Can someone recommend a SATA HDD for me please?

[disco-tom]

Preferably one that doesn't shit itself with no warning signs.

I have a 160Gb Seagate Barracuda at the moment that gets quite heavy use as a data storage disc which I stream music and video from a lot. It's also pretty much in constant use by a program accessing the same files over a long period of time.

Woke up this morning and stepped into the living room to hear a strange whirring noise and I find that windows no longer recognised the drive as being present. I turned it off, took the drive out and had a very pointless look at the drive, blew on the connections most likely fruitlessly and put it back together.

I booted the PC up and it's working again for now, so I'm currently backing up what I can to the main system drive, but now I need to get something which I can rely on. So, this is where all you PC folks way better than me come along and argue the toss over which HDD manufacturer to go with.

I'm thinking of getting a 1TB internal drive to replace this dying/dead one and also getting an external 1TB drive to do more regular backups to.


But in case I'm being a moron and just ignoring/not recognising the warning signs of a dying Seagate drive, could someone also inform me of what they are, please?

Cheers..

[Cluck]

Sadly, there are no drives around that don't shit themselves without warning

In theory, the ones designed for RAID systems are more reliable but I haven't seen first hand evidence of that. If you want one, look at the Western Digital RE edition drives . I can't remember what Seagate called theirs because it's a few years since I've sold Seagate.

Personally, I use Western Digital drives. Reliability seems to be OK on the whole, although I did see something on The Register yesterday (or was it Blues News? ) that showed one retailer had a high failure rate on their 2TB drives - was 10% I think .

As for impending doom signs, all you can do is listen out for unusual drive noises and watch out for unusual delays in software loading when the hard disk light is on solid (ie. not even the slightest sign of a flicker).

EDIT : Oh and if you get a standard WD drive, avoid the 'Blue' and 'Green' drives. They are the budget and low-power versions and aren't as fast as the 'Black' range.

[disco-tom]

Thanks Cluck, that's pretty much what I saw Tom's Hardware and AVForums say when I Googled the question this morning.

I looked at SSD's this morning too and if it wasn't for the comparatively high cost per GB and the fact that they slow down over time (can't Trim as on XP), I'd have gone for them. Well, that and the fact that as it's relatively early days, it's not going to be the most reliable I wouldn't think - which is what I'm after more than anything.

I have read of some people mentioning Samsung F series drives in a good light. Have you had any experience with them?

[disco-tom]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/193712

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/226057

Out of the two above, which would you pick?
Thinking of buying two, getting an external caddy and using one of them as a backup drive.

I'm guessing that usually, hard drive failure is related to the amount of use it sees? If that's the case, then maybe a slower, bigger hard drive might be a better prospect for long term storage/back-up use?

[Cluck]

Bloody hell, I didn't realise the price of the RE drives had risen so sharply . The last time I looked (a good 2 years ago at least), I'm sure the difference was only a few pounds at most. I've just checked with my distis and the price difference to me is £17 ex. VAT.

If you can justify the extra expense then it might be worth doing. However, how much material difference there is between the 2 drives is not something I know I'm afraid .

Samsung drives are supposed to be very fast, but I don't use them myself so can't comment on reliability . I would normally say, as with most things, the candle that burns twice as brightly, burns twice as fast. It's why I have such a low opinion of Asus products TBH.

EDIT : As for usage, not really. I regularly see drive failures in home PCs that are used for probably less than an hour a day on average. It's just one of those things that you can't predict when you but the drive. If you go in with the approach "this drive is going to fail, so what can I do to mitigate against that" then you won't go far wrong .

[disco-tom]

Not a fan of Asus eh? Best not tell you that I use a T3 then.

The video card's already died (XFX 8600GT). Came home one day in the summer to find four of the capacitors had popped. Might have been due to the heat in such a small case. Now I know why they score a 'K' into the top of them. And the case fans haven't really cut the mustard in getting the dust out. Nice and quiet, though - I'll give it that.

I wonder what else will go in it? You know, the rule of three and all that...

[Cluck]

Not a fan of Asus eh? Best not tell you [CODE]that I use a T3 then.

