Seagate or WD Green for storage and gaming

[Charlie98]

Also, I've read about the "chirp" noise when the Seagate parks its head...is this still an issue? Any current ST2000DM001 owners who could speak to that?

I have that exact drive as my primary storage HDD in my main desktop... no chirpy. (6400hrs on it.)

Seagate got a little bad rep off the .11 drives (or was it the .10 drives???) and, like the whole OCZ SSD hate thing, there is some of that distrust lingering. I think Seagate makes good drives, as good as any other of the big 4 (WD, Hitachi, Toshiba, Seagate.)

 

[Ketchup]

I think the OP is thinking about this too hard. You want a Green? get a green. You want a Seagate? get a seagate, etc.

I have experiences with pretty much all brands, and I still don't have a brand that I hate. Yeah, I personally wouldn't get a Green drive, but since it isn't running the OS, the speed is probably tolerable. If you want it to last, just change the park timer, as I imagine the spinning up and down would make the drive go out faster than just sitting there with a consistent spin.

 

[pauldun170]

Thanks for the responses. I passed on the WD Black due to it being $50-60 more and loud. The warranty is nice but you're paying so much extra for it.

I would not feel like changing the park timer on the Green, so I am still concerned about reliability with the default timer (not sure if it's 8 or 30 sec on new drives by default).

I guess I could consider a Seagate Hybrid drive, the price is in between the normal Seagate and a WD Black, and the warranty is 3 years. My initial impression was the extra cost would not be worth it for games and document storage.

With Cerb's and others' comments I do believe the Green is a slow drive, but again, I'm just not sure how much real-world impact it will have on game load and install times. Given that the drive's only other purpose is storage and we've pretty much ruled out in-game streaming as being much of a concern, game install and load times is the only place speed will affect me much. I haven't found enough data to suggest whether I'm looking at a couple second or 30+ sec difference for those things.

I would agree there's no reason not to get the faster 7200 RPM drive if price is nearly the same, except for I still don't trust Seagate as much as WD from what I'm reading. Maybe it would be fine, but there are so many more bad reports of them on Newegg.

Also, I've read about the "chirp" noise when the Seagate parks its head...is this still an issue? Any current ST2000DM001 owners who could speak to that?

I have WD Black drives in 500gb, 1TB and 3tb varieties. Wouldn't consider any of them loud.

WD green drives are fine as long as you use them for what they are intended.

WD Black hard drives are tested and recommended for use in PCs, high-performance workstations, all-in-one PCs, gaming PCs, game consoles, home media PCs and notebook computers.*

WD Desktop Performance hard drives are tested and recommended for use in PCs and high-performance workstations.*

WD Blue storage is tested and recommended for use in desktop and All-in-One PCs, industrial applications, notebooks, and external enclosures where capacity is not needed. For additional capacity, look at WD Green capacity storage drives.

WD Desktop mainstream hard drives are ideal for office and web applications, as extra storage for your PC, upgrading your PC and for backing up your important files.

WD Green storage is tested and recommended for primary use in desktop and All-in-One PCs, as secondary storage for archiving.

A place to drop backups.

In other words, WD green do not fit your usage.
When folks start using them as OS drives, steam directories or in NAS boxes they run the risks of early failures.

 

[antef]

Thanks Charlie98, good to hear.

pauldun170, I'm glad the WD Black isn't too loud for you. I think you are misreading the WD recommended use quote though. The full thing says:

WD Green storage is tested and recommended for primary use in desktop and All-in-One PCs, as secondary storage for archiving, in external cases or as reliable backup storage.

It sounds like they are saying all of those are acceptable uses, the first of which is "primary use in desktop and All-in-One PCs." In other words, while they might not be the fastest for a primary drive, I don't think using them as a primary drive is outside of WD's recommendations or specs at all.

 

[pauldun170]

Thanks Charlie98, good to hear.

pauldun170, I'm glad the WD Black isn't too loud for you. I think you are misreading the WD recommended use quote though. The full thing says:



It sounds like they are saying all of those are acceptable uses, the first of which is "primary use in desktop and All-in-One PCs." In other words, while they might not be the fastest for a primary drive, I don't think using them as a primary drive is outside of WD's recommendations or specs at all.

Probably.
Bias against using them as primary drives is probably impacting my interpretation.

 

[Cerb]

You sure about that? Seems strange that they would offer shorter warranties on the (more expensive!) retail-box models.

Apparently now they don't. Nice (for retail). Looks like the externals are mostly 1-yr, and the rest 2+.

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp

Also, don't you love their super competitive tactics, where they match each other in these things?

 

[mikeymikec]

I wouldn't call WD Blacks loud but I can hear it spin up in my PC when it's needed on occasion (I have a boot SSD).

