somewhat objectively better than their cheaper ones.  I've never had a Thailand Seagate fail (I usually buy their midrange line, not the cheapest and not the gold-plated).  I've seen some WD's fail.  My friend who did service for a long time always recommended Seagate and said the same thing.  But as I said Seagate appears to be moving to the market (and I would not buy one of their inexpensive made in China ones). 

I would also avoid "externals" that come in fancy proprietary cases (which are typically how the other brands market "their" products).  A problem there is that the case hardware can fail rendering the drive inoperable, though sometimes you can crack the case open and get a readable drive out.  Often those drives aren't cooled either.  Bare internal drives you can swap in and out of an enclosure (whether a fancy rack or just an inexpensive single drive swap box) are the way to go unless you have a fully redundant NAS array (though if you already have a large collection of varied single drives the array isn't much help for them unless you migrate all the data...).   

The biggest issue for drives is cooling.  Your external box or rack should have fans that keep the drives cool.  Check to make sure those fans work and that the ventilation doesn't get blocked/full of dust.  An external in a thick closed plastic case without a fan inside is a problem waiting to happen. 

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Offline pohaku

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #12 on: June 15, 2015, 06:24:13 PM »
Interesting.  I bought a 1.5T portable Seagate drive yesterday from Costco.  A whimsical purchase primarily for business travel.

It said Made in China and Assembled in Thailand or words to that effect.  A straddle.
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Offline yltfan

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #13 on: June 16, 2015, 02:04:16 PM »
This:
Anyone have links to enclosures they like for internals?
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Offline flipp

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #14 on: June 16, 2015, 02:21:22 PM »
My two favorites are Siig and Vantec  and I usually purchase enclosures with USB3 and eSATA connections cause that's what I have available on my comps.

newegg link which you can filter various ways to suit your needs

Offline Brian Skalinder

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Re: External Hard Drives - Seagate vs Buffalo vs WD etc
« Reply #15 on: June 16, 2015, 03:50:31 PM »
FWIW, here's what I'm using:

4 x HDD enclosure.  It's fine.  Nothing to rave about, but it gets the job done and has done so for many years.  I run it strictly JBOD over e-SATA.  For my purposes, the included controller card acts purely as port multiplier -- I do my own daily redundancy data management with FreeFileSync.  (I simply don't trust low- or even mid-market RAID controllers...though honestly I've felt that way for 10+ years and things may be different, now.)

HDD enclosure.  I use this with a BIG HDD for my off-site backup of critical data.  Also connected via e-SATA.  If and when I need to bump up to 2 x HDDs for off-site backup, I'll probably just get another one of these instead of a 2-bay enclosure.  Great ventilation, and the e-sata is plenty fast.
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