Most reliable 2tb drive for backup?

newegg samsung f4 2TB drive for $70 shipped. Hand down the best

WD HDD's are over-priced and over-rated. That F4 is the best deal going right now, I think.

If you don't want to lose your files to a hard drive crash, you find some way to protect the data. EVERY drive has the potential to crash. There's not even good evidence that one brand or model is predictably more reliable than another. If you can store all your data on a single 2TB drive, then just buy another and use one for a back-up. If you're concerned about losing data, $70 is cheap insurance.

If you are really concerned about it, getting a second drive and either running a pair in a Raid 1, or frequently backing it up to the second drive, is the answer.

Most hard drives are highly reliable, but any hard drive can fail. But the most reliable would generally be the enterprise class drives from any of the major manufacturers. They are made to reliably run 24/7 in enterprise servers. You'll pay more though. A 2TB Hitachi Ultrastar will run around $200 at Newegg while a regular Deskstar will run $79. But there's a reason they warrant them for 5 rather than the usual 3 years.

I bought a batch of the 1TB Samsungs about 9 months ago, first one died within 6 months and I lost everything, second one died about a month and a half ago and I lost everything. Found out the arrays were corrupting because of the raid card, but still, 2 of 4 within the first year is insane. I don't abuse my drives either, I had a pair of first gen raptors last me more than 7 years, bought them right around launch and they just died late last year. I've had others last 10+.

I will not buy Samsung drives again, though I am a major Samsung fanboy for CE stuff. I will be sticking to Seagate or WD.

I would suggest looking at the WD AVGP drives. They are cherrypicked green power drives for use in AV equipment running 24/7 with heavy use. They're not enterprise class, but certainly a notch up from most other non-enterprise drives.

No reason to buy enterprise or AVGP drives, imo.

All drives can fail. I have now built about 15 HTPCs --- about 2/3rds with the Samsung F4 2TB and 1/3 with the WD 2TB Green.

No failures so far (knock on wood).

BTW - The last 4 Samsung Green F4 2TBs I have bought have all had a 2011 manufacturer's date which means there is no need to update the firmware (which was relatively easy anyway).

I wasn't suggesting buying them, just trying to anwer the OP's question. I think it's a waste of money for home use. If I was that concerned about data integrity, I'd run a Raid 1 using standard desktop drives.

Probably my most rigorous usage has been a Samsung EcoGreen and a WD Green, each 1TB, that have been running nonstop for about two years each as the expansion drives for my DirecTV DVRs. Since the DVR buffers are continuously writing, even when the DVR is turned "off", those drives are actually working 24/7 (more usage than I would ever have in a pc), and neither has hiccuped. I just bought an extra few EcoGreen drives on a Newegg special to have on hand before Seagate gets their paws on Samsung's storage unit through the impending acquisition. For the same reason, I'm going to pick up some Hitachi Coolspin 2TB drives before the WD acquisition of Hitachi's storage unit closes.

All drives will fail eventually. How soon depends on the luck of the draw more so than any specific brands.

As previously stated: ALL drives WILL fail sooner or later. Develop and implement the risk analysis vs. cost scenario that works best for you.

I like the WD20EARS drives myself. Quiet and cool. 1 out of 16 has had issues, and that happened after 1 week.

As other posters have said; all drives can and will fail sometime.
If you are lucky your drive won't be DOA (which happens in many cases).
I have used all 4 manufacturer's in the last few years with no problems (so far). Recently, I and a few of my friends have bought the SATA III Hitachi 2TB from Newegg on sale, they were going for $65-$70. In all we bought 7 of these 6.0 Gbps drives amongst us (spread out over the last couple of months). All of them have been great so far.

The F2 2TB received great reviews for speed, heat, and noise. The drive seems to be the best of the bunch, not that WD is that far behind them.

I know OP asked for 2TB. But FYI I picked up few 3TB 6GB/S Hitachi OEM HDD for $119.99 free shipping from Newegg one month ago and it works flawlessly so far.

2TB Samsung $70/2TB = $35 each TB
3TB Hitachi drive $120/3TB =$40 each TB

My Hitachi HDD is ultra quiet and close to no heat. I've a lot of 500G HDD from few years ago and these drives are much much better.

Just checked with newegg unfortunatelly both above HDD are not on sale now Otherwise I will pick up few more

They are for speed not for reliability. They are the performance drives out of WD's three different colored drives. (green,blue,black)

No reason using these for backup.

I'd get the 3tb or 4tb when they come out with 1tb/platter.

For the time being if you really must have a hdd now, here is a deal for $69.99 for the f4 samsung:

Newegg has 2TB Samsung Spinpoint F4 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive for $69.99 when you enter code EMCKEJK37 at checkout. Shipping is free. (from slickdeals.net)