Reading mode: Light Dark

Seagate or Western Digital?

Go to last post
malch said:
Toermalijn said:
Looks nice. But usb is pretty slow in comparison to external serial ata or usb 3.
Think esata is fastest at the moment.
Click to expand...
But USB2 almost always works.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have had no problems with USB 2.0. Something faster will always coming out. My new laptop has the i7 intel processor, and it flies....lol.
Member said:
eSATA can be a bit hit and miss. The interoperability between different motherboards/controllers and different devices is something of a crap shoot.

When it works, eSATA is great. But, far too often, it just doesn't work at all depending on a combination of variables.
Click to expand...
--
Conrad 'Bye Bye' Birdie
'Aspire to inspire before you expire'.
 
I did not have good luck with Seagate in recent years ( 2 drives failing after a year or several months, although all were smaller than 1 TB and one of them was a notebook drive - I got replacements on warranty from Seagate however.) No problems with my two 1 TB drives from Samsung and Hitachi so far and both did speed up my system considerably.
 
malch said:
Toermalijn said:
Looks nice. But usb is pretty slow in comparison to external serial ata or usb 3.
Think esata is fastest at the moment.
Click to expand...
But USB2 almost always works.

eSATA can be a bit hit and miss. The interoperability between different motherboards/controllers and different devices is something of a crap shoot.

When it works, eSATA is great. But, far too often, it just doesn't work at all depending on a combination of variables.
Click to expand...
I am not under the impression esata is causing that much trouble...
 
jamnau said:
I want to move all my iTunes music onto this new drive (currently 80 GB) so that I can free up space on my C: dirive. I will continue to listen to my music on the computer in iTunes from this new drive.

Any other suggestions?
Click to expand...
Have you considered a new, extra internal drive to expand your PC's storage? This is straightforward to fit into most computers. Faster, cheaper, designed for constant use, not likely to be dropped or lost. Easy to transfer into a different computer in the future.

I prefer to reserve external USB-connected drives for archive / backup / transfer purposes, and disconnect them and store them away from the computer when not actively in use. If it's going to be permanently connected to the PC then it will undergo the same potential fate (fire, flood, whatever) as the PC; might as well just be part of the PC.

IMO the ideal is: a PC with enough onboard storage to hold all your current data, plus external devices for redundancy (backup) and non-current data (archive) kept elsewhere, or at the least, secure and fireproof.

RP
 
Thanks everyone for your responses. I must say I am more confused now than before. For every positive comment I read about both Seagate and Western Digital, I read an equal amount of negative comments. I just want to purchase a reliable portable external hard drive and don't know what brand to go with. Also, would a 500GB drive be slower or faster than a 1TB drive both using a USB2 connection?
 
jamnau said:
Thanks everyone for your responses. I must say I am more confused now than before. For every positive comment I read about both Seagate and Western Digital, I read an equal amount of negative comments. I just want to purchase a reliable portable external hard drive and don't know what brand to go with. Also, would a 500GB drive be slower or faster than a 1TB drive both using a USB2 connection?
Click to expand...
USB2 is slow compared to Firewire 800, e-Sata or USB3. I'd research the type of connection of the enclosure, RPMs and Disk Cache of the drive rather than just concentrate on the brand of the drive. For the most connection flexibility from USB2 thru eSata, look at Lacie:
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10033

Mike
 
jamnau said:
Thanks everyone for your responses. I must say I am more confused now than before. For every positive comment I read about both Seagate and Western Digital, I read an equal amount of negative comments. I just want to purchase a reliable portable external hard drive and don't know what brand to go with.
Click to expand...
Most brands end up producing good products and bad products.

I've had good luck with WD internal drives (specifically the Caviar Black). And bad luck with Seagate Barracudas.

In the past WD externals (My Books) worked well for me. But a more recent purchase of a 1TB My Book revealed some serious firmware related performance problems.
jamnau said:
Also, would a 500GB drive be slower or faster than a 1TB drive both using a USB2 connection?
Click to expand...
Not much different. Look for a 7200 (versus 5400) rpm product if you want the best performance. That rules out the My Book which could ship with either speed of drive inside.