Someone said something like "if you can sleep better knowing you have a 5-year warranty", it's more along the lines for me that data drives should last. The two most irritating things to fail in a PC are the motherboard and the OS boot drive (and that's even when backups are available).

 

[ArisVer]

FWIW, in my one unit in-depth highly technical review... I have a 500GB Green in AV recording... it has something like 20000 hours on it and has been 100%. But. It writes 24/7, never rests (head parks,) and I don't access it on a regular basis. It IS noisy as hell... the unit is in my master closet, and on a quiet night (the dog isn't snoring...) I can hear it writing when I'm in bed... 20' away, through 2 doorways, around the corner up on a shelf.

I am less than a foot away from a WD Green 1 TB, the case is open, and I can only hear a faint noise when I am writing on the disk.

 

[Cerb]

Yup, I feel like they set the bar for what I regard to be 'decent' in terms of HDDs (particularly with regard to performance), the 5 year warranty was the reason why I used to buy Seagate drives.

The only niggle I have with WD is that I've seen a 5 year warranty drive fail in 6 months (just one of those things, it happens), but then the drive it's replaced with only has a 6 month warranty. I can't help but feel short-changed in that scenario.

The drive it's replaced with carries the warranty of the original. You might have to keep records, however, for that to work out (since everything is logged in emails, usually, that isn't too much extra work).

 

[futurefields]

my 500gb wd black is whisper quiet, the 3tb i can hear, wouldnt call it loud though Antec 300 is kind of a noisy case

 

[antef]

I wouldn't call WD Blacks loud but I can hear it spin up in my PC when it's needed on occasion (I have a boot SSD).

Someone said something like "if you can sleep better knowing you have a 5-year warranty", it's more along the lines for me that data drives should last. The two most irritating things to fail in a PC are the motherboard and the OS boot drive (and that's even when backups are available).

I agree that a data drive should last awhile. Hard drives aren't even improving nowadays, so if you get enough capacity you'd want it to last for 5+ years. I get the impression any WD is more reliable than a Seagate, but there are plenty of happy Seagate owners too. I do like that the WD Greens seem to be the quietest out there as well.

After all this discussion it has boiled down to simply speed vs. reliability between these two options.

 

[Charlie98]

I am less than a foot away from a WD Green 1 TB, the case is open, and I can only hear a faint noise when I am writing on the disk.

Want to trade? I need to upgrade to a 1TB drive...

Hard drives aren't even improving nowadays, so if you get enough capacity you'd want it to last for 5+ years

Aside from actual disk improvements, I don't see how they can improve HDDs much beyond where they are at, except in controller software (WD has mastered the art of selling the same drive with a different label... )

 

[Puffnstuff]

WD needs to lower the prices on the veloraptors and make them hybrid like the Seagate momentus xt's.

 

[mikeymikec]

The drive it's replaced with carries the warranty of the original. You might have to keep records, however, for that to work out (since everything is logged in emails, usually, that isn't too much extra work).

IIRC I asked the WD support rep at the time and he said six months.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I bought a 3 TB Green after a lot of soul-searching maybe 6 months ago.

No issues yet. I have no idea how long it will last, but I had no more confidence in any of the competing drives--Red, Seagate, HGST, Toshiba.

It's a backup data drive only, so I wasn't overly concerned with speed.

But I tested the speed anyway. Turns out it's about 10 percent faster than my primary data drive--a 7200 rpm Samsung 103 SJ, which was among the fastest 7200 rpm drives when I bought it in 2011. I guess the increased density on the platters counts for something.

I wouldn't agonize over your choice. You can find many many complaints about any of them. I'd consider price, warranty, RMA privileges, and retailer support and then just take a leap of faith and don't look back. You're rolling dice to a large extent regardless of your choice.

 

[Cerb]

IIRC I asked the WD support rep at the time and he said six months.

I would be pissed, if that were the case. I have in the past RMA'd replaced items with WD, well past the silly "warranty" the replaced item's own serial number suggests.

As of Feb this year:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...t-product-is-shorter-than-the-warranty-on-the

Basically, it's whichever is longer, though you might need the old drive's SN to get the RMA.

 

[mikeymikec]

I would be pissed, if that were the case. I have in the past RMA'd replaced items with WD, well past the silly "warranty" the replaced item's own serial number suggests.

As of Feb this year:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers...t-product-is-shorter-than-the-warranty-on-the

Basically, it's whichever is longer, though you might need the old drive's SN to get the RMA.

Ah, ok. My last WD RMA was mid 2011 IIRC.

 

[denis280]

WD Black.if its for games for sure.

 

[BFG10K]

For games I'd get a Black. With that said, 1TB platter Greens can be ok.

