Which Hard drive to purchase

[craigap]

With all the different variants of hard drives out there from WD's blue/green/purple/red/black and Seagate equivalents, etc; which hard drives are best for recording up to 6 OTA recordings while simultaneously playing a couple streams. I was considering one 3TB drive, or two 2TB drives in case the load on one drive would be more than it could potentially handle. The 1TB capacity difference between the 2 choices is not relevant to my needs. Thanks.

[BobPhoenix]

My current favorite manufacturer is Hitachi/HGST (technically WD). I seem to have had fewer failure rates with them then others. The worst failure rate was with Seagate ST3000DM001 but I don't believe all their models are as bad as those have been. My Seagate ST4000D?000 have been fine for instance. I do have several WD Reds in 2, 3, 4 & 6TB sizes (non-pro) 3TB are my current recording drives rest are on WHS and unRAID servers. I also have 8 1TB WD blacks as recording drives on another SageTV server. I use Toshiba and some old "REAL" Hitachi drives as well on my unRAID servers. So you can see I have a mix of drives. I also test the drives thoroughly before I use them now to weed out any DOAs. I used the ST3000DM001 drives as recording drives at first and I didn't test them like I should have. I might think better of them if had rather than lose recordings later when they died. Another thing I've done lately is to buy drives in ones or twos at a time and month(s) apart to help minimize any DOA's when buying drives. I do like to have multiple drives in my servers to record from not sure it really helps but I tend to batch move files to my unRAID servers so try to record to and copy from different drives at the same time.

So to make a long story short whatever brand you get make sure you test them completely. I use the unRAID preclear script on all drives even ones not destined for an unRAID server to weed out bad drives early. Several passes with the HDD manufacturers program would probably work as well.

[ThePaladinTech]

I'll back that up - I've used many different drives over the years. Right now my best luck has been with WD Reds (after initially having HORRIBLE luck with them) and Toshiba (which is hitachi ... which is WD now)

My last few seagates (ten of them) have failed around the 2 year mark.

[matt91]

I too use WD Red's (3 & 4 GB), but am planning to try the HGST whenever i next need a drive.

[MattHelm]

I used 1,1.5 and 2TB WD greens for years (~5). I just switched then out as I was running low on space, and added 4x 3TB purples. They are fine so far, but I think I'd switch back to the Greens, if given a second chance.

For your hook up, I'd go with 2 drive, but I think any 2 brands or models would work. I don't think I'd try 6+2 streams on any single drive.

[jm9843]

but I think I'd switch back to the Greens, if given a second chance.

I'd think twice if I were you. It's anecdotal, but I've had multiple Green drive failures under the two year mark. I won't buy another.

[tmiranda]

As you can see, it's a crap shoot. Buy the cheapest one.

[QueOnda]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

As you can see, it's a crap shoot. Buy the cheapest one.

And backup! or buy the put them on raid 1 or better.

[Fuzzy]

I've had great success with WD's AV-GP drives (now called Purple). Their cache is tuned perfectly for the write-centric use in a DVR, as opposed to the read-centric usage of most 'desktop' drives.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

As you can see, it's a crap shoot. Buy the cheapest one.

+1 - there really isn't a gaurantee from my experience. Add to the "cheapest", the longest warranty - three years preferably. At least when you lose all your recordings, you won't lose your money as well

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

As you can see, it's a crap shoot. Buy the cheapest one.

Exactly! Run something like HD Sentinel and you won't have to worry about an impending failure. Even after all the Seagates I've had fail on me, they're still the best value out there, so I continue to buy them. HDS lets me know if they're about to fail and I RMA them. It doesn't get any easier.

[jm9843]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

It doesn't get any easier.

Except for the process of replacing the disk, migrating the recordings, mailing the failing drive for the RMA, and then getting a refurb back.

I'd rather just delay that for as long as possible. I had an old Western Digital server class drive that I used as a boot disk through three different server builds (and many faulty WD Green and desktop class Seagate drives). I recently replaced it with an SSD but it still works fine; and I can't even recall when I purchased it.

[Wayneb]

Originally Posted by jm9843

I'd think twice if I were you. It's anecdotal, but I've had multiple Green drive failures under the two year mark. I won't buy another.

That has been experience also, I bought a lot of 2TB greens and they all died in less than two years, my Seagates also start to go bad around the two year mark.
My current drives are all HGST NAS 4TB drives and they are all working well.

