New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Which hard drives to choose

post #1 of 7
10/3/12 at 8:09pm
Thread Starter 
I been on and off on here these past few weeks doing research for my home theater server and player. Basically I am buying a 12 bay server from super micro on ebay for dirt cheap. What I want to know is what hard drives should I put into it. Either Seagate or WD. I heard Seagates crash more than WD, but then again WD are more expensive. I am going to have them setup in some sort of raid config so everything gets backed up. I am going with either 2 or 3 tb drives leaning more toward the 3tb. Let me know what you think Thank You!
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 7
10/4/12 at 6:20am
The answer is neither. You are best getting a hard drive that is:

1. NOT GREEN
2. Has a 3 year or longer waranty
3. Has a lot of positive reviews by knowledgable people

The hitachi drives fit this bill well. I have purchased drives from all of the manufacturers and the hitachi hold up the best while being well supported by the manufacturer. They are usually $10 more than the others but the positives are worth the extra $
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 7
10/4/12 at 6:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by enzmin89 View Post

Basically I am buying a 12 bay server from super micro on ebay for dirt cheap. What I want to know is what hard drives should I put into it.

Many (most) drives > 1TB uses Advanced Format therefore I would check and see what drive models the server manufacturer recommends using. It could be your model does not support AF drives and you may need to “align” all > 1TB drives that you install.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 7
10/4/12 at 11:37am
If you are planning on doing a RAID array I would look at the WD Red drives. The Green drives (Seagate and WD) do not handle arrays well as they attempt long internal error correction routines which cause the RAID controller to drop them (and potentially break or rebuild the array). Hitatchi is good as well if you can find them.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 7
10/4/12 at 12:16pm
Thread Starter 
thanks for the helps everyone, I am going toward the wd red drives which do have a 3 year warranty according to new egg, now to find a website that sells them cheaper lol
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 7
10/4/12 at 12:20pm
I am planning on replacing all of my greens with reds at some point as well. Finding the 3TB versions has been difficult.

Bill
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 7
10/4/12 at 3:00pm
I am constantly disappointed with the large capacity drives, due to the high failure rates.

In my computer business, I have no Caviar Green that have survived through their warranty period.
WD is very good about warranty replacement, but there is a caveat: the remainder of the warranty is gone.
If a drive with a 5 year warranty fails at 6 months, they replace it. That drive has a 90 day warranty. You are now done.

The RED series are high density, i.e. 1TB per platter.
This is 2x the density of the RE4 platters, so one has to wonder if also 2x higher failure rate in the RED series. I don't know.
The Newegg unhappiness is pretty uniform for DOAs and the like, across all models.

I have a pair of 1TB RE4 in shipment for an ESX 5.1 host with an Adaptec 2405 hardware RAID card.
These will be my first RE4 drives.
Before using them, each will have to undergo the Extended DLG testing, and pass 100%.
Those that do not, are going back as Unacceptable.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home

AVS Top Picks