WD 2TB HDD - Safe to buy?

polkatese

Has anyone bought the new crop of 2TB HDD yet? Price is inching down, it is still in the $219 range, but definitely start getting into the "affordable" price range. Any thoughts and feedback, on either WD Green or Seagate Barracuda series.

Also, formatting under Vista/XP/7 would be about 1.94 TB (by my estimation), is that about right?

TIA

Polk user

The problem with the new very large drives is a false sense of security. People think it is great they can now fit all their data on one drive. The issue is always going to be that you should ALWAYS have the data backed up.

If you have 1 TB of data you should be buying 2 drives or more of 1 TB and use RAID so the data is not sitting on one drive.

dorokusai

My HDD I bought from that dude never worked Polkatese....oh well. I think that the prices are definitly dropping. I'm a WD fan personally....I'm running 1 Caviar main and two Green spares.

heiney9

I'm running (2) WD "My Book" style drives both 750G and they seem to work fine. I do need to add another and have been a bit apprehensive about anything larger than 1TB.

dorokusai

I'm stopping at 1TB.

strider

heiney9 wrote: »

I'm running (2) WD "My Book" style drives both 750G and they seem to work fine. I do need to add another and have been a bit apprehensive about anything larger than 1TB.

FWIW, I've been having an issue with my WD My Book 1TB drive lately. If I've got it hooked up via any of the USB ports my computer won't launch Windows when I turn it on. If I power it back off, unhook the drive, and power back up it'll launch fine.

Haven't really had the chance to research it yet, so it would be unfair to completely blame the HD.

Sherardp

dorokusai wrote: »

I'm stopping at 1TB.

Agreed I'm done, I have 2 WD drives and 1 Maxtor. The main HD in my PC is WD Black 500 GB and I use the WD 1TB and Maxtor for backups. I even make backups of backups if that make sense. 2TB is allot of storage, but then again so I 1TB drive.

My next drive I buy in the next few months will be SSD for OS only and I'll use my 500 Black as addon for programs, etc.

polkatese

dorokusai wrote: »

My HDD I bought from that dude never worked Polkatese....oh well. I think that the prices are definitly dropping. I'm a WD fan personally....I'm running 1 Caviar main and two Green spares.

I wasn't aware about it Mark. Was it DOA? Mine worked fine for about 6 months, and then it failed, but could be to my carelessness of overheating it (use it for DirecTV DVR external HDD). But, I sent it back to Seagate and they gave me a Refurb replacement.

Given the choice, I would definitely pick WD over SEA, which was not the case up to 2 years ago. SEA Barracuda used to be the shiznit. Now WD Green.

nadams

Seagate used to be the reliability king. Suspiciously... they tanked after they bought Maxtor. Perhaps instead of making Maxtor drives better they opted to make Seagate drives worse?

My pick now is the WD Black series. 5 year warranty, and excellent pricing. Can't beat it with a stick!

kcoc321

Interesting, glad to see the $$ have come down some.
From my 10 min of research on newegg, looks like about 35% of the 2TB buyers reported drive failure. Looks like 40days is a magic mark' for some reason.
listings link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014%20103530090&name=1TB%20and%20higher

Also noted that the greens and black WD are not designed/ recommended for RAID application. VOIDS the warranty. Something about the drive 'spin down' greatly increasing the turndown rate. (part of making them "green" ).

The 1TB seem to have a much smaller failure rate, looks like around 10%

Also noted that the 2TB is 5400 vs 7200.

Good idea for my HTPC but I think I will go with the 1TB RE3 version, even thou they are alittle more expensive, in a RAID5, when I need more storage.

polkatese

kcoc321 wrote: »

Interesting, glad to see the $$ have come down some.
From my 10 min of research on newegg, looks like about 35% of the 2TB buyers reported drive failure. Looks like 40days is a magic mark' for some reason.
listings link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010150014%20103530090&name=1TB%20and%20higher

Hence my request for more feedback. Thanks for your quick analysis. That is interesting. Pushing to 2TB capacity is definitely bleeding edge, and I am a bit gun shy. However, with DirecTV external eSATA expansion, I can only have one physical drive, and I am running low on space of the existing 1TB WD HDD that I've been using since September 2008. Those HD movies take up lots of space.

bobman1235

One of the keys to hard drive longevity is HEAT. Especially with the larger drives, makes sure they're well-ventilated and that they have a fan on them at all times. Try touching one of those 1TB suckers after they've been running for a few hours, they will literally burn you.

unc2701

Just remember, everyone: RAID is NOT backup. It's been getting more common and people misuse it all the time.

polkatese

bobman1235 wrote: »

One of the keys to hard drive longevity is HEAT. Especially with the larger drives, makes sure they're well-ventilated and that they have a fan on them at all times. Try touching one of those 1TB suckers after they've been running for a few hours, they will literally burn you.

I hear ya, Bob. That is what happened to my first SEA 1TB. Got the casing with fan is the cure. Especially when it is sitting next to Pre/Pro and DTV DVR.

bobman1235

For a regular consumer who doesn't do REAL backups, a RAID is at least SOMETHING to prevent data loss in the case of a drive failure.

It's no substitute for a backup, but a good stopgap.