The video card's already died (XFX 8600GT). Came home one day in the summer to find four of the capacitors had popped. Might have been due to the heat in such a small case. Now I know why they score a 'K' into the top of them. And the case fans haven't really cut the mustard in getting the dust out. Nice and quiet, though - I'll give it that.

I wonder what else will go in it? You know, the rule of three and all that...

I know this is off-topic, but the problem with products is that most people only see their own items. If it fails, they'll put it down to being 'one of those things' and move on - probably buying the same brand again.

A lot of people will read reviews to get their info, but reviewers simply can't hold onto a product long enough to let people know about reliability. It's all about "how does this product perform today and over the very short time I've had it". Guess what? Asus score very highly on a regular basis. The products aren't necessarily the cheapest, but they perform well in benchmarks.

When you're a techy and you see product after product after product die, you start to question the quality of the brand . I could list my experiences with various brands over the last 17 years, but it would probably result in a huuuuuuuuuuge argument. Most of my opinions are well enough known already . It's funny really, but the three brands I reserve the most vitriolic bile for all begin with the letter 'A' .

Anyway, back on topic, if your WD drive fails, don't blame me . I've seen a couple of them die recently, but considering the number of drives we sold from the shop (and I've sold since), the VERY small number of failures I've seen really doesn't concern me in the slightest . We stopped selling Seagate because we were getting insanely high failure rates - I don't have the exact figures to hand, but I get the feeling it was in the order of 1 in 4 drives, less than a year old, that were failing .

[disco-tom]

To be fair, this is only my second PC and I didn't really research it that much other than look at the spec sheet of the components and how it compared with other customisable pre-built systems.

I've plumped for 2 of the Caviar Black drives and this little adaptor cable thingy for externally hooking stuff up. Might be able to get some old stuff off my IDE drives I have lying about as well. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143274

[ian_83]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

thats what you want, it's a beast! It even out performs raptors

[dow]

Yep, the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1tb is a drive I'm considering to twin up in a raid0 setup to replace a velociraptor in a few months...

Also, OCUK have 2x500gb RE2 drives available in a RaidPAck for around 50 quid at the moment.

I have an SSD for booting though, the raptor is my games drive at the moment.

[baker_001]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

thats what you want, it's a beast! It even out performs raptors

This is what I have now, and so far its brilliant. There is a good review over on bittech

[disco-tom]

I haven't got room for Raid in my case unless I run only one drive for system and data. Plus, I cba to do a re-install just to set up Raid.

Thing is, I had no problems with the Seagate drive before it decided to start dying. I'm not after bleeding edge performance; just some sense of reliability. But nothing these days could be classed as reliable. Especially when it comes to PC components, it seems.

[disco-tom]

Right, before something gets put through a ****ing wall, please somebody help me.


So I remove the offending 160gb drive and bung the new 1tb drive in and boot up, only it doesn't boot. Gives me a boot sequence error. So, thinking I have removed the wrong drive, I check and sure enough, I have a 160gb drive in my hand and the 250gb drive still in there. The 160gb drive is my data drive and the 250gb drive is my system drive. I have three sata connectors on my mother board and they are plugged in as follows:

Sata 1 = E drive (Data - 160gb)
Sata 2 = DVD/RW drive
Sata 3 = C drive (system 250gb)

I would have assumed that the system drive would have been best off plugged into Sata 1, but I didn't build it.

I check the Bios and the boot sequence is odd as it lists the 1st port of call as the 160gb data drive, 2nd as the DVD/RW drive and the 3rd is disabled.
The HDD list shows the 160gb drive as number one and the 250gb drive as number two. This makes sense considering which Sata port they're plugged into on the mobo.

So, thinking I can fix it, I change the bios so that it recognises the 250gb drive as the 1st drive and the 160gb as the 2nd. Go back to the boot sequence and it now shows 1st port of call as the 250gb drive, 2nd as the DVD/RW and 3rd still disabled. I can swap this sequence around, but only being able to choose from the 250gb, DVD/RW and 'Disabled' (160gb is not available to select). Likewise before I changed the drive order, the 250gb wasn't available to select in the boot sequence and the 160gb was.

