Best large drive for HTPC storage + quiet

I use the WD/HGST green drives. I am going to migrate to 4 TB drives so 7200 rpm is my only choice at the moment. I use windows 7pro 64 so no problem recognizing larger drives.

Got several of these (5) in my set-up - no issues at all with windows 7 recognition, cannot comment on noise, system based in another area of the house (loft), but while in that vicinity there seems little discernible noise from them

See here for discussion on how and what to format to http://www.avsforum.com/t/1447467/best-way-to-format-and-set-up-new-hdd-for-media-storage-3tb-what-format-type-and-sector-size-advice. Me I format to default settings using Windows Disk Management - no problems of any kind.

Yup. Seagate 3TB is fine. Just install it defaults. Windows will see it as one drive. No worries.

RED is very quiet and low noise. It's basically a newer and better GREEN drive with intellipark head parking turned off for increase reliability and performance in 24/7 NAS like applications.

Seagate isn't excessive loud though. It's a faster 7200 drive so ...

Decide what's the most important. Both are good.

I'm shopping for a few 3TB drives for my new XBMC media server with Flexraid. I was led to believe the WD Red's are the ones to go for these days. The marketing on those is very slick but can anyone opine on whether it's worth paying $20 extra for the WD Red over this Seagate 3TB as shown in the original post? My server will be housed outside of the living room so noise not an issue.


Thanks

I think it depends on price. For a basic media server they are typically located in a non critical area for noise. What I mean is a relatively quiet HDD is totally tolerable because the server isn't in a bedroom or close to your viewing area. In my case my server is in a room where a small amount of noise isn't noticed and no one cares.

Same on heat issue. Typically servers are built in larger chassis with better cooling and most server builds use HDD cages with fans on them. So if a Red is 85 degrees uncooled and a Seagate is 90 uncooled then either is fine in a well cooled server set up.

I think if I was trying to cram a pair if these HDD into a really small HTPC case I'd pay more attention to the heat and noise issue.

If I was installing them into a home server ( and I have). I'd focus more in reliability, performance and price.

To me the Seagate wins performance and price. They tie on reliability. my personal value system weights the price issue more heavily so I went Seagate on my last 5 drives.

$20 or less difference its tougher choice but for $20 or more its easy to me.

I'd vote Seagate. It's not like they are excessively loud. They are on par with RED and it would take a special circumstance setup or a very critical person to find issue with them. Those people should buy RED.

I just bought a Synology DS413 4-Bad NAS and filled it with 4x3TB WD Red drives in RAID5. Very quiet, very happy.

How are the Red drives? I always use the greens use Im just using JBOD. Was considering getting the reds

RED is better than green. Lower power, better performance, increased reliability and longer warranty.

Quite a bit of misinformation here.

Not necessarily true (see below)

Not in my testing. Reds use about 2-3 watts more which is potentially a substantial difference if you are using multiple.

Likey true in benchmarks but completely irrelevant for HTPC storage and playback. The typical HTPC user won't notice a bit of difference.

Absolutely no proof to this statement at all. Please post a reference for this claim.

True.

One should also realize that Mfusick has had a few Green drives fail and now isn't as high on them. We have used hundreds professionally with absolutely no issues. I have 8 personally currently. My friends in my local area haven't had issues who I have built HTPCs for (some of which use Green drives for their OS as well as they have had these drives long enough where at the time a 64 GB SSD was $130). Oh, and then there are the hundreds of users on AVS that have used Green drives without issue as well. The things that WD Red touts as benefits are largely not needed for Win 7/8 or Software RAID. The Reds aren't "bad", I just don't think they are clearly "better".

My $.02.

In 2012 I RMA'd one 2TB Green drive in February and a 2nd one in December. I also have two 1TB Green drives that CrystalDiskInfo report bad sectors on.

Also in 2012, I had 1 1TB Toshiba 2.5" drive fail and 1 320GB 2.5" Seagate drive fail. I also have a 2TB Seagate drive in a whs1 server that has been failing a couple of times, only to show up healthy again after a reboot or re-install. I'm thinking it can be due to the advanced formatting that whsV1 doesn't really support, but I don't know for sure. I'm in the process of migrating to whs2011 right now though.

I also have a 720 GB Seagate that CrystalDiskInfo reprort bad sectors on.

So in my home the Green drives have had the most problem in 2012, but it's also the type of drive that I have most of, usually because they are the cheapest.

I'll probably start buying Red drives too for the heck of it. The extra $$ would be well worth it if the added reliability really is there, only time will tell.

/Anders

I have RMA'd some 7200RPM drives in the past as well. Doesn't mean anything at all other than all hard drives can fail. Doesn't mean that I think they are bad drives either. I just don't think they are as good for storage.

Little known fact: Black drives have "head parking" as well. Yet no one seems to regard them as "less reliable" because this fact is not widely known to most end-users. Reference

You just saved me some money:D

I have a 3tb green and two 2tb greens I will sell ya.

I'd love replace them with a better variant.

