Most reliable hard drive brand - need suggestions

[elgordodude]

Been running a Hitachi Deskstar 2 TB and haven't had any problems, if you want to save some money over the Seagate.

[KUU]

WoW I know for me Enigma & IBM have been rock solid and still the best for as long as ever, Seagate had 1 fail and still run a 5 year old Samsung, WD still running well after 2 years.

[forrestcupp]

After horrible firmware failures of thousants of Seagate drives, starting from .11 and "succefully" continued trough .12 series I don't want seagate hdd to even stay near my pc's.

Yeah. I've had Seagates, Western Digitals, and Maxtors all fail. Seagates were my worst experience, and Maxtors were probably my best.

This old discussion continues, well, Maxtor at one time, were the best, and Seagate, the worst. Now Seagate bought out Maxtor.

That sucks.

[Inodoro Pereyra]

OP, you didn't state if you want the drive for a laptop or a desktop PC, so I will assume is for a desktop.

After almost 2 years fixing computers on my own, while I look for a job, based on the HDD's I have had problems with, and my own personal experience, I can tell you this:

• WD's are about 4 times as likely to fail as Seagates (not accounting the relative numbers of each brand HDD in the market, as I don't know them).
• The best brand, by far, seems to be Hitachi. I've had 10 year old PC's, running Hitachi HDD's, and still running fast (relatively) and strong. And silently, which is something the Caviar seldom does.
• 7200 rpm drives are inherently less reliable than 5400 rpm drives.

That said, if reliability and speed are really important to you, and if your MoBo supports it (and if you can spare the money), make a raid of smaller, slower drives. It'll be way more expensive, but faster, and virtually bulletproof.

[mips]

There is no such thing. It's pretty much luck of the draw and dependent on the weather & wind direction on that particular day.

[akand074]

Western Digital and Seagate are the top two. Caviar green is good for saving power, but if that's not an issue for you I've heard mixed reviews about them. I'd go with a Caviar black

That's not to say any of the other brands are no good. There are a number of companies starting to build their name in the hard drive sector (specifically solid state drives), but for normal HDDs those are definitely the top two.

[KUU]

but for normal HDDs those are definitely the top two.

That's a big statement to make without anything to back it up.

For me the best HDD is the one that you never know is there, never ! ever !

[johnnybgoode83]

I have a 3TB Western Digital external HD that is rock solid.

[akand074]

That's a big statement to make without anything to back it up.

For me the best HDD is the one that you never know is there, never ! ever !

First and second place in terms of consumer market share. At least in North America. I understand market share doesn't always mean better quality. But they seem to be the top two sellers even among the tech savvy.

EDIT: first google search gave me this

[Khakilang]

Samsung die on less than a year and it took 1 month to claim their warranty. I would go for Seagate or Western Digital. Haven't much failure even after 5 years.