But, a reboot and another boot sequence error later, I go back to the drawing board.

I tried plugging the 250gb drive into the Sata 1 port on the mobo and leaving the 160gb drive unplugged altogether from the mobo. Go into the bios and sure enough, only the 250gb drive is visible and is the 1st port of call in the boot sequence. So, let it boot up and nothing. I got a bigger boot error telling me some hardware was missing or something I think (sorry, I should have made a better note of the error message).

I plug things back in as they were; 160gb in Sata 1 and 1st in boot sequence with the 250gb in Sata 2 and not part of the boot sequence. Sure enough, the PC fires up and I'm here typing this.


Now, what this says to me is that somehow, the XP install has ended up on both drives or something. I can see all the Windows files on the 250gb C drive as one would expect. As far as Windows explorer goes, all I can see on the 160gb E drive is a "My Documents" folder with all the video's I couldn't fit on the 250gb drive when I moved all the stuff to it on Saturday.
I notice though, that if I use my networked XBox and navigate my way to the E drive via a shared, mounted volume, it also lists a RECYCLER and System Volume Information folders which are invisible in windows explorer. That's likely because I've shared the root of the E-drive though and the C-drive probably has them too, but as I've not shared the root, the XBox doesn't see them.


I'm so bastard confused right now, I have no idea how I'm going to bin off the 160gb drive and install the 1tb drive...

[Cluck]

Click Start
Right-Click My Computer
Left-Click Manage
Click on Disk Management

Take a screenshot and post it up. I'll bet the 160GB drive is the boot drive for some reason

[Wolfe]

I concur with cluck - sounds like your boot data is on the 160GB with Windows on the 250 :S

Sounds like an ideal time to have a fresh install to me

[Cluck]

Assuming the 160GB drive is the boot drive then you need to get the 250GB drive acting as the master boot drive.

Whip the 160GB drive out (and leave the 1TB drive out for the time being.

Boot up with the Windows XP CD and get to the repair console (choose the first 'R' repair option available).

Type fixboot and press Enter
Type fixmbr and press Enter
Type bootcfg /rebuild and press Enter

Reboot and it should boot on the 250GB drive. With a bit of luck!

[Asht_200]

I believe the bootloader will install parts of itself onto disk 1 though for legacy reasons, even attempting to install everything onto the 250GB (Disk 3) will result with some of the bootloader being installed onto disk 1.

You could try installing the 1TB as disk 1 (replace the 160GB) then doing a repair of the install.

[disco-tom]

Never thought to check that. The 160gb drive is showing as the system drive and the 250gb drive is showing as the boot drive.

And unfortunately, the only XP disc I have is an old, pre SP1 disc that I got with my first pc 7 years a go... Didn't get one when I got this pc a couple of years ago.

Not a huge issue to download a standalone SP3 though, I guess (as long as it includes all SP1 and 2 upgrades needed as well). Sorting out where to put the data in the meantime is a quandry. I need to get the 1tb discs formatted as well. Bit hard when I have no way of plugging them in until I can free up a bay.

Actually, saying that, maybe using the DVD/RW's Sata socket will let windows see the drive (there's a spare power plug).

[Cluck]

I believe the bootloader will install parts of itself onto disk 1 though for legacy reasons, even attempting to install everything onto the 250GB (Disk 3) will result with some of the bootloader being installed onto disk 1.

You could try installing the 1TB as disk 1 (replace the 160GB) then doing a repair of the install.

Or just clone it using something like Acronis TrueImage . Not sure if the trial versions are still 100% functional, but they used to be. It means you can download the trial, clone your drive and then uninstall it .

EDIT : And if the XP CD is that old, then it won't work with the larger drives anyway, so ignore my previous post

[disco-tom]

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I understand what to do here now.

So my XP disc from seven years ago won't like working with a 250gb drive? Why so? And where do I clone my drive to? I don't have room to save the image on my 250gb drive. I want to get my 250gb drive as disc 1 in the Sata 1 socket and have my entire system on that, then I'll go about bunging the 1tb drive in later and use that purely for data storage.


Why does everything have to be so un-bloody-straightforward with PC's?