I read that even though WD bought out HGST that they are still made in the same plant Hitachi was using so hopefully they will still last as long.

[EnterNoEscape]

Originally Posted by BobPhoenix

The worst failure rate was with Seagate ST3000DM001 but I don't believe all their models are as bad as those have been.

I will vouch for this too. I have an 18TB NAS (RAID6) that was filled with these drives. I keep a spreadsheet to track how long my hard drives are in service before failure. Most of the ST3000DM001 drives failed in less than a year and their warranty replacements lasted less than 3 months. I stopped warranty replacing them because it's not worth the hassle for a few more months before another random failure.

I started buying DT01ACA300 drives to replace them. I have had a lot more luck with them and recently I've been buying Toshiba's latest 5TB drive (PH3500U-1I72) since the $/GB ratio is swinging in it's favor and for which you will find in many reviews has an identity crisis. The stores and the boxes report the drive has 64MB cache, but the hard drive inside the box reports 32GB and a different model number (MD04ACA500), but a matching serial number to the box. Knowing this was going to happen, it didn't bother me as much as other reviewers.

[KryptoNyte]

Originally Posted by Wayneb

That has been experience also, I bought a lot of 2TB greens and they all died in less than two years, my Seagates also start to go bad around the two year mark.
My current drives are all HGST NAS 4TB drives and they are all working well.

I read that even though WD bought out HGST that they are still made in the same plant Hitachi was using so hopefully they will still last as long.

I also had (3) of the 2TB green drives in RAID0 and all three of them failed within the warranty period. WD sent me (3) 3TB green drives as a replacement. I immediately disabled the head parking before putting them into service.

I have 4 large Seagate drives, all of them over 2 years old, haven't lost one yet. Every time this conversation comes up there's a mixed bag of user experiences with any given brand and model it seems.

[SHS]

I have used Seagate for min years I have one 500GB that 7+ old and
On avg seagate should have 24/7 run life about 4+
As rule you replace them after 4 years unless there bad noise or heath status change with smart and use them as non run for file backup

[craigap]

Thanks for all the replies. I may not have been clear enough on my question. Most of the responses seem to lead more toward a brand preference. I was more interested in the design of the drive. For example some drives are targeted for NAS applications (i.e. WD Red), others for surveillance system recording (i.e. WD Purple), and some for power computing (i.e. WD Black). I was more interested in if a particular drives targeted use (of any brand)was more or less effective for recording television at the usage rates in the original post.
Thanks

[EnterNoEscape]

I would avoid any drives less tha 7200RPM. I used to use two 1.5TB WD Green drives for recordings and had all kinds of issues with them keeping up. I also used two 1.5TB Hitachi 5600RPM drives that didn't fair much better. I now use 2 1.5TB 7200RPM Hitachi drives and have SageTV balancing the recording load between the drives like I did on the previous setup and the experience has improved immensely. Keep in mind that at times I would be recording 12 things at the same time, but even with less than that, I think the seek performance was causing problems.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by EnterNoEscape

I would avoid any drives less tha 7200RPM. I used to use two 1.5TB WD Green drives for recordings and had all kinds of issues with them keeping up. I also used two 1.5TB Hitachi 5600RPM drives that didn't fair much better. I now use 2 1.5TB 7200RPM Hitachi drives and have SageTV balancing the recording load between the drives like I did on the previous setup and the experience has improved immensely. Keep in mind that at times I would be recording 12 things at the same time, but even with less than that, I think the seek performance was causing problems.

That's why I recommended the WD purple drives. Write-centric caching to handle those peak times with a high number of recordings at the same time. Even if I force 4 recordings at a time to one of my WD30PURX drives, the queue length never goes above 0.50, meaning the drive is more than keeping up.

[SHS]

Originally Posted by craigap

Thanks for all the replies. I may not have been clear enough on my question. Most of the responses seem to lead more toward a brand preference. I was more interested in the design of the drive. For example some drives are targeted for NAS applications (i.e. WD Red), others for surveillance system recording (i.e. WD Purple), and some for power computing (i.e. WD Black). I was more interested in if a particular drives targeted use (of any brand)was more or less effective for recording television at the usage rates in the original post.
Thanks

98% is just bunch marketing BS from WD yes and even Seagate and other.
All harddrive build using platters are paired with magnetic heads arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces that has not change in the last 50+ years the thing that has change over the year the hard drive controller.
Most of what pay for Higher RPM and Longer Limited Warranty.