If you can afford to pay a little more, I do like the LaCie d2 Quadra because:

1. It does come with a 7200 rpm drive.

2. It has a better than average build quality (i.e. a real metal versus plastic case).

3. It comes with USB2, eSATA, and Firewire interfaces and that keeps your options open.

USB3 looks great but there are simply not enough products in the supply chain yet. Hopefully, that will change in a few more months.
 
it was a WD... Every brand of drive has lemons. IMO in recent memory Seagate and Western Digital appear to have more reported problems than Samsung and Hitachi. (I did a fair amount of online research before I recently purchased an external drive.)

You don't indicate what OS you use, but I recommend OWC (www.macsales.com) for both complete external drives and empty enclosures. it's Mac-centric but you don't need a Mac to use their external drives... Excellent hardware and customer service.

As far as USB/Firewire/eSATA goes: I think that Firewire 800 is the most reliable of the high-speed options.

BTW, it was a WD Black Caviar 1TB drive that was DOA about a month ago...
 
jamnau said:
I am looking to purchase a 1TB portable external hard drive. Should I go with Seagate or Western Digital?
Click to expand...
with most "normal" drives the last few years. My recommendation is to buy a bare "enterprise class" drive (Seagate = "NS" suffix, Western Digital = "Y" in model number, Hitachi = "EK" in model number) and buy your own enclosure and install it (very simple). Most enterprise drives have a MTBF (mean time before failure) far beyond your lifespan.
 
Have used both since they started making hard drives for pc's. Cannot say that either have created more problems than the other. Both good product lines. Have an old 5mb seagate drive that continues to run daily on a RF server (old 486) here in the office for about 18 years. Probably should not talk, other than I have a duplicate system on the shelf should it go down.
 
PaulinDE said:
Have used both since they started making hard drives for pc's. Cannot say that either have created more problems than the other. Both good product lines. Have an old 5mb seagate drive that continues to run daily on a RF server (old 486) here in the office for about 18 years. Probably should not talk, other than I have a duplicate system on the shelf should it go down.
Click to expand...
Me too. But I didn't recommend a brand since I've seen reports of my favorites failing. FWIW, I've been using hard drives since 1979 and have used Seagate more than any other brand and haven't experienced a failure. WD also hasn't "failed" but I've had theirs work really strangely when another of theirs has been installed (multi-WD system). Also, no Hitachi failures but I haven't used that many of them.
 
WineO said:
Seems to me that it is a bit of a lottery - you just pick the manufacturer you like and take your chances.
Click to expand...
This always involve some element of luck but it doesn't have to be a lottery.

When considering reliability, the manufacturer/brand is much less important; you really need to consider specific products. Most major manufacturers have produced some great products and they have produced some problem products.

WD produce some great drives and so do Seagate. But some of the recent WD My Books are very poor, in my view (serious firmware/performance issues). And it seems that certain recent Seagate drives are suffering from the so called "click of death" problem.

You really have to evaluate products versus brands.

The manufacturer name/brand is a more significant factor when evaluating things like service and support. These things are generally consistently good or consistently bad across product lines.

It's the same with photo equipment. Nikon and Canon both produce some great cameras and related products. But they've both produced some duds over the years too. So, if you just view it as a Canon .v. Nikon thing, it starts to look like a lottery. But if you perform a more careful and detailed analysis, you can start to make some sense of the relative strengths and weaknesses of their various offerings.
 
malch said:
WineO said:
Seems to me that it is a bit of a lottery - you just pick the manufacturer you like and take your chances.
Click to expand...
This always involve some element of luck but it doesn't have to be a lottery.

When considering reliability, the manufacturer/brand is much less important; you really need to consider specific products. Most major manufacturers have produced some great products and they have produced some problem products.

WD produce some great drives and so do Seagate. But some of the recent WD My Books are very poor, in my view (serious firmware/performance issues). And it seems that certain recent Seagate drives are suffering from the so called "click of death" problem.

You really have to evaluate products versus brands.

The manufacturer name/brand is a more significant factor when evaluating things like service and support. These things are generally consistently good or consistently bad across product lines.