Here are some tests I ran using such a Green drive against an older 500GB platter Black:

 

[Cerb]

For a short time, I used a Green in just that capacity. Where a Green can become a spiteful device is after enough idle time for the heads to park, you go to use it again, like loading a save (mainly, populating the save game list), or reaching a new area. With a more typical desktop HDD, waiting for the heads to get back on the platter and figure out their position, before seeking again, isn&#8217;t needed, and it's not an instant action. You can change that with a DOS boot <device of choice>, or Linux tools, which would take care of it, but most Windows users aren't up for doing either; and the cost difference against a similar 7200 RPM drive is very small.

 

[Dasa2]

why not toshiba? 3y warranty 7200rpm no head parking and work well in raid unlike wd green or seagate desktop drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149396

not sure why this hitachi ultrastar only has 1y warranty instead of 3-5 they normally come with but its almost half price and once of the most reliable drives available
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5AD29R7593

 

[Texun]

why not toshiba? 3y warranty 7200rpm no head parking and work well in raid unlike wd green or seagate desktop drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822149396

not sure why this hitachi ultrastar only has 1y warranty instead of 3-5 they normally come with but its almost half price and once of the most reliable drives available
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5AD29R7593

Looks like warranties posted at NE are a little odd. I bought a 500G HGST Untrastar from NE last week advertised as having a 3 year warranty. It's going in a customer's PC and the mfr. date was November 2013 so I ran a check on the serial number with HGST. Turns out HGST says it is warranted until 11/2018. 4 years makes no sense but whatever....


To the OP: Buy whatever your gut tells you is right. Everyone makes a bad drive now and then and I use WD for my own computers. I'm told Seagate makes good drives, and I'm sure they do, they just never made a good one for me. As far as the WD Blacks, I've used them and can't tell they make any more noise than any other 7200 RPM drive. They may not be as quiet as Seagate but I wouldn't let that sway my decision. They are quiet IMO, just not the quietest. They cost a little more but I haven't had any regrets. If you frequently upgrade your drives then I wouldn't worry about the warranty. Any decent drive should last at least a couple of years.

 

[Zodiark1593]

For a short time, I used a Green in just that capacity. Where a Green can become a spiteful device is after enough idle time for the heads to park, you go to use it again, like loading a save (mainly, populating the save game list), or reaching a new area. With a more typical desktop HDD, waiting for the heads to get back on the platter and figure out their position, before seeking again, isn’t needed, and it's not an instant action. You can change that with a DOS boot <device of choice>, or Linux tools, which would take care of it, but most Windows users aren't up for doing either; and the cost difference against a similar 7200 RPM drive is very small.

Agreed, even as a storage drive, once the heads park, good luck getting anywhere for another 10 seconds. Aside from that, performance is actually pretty solid for a spindle drive. I've no issues hitting 150 MB/s over eSATA when transferring video files to my 2 TB Green drive.

 

[antef]

Thanks for all the replies. Biggest concern is the access delay (up to 10 seconds??) Cerb and Zodiark1593 mention, which doesn't sound good. What I'm confused by though is that people say the Seagate parks its heads too (just after more time I'm assuming). So wouldn't it be subject to the same thing after you don't access the drive for 30 seconds or whatever?

Thanks for the performance numbers from ignatzatsonic and BFG10K...I think based on that it's clear that the WD Green would still perform better than my old Samsung and loading times wouldn't be that much different compared to a faster drive, so it's not a huge concern.

Price and warranty are the same across the drives. Actual RMA experience is another matter - I suspect Seagate is worse due to their hiding of warranty info on the site, but who knows. The Toshibas have confused me regarding warranty and the reviews saying the drive you linked is actually another drive with a different model number. Seemed a surer thing to stick with the two main brands.

My gut was telling me WD due to reliability, but that may be misplaced. I don't frequently upgrade drives though and would like to keep it 5+ years if possible. A WD Black is still an option I guess depending on price, but nearly double the Seagate is tough.

 

[Cerb]

Many drives park their heads, though mostly the slow "green" types in the 3.5" size. In modern HDDs, one reason you don't get head crashes from bad shutdowns anymore is that the permanent magnet for the armature pulls it off the platter. If it's on the platter, power is being used to keep it floating. If power is removed, it flies off the platter before the platter can slow down enough to not give it an air cushion. So, the "green" style drives (not only WD's, they just used a delay that happened to mess with fixed Linux timer values) use fast head parking as one of their tricks to lower average power use by a little bit.

With one drive, I wouldn't put much stock in any reliability. Almost all of them will last 3+ years, with some small % dying very early on. The chances of non-infant failure too soon with any popular drive are pretty slim, even if you could assume a substantial difference between brands, and bought the worst of them. On the other hand, it's also sufficiently unpredictable that, if worried abut uptime or your data, backups and/or spare drives are the way to go, rather than hedging your bets on reliability of a single storage device.