Seagate vs Western Digital?

Hardware HDD's & SSD's
1

In need of a 500GB, 7200RPM HDD. Why? I need the space. I'll be getting a boot SSD eventually, but for now, space is key.

So, Western Digital offers this for $69.99 ($79.99 before discount) whereas Seagate offers this for $139.99 ($159.99 before discount). My question is, why is the Seagate $60 ($80 before discount) more than the WD? They are both 500 GB, 7200RPM, Sata 6.0/3.5Gb/s drives.

Also, which would you recommend getting? I've got a Seagate (came with my original PC) in my rig right now and it's failing. Not to the point where I'm losing data, but to the point that it's telling me while I'm working that I need to back it up.

2

Basically the difference in the price is the Seagate is an 'enterprise' drive mainly for business which is: http://www.pantz.org/hardware/disks/what_makes_a_hard_drive_enterprise_class.html

The WD blue is more of a consumer desktop drive, WD has some new Red drives for 'enterprise' storage.

Personally in the past I've had issues with Seagate drives, not certain about Seagate drives now, but it I hear Seagate Barracudas are pretty decent, I've turned to WD and never really looked back, I'd recommend the WD blue for storage, or a WD black if you want to get some extra performance.

3

Personally for HDD's I always get Western Digital, I work as a technician an see a lot more dead seagate/toshiba/hitatchi drives than WD but again thats my preference.

4

Didn't realise the Seagate was Enterprise level. I thought it was consumer-grade. 

5

I guess I'll go for a WD.

Also, anyone have any complaints about buying refurb'd HDDs? Not for myself, but for my dad. All he does is browse the web and check his email. He saves pictures of my uncle and nieces, but that can be handled with a daily backup onto USB.

6

If it maintains warranty, I wouldnt worry about buying refurbished. WD is more reliable company (for the original question), but for a little more... you should be able to get a TB of data.

7

I have a WD 500GB sata 1 that is a refurb. I bought it in march 2010 for $35. Still going strong. Its been full for 2 years

8

  I like the Western Digital Caviar Black myself. I’ve had it running for over 2 years without as much as a click. My feeling is it is a superior product to Seagate.  

9

If it maintains warranty, I wouldnt worry about buying refurbished.

How can I find out if it maintains warranty?

10

I bought a WD Black and its noisy as hell (still dunno why) and its running for a year now, been testing it for bad sectors every month or 2 and nada. After 5 months i bought a 2tb Seagate Barracuda and im happy with it silent and fast (not that expensive maybe cause of the employee discount). Next time im going for a 2tb Seagate I dont want a noisy drive....

11

I guess like anything you can get a bad one and if you have a bad experience with one brand then out the door it goes. I was just using my own experience as reference.

12

In my opinion; the WD BLK drives are amazing. Noisy to my ears, but hey so is my 5400RPM Seagate laptop drive... not as noisy as the WD BLKs, but it's still audible.

If you want my recommendation; get some lowspeed mass-storage drives (i.e WD Green), 60GB SSD caching drive, and a 120 - 240 GB SSD main drive.

> SSD maindrive > spare HDDs drives > SSD caching > ad mass-storage drives later.

It's going to take some time (and money) but in the end, more speed and storage is not what you're going to need for a looong time!

13

This is an example of how the warranty on a refurbished unit works. This one has 90 day warranty.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136993

Note: this is the Canadian website.

14

Your recommendation is irrelevant. I intend to set up a RAID 1 with two 1TB drives and a 60GB Boot SSD. This is, of course, short term. In the long run, I intend to set up my own home server (once I get the cash.)

I just needed to know whether WD or SG was better, and why. I've gotten my answer and I'm going with a WD Blue 500GB 7200 RPM drive.