It's the same with photo equipment. Nikon and Canon both produce some great cameras and related products. But they've both produced some duds over the years too. So, if you just view it as a Canon .v. Nikon thing, it starts to look like a lottery. But if you perform a more careful and detailed analysis, you can start to make some sense of the relative strengths and weaknesses of their various offerings.
Click to expand...
Every year figures are published of how much drives were returned for repair from each hdd company! Do a search and you might find what you need. The ebst comapanies have figures around the 1-1,5 percent per year...some are higher...

I think why some drives die early is because people don't cool the drive. I have always cooled every drive in the system and never had any problems, not even when it was very hot outside! The temps staid in the 30's...This is also important for a long lifespan. I always buy external enclosures with cooling.

I have drives that are pretty old and still function like the day i bought them.
 
Toermalijn said:
malch said:
WineO said:
Seems to me that it is a bit of a lottery - you just pick the manufacturer you like and take your chances.
Click to expand...
This always involve some element of luck but it doesn't have to be a lottery.

When considering reliability, the manufacturer/brand is much less important; you really need to consider specific products. Most major manufacturers have produced some great products and they have produced some problem products.

WD produce some great drives and so do Seagate. But some of the recent WD My Books are very poor, in my view (serious firmware/performance issues). And it seems that certain recent Seagate drives are suffering from the so called "click of death" problem.

You really have to evaluate products versus brands.

The manufacturer name/brand is a more significant factor when evaluating things like service and support. These things are generally consistently good or consistently bad across product lines.

It's the same with photo equipment. Nikon and Canon both produce some great cameras and related products. But they've both produced some duds over the years too. So, if you just view it as a Canon .v. Nikon thing, it starts to look like a lottery. But if you perform a more careful and detailed analysis, you can start to make some sense of the relative strengths and weaknesses of their various offerings.
Click to expand...
Every year figures are published of how much drives were returned for repair from each hdd company! Do a search and you might find what you need. The ebst comapanies have figures around the 1-1,5 percent per year...some are higher...

I think why some drives die early is because people don't cool the drive. I have always cooled every drive in the system and never had any problems, not even when it was very hot outside! The temps staid in the 30's...This is also important for a long lifespan. I always buy external enclosures with cooling.

I have drives that are pretty old and still function like the day i bought them.
Click to expand...
Here you have a paper on hdd failure:

http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/labs.google.com/nl//papers/disk_failures.pdf

here you can register to see hdd lists of good and bad drives:

http://www.storagereview.com/php/gateway/login.php

and here;

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/archive/index.php/t-880293.html

reading into this matter, i generally have the fealing that WD is doing better with their larger drives, 1tb-2tb, then seagate is doing at the moment.
 
I've found cooling in external drives to be more important. As you know - in your PC the drive has reasonable airflow and is hard mounted to the sheet metal case. Those small external units allow more heat buldup than drives normally experience. I have 3 external drives ( 1 eSATA and 2 USB) but all are standard 3.5" drives mounted in an external enclosure with good size cooling fans ( about 75mm) blowing directly on the drive. I also only use metal enclosures. If you don't go the extra mile to ensure good cooling things get hot real fast.

Just buy a bare drive and well designed external enclosure and you'll be ahead of the curve from the start.
 
jamnau said:
I am looking to purchase a 1TB portable external hard drive. Should I go with Seagate or Western Digital?
Click to expand...
WD get rave reviews on the caviar black - comes with a 5 year guarantee.

My two forgetable hard drive experiences have been with Seagate/Maxtor - one internal drive failed and was replaced under warranty - the other an external 500GB maxtor 1 that wouldn't run.

I now have 3 Lacie external HD's (two 1 TB and one 320GB portable - plug and play simplicity and so far no problems.

Also added a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar internal drive to my Mac and all seems well - ironically the root drive is a 160GB seagate and 5 years old!

Adrian.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Keyboard shortcuts

f
Forum
m
My threads
Mobile site
About
Editorial content
Cameras & Lenses
Community
All content, design, and layout are Copyright © 1998–2025 Digital Photography Review All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or part in any form or medium without specific written permission is prohibited.
When you use DPReview links to buy products, the site may earn a commission.
©GPS Media - Guides, Products, Services.
Back
Top