They are new and under warranty. RMA replacements for previous failed units.

Still in factory package unopened.

Let me know. I'll sell cheap.

You always say this but no one cares cause no one uses black drives.

They are worst possible choice. They are so old that they are not faster anymore and they totally suck at energy/heat/noise. They also suck on price. Reliability isn't superior.

Black is the worst possible choice for basically any application that comes to my mind.

Red is best. Green is second. For WD.

Seagate is best performance and value however. It's usually cheapest per GB. It uses less energy at idle than either a Green EARX or EARS too.

I'd like to see your data on RED vs Green because I've seen tests and reviews showing RED better in both energy and performance. It's certainly close enough that any difference is insignificant anyways. It's comes down to price. If RED is close in price it's a better choice IMO.

Yes, you have already stated as much multiple times in this thread and others.

If GREEN is stupid cheap it's a fine choice too btw... But I'm not paying retail for those or more per GB that a better Seagate 3TB/Red

I never said anything about Seagate.

Maybe you should question the shipping and handling from where you purchased your Green drives and even the lot of the failed drives that you have assuming they are the same (instead of bashing all of them of course). Maybe even reconsider how you have handled and used your drives (I have seen your posts on another forum where you seem to boast about how "rough" you are on your Green drives).

I opted to pay $20 more for the 3TB Red vs the Green. I think the 3year warranty is worth that alone.

Certainly a valid reason to buy a Red drive over a Green.

As I state in my guides anything over $20 more to me for a Red drive is questionable, imo. At $10 more its almost a no-brainer to go with the Red (even more so with a 3TB as its a lower overall percentage of the total cost) for the added year warranty alone.

I have had other hard drives fail a few months before and a few months after the warranty.

just added two 3tb seagates. wow do these run cool compared to some older 500gb samsungs and even my beloved 2 tb samsung f4s.
no clicking or noise that i can hear. from them. and stupid fast.

Just FYI I was in Costco today and saw they had 4TB drives for $180. I only saw the poster and not the actual drives but I think they're external and probably Seagate.

No.

I bought a WD external from Costco with a 3TB green inside. Cracked it open like countless others.

I bought a 3TB green from Newegg. It came packaged the same as the 25 other HDD's I've gotten from them.

I also bought a few 2TB greens. Both EARS and EARX models.

I have RMA at least one of the EARS and EARX 2TB WD greens, and also at least one of the 3TB EARX WD Greens. I recieved all three back RMA from WD directly. Packaged from them. Now, I am having issue with two of the RMA replaced models.

I'm batting close to 100% on WD issues with greens.

Keep in mind I have 6 total WD green drives purchased over 2 year span from various locations. All locations are popular legitimate locations most users here purchase from.

I think the high amount of copy paste and how I use my drives might be a factor. I noticed that when the green drives fill up on my server they always slow down to under 30MB second speeds reading. That also sucks.

I have 4 in my server now. All full. All slow. All read under 50MB/sec

In contrast I have 4 Seagates all full too. They read at 100MB/sec+

I'm not a fan of WD greens.

I used to be. I've change my mind from poor user experience. I was once recently a die hard WD guy.

I know 50MB/sec is perfectly fast to stream even two HD movies at once- but it's still unacceptable to me.

You will never convince me there is not a performance penalty with a WD green that is increased significantly when the drive is near full. In FlexRaid- it usually fills up one drive before it starts storing on the next. I know I can set a reserve space but setting a reserve greater than 50GB seems like a major waste of space to me. If you take a Green Drive past 100GB or less free space they get slow...

That's just another negative I have experienced.

I really hate to bash on them so much. I think they are fine for ordinary use. But they obviously have a few drawbacks.


If they are not cheaper they are a poor choice because they don't save a considerable amount of energy and the reliability appears to me to be more suspect. (opinion). There is a very real performance penalty. And- the head parking feature that was designed to save additional energy appears to lower the life span of the drive as compared to a model without head parking. I'm not sure the decreased reliability is worth the very small energy savings that feature provides.

I'd rather a RED with a longer warranty and no Head parking (better performance too) or a Seagate without head parking (also great energy performance and speed).

Green only makes sense when it's WAY CHEAPER than anything else. It's not that it is a poor choice. It's just not a very good choice most of the time.

yup.

My buddy grabbed one saturday.

Same drive inside they sell for $299 most places.


Great deal.

$40 per GB and a huge drive.

Uses more energy than a 3TB Seagate though.

Costco also sells the same 3TB version for $120. Same cost per GB. I like the 3TB drive better. It's a 7200.14. It's a great drive.

I've bought and cracked open more than a few of those with excellent luck.

I have 7 total and none have ever given me any issues (yet)

I've removed all the green drives from my server in favor of these.

('I'll sell new unopened RMA replacements direct from WD cheap to anyone that wants them. I have a few 2TB and 3TB WD greens I RMA-ed and have not opened or used the replacement they sent me.)

I am not sure the 4TB has the energy profile or performance of the 3TB though....

I'd be curios if anyone knows? ????