seeking recommendations for hard drive replacement

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barlowc

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Hi guys. The Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1 GB drive in my desktop PC started having problems and diagnostics showed that SMART was tripped. Fortunately I got everything off of it before any data loss, so all is good.

The drive is out of warranty and I'm looking to replace it. My desktop PC is pretty old, running a an Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6400 2.13 GHz with 4 GB of RAM and Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit. It's used for general computing and also serves as my DVR. (I have a two-tuner card and use Windows Media Center.)

Options I'm considering are a) Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s, and b) Western Digital WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s. Cost is around $55 on Amazon and I have Prime so shipping will be fast and free.

Thoughts, suggestions, or things I should be considering?
 
I haven't used Seagate in a while, the quality on all HDDs went in the [censored] a long time ago, but that being said i would prefer the WD blue strongly over any Seagate at this time. Try a WD Black if you can.
 
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
i would prefer the WD blue strongly over any Seagate at this time. Try a WD Black if you can.

The WD Black 1 TB drive is only $20 more than the Blue. Given that the PC runs 24/7/365, maybe it's worth it. And it looks like the Black has a 5-year warranty versus the 2-year warranty on the Blue.
 
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Originally Posted By: barlowc
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
i would prefer the WD blue strongly over any Seagate at this time. Try a WD Black if you can.

The WD Black 1 GB drive is only $20 more than the Blue. Given that the PC runs 24/7/365, maybe it's worth it. And it looks like the Black has a 5-year warranty versus the 2-year warranty on the Blue.


I hope you meant 1 TB.
 
I would suggest a hybrid drive to speed up your old rig and give it way more life.
 
Originally Posted By: rjundi
I would suggest a hybrid drive to speed up your old rig and give it way more life.

I had considered that about a year ago. At the time, I was going to drop in an SSD, run the OS and applications off of it, and use the 1 GB for pure storage. But in this thread there was some feedback (i.e. ToyotaNSaturn's post on page 3) that suggested my old machine may not benefit much due to lack of processing power and maxing out the bus.

Rand, thanks for the Newegg coupon code! Will save me $5 over the Amazon price.
 
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Originally Posted By: JBinTX30
If you are using the PC as a DVR especially, you could go for the Western Digital RED drives.

What's the difference between Black and Red? Both are 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s. Black is listed as 7200 RPM while Red is listed as IntelliPower. Some quick investigation indicates that Red may be 5400 or 5900 and that Black might be better as a machine's primary drive.
 
Yeah, as a primary id go with the WD Black or the Seagate SSHD. WD RED are 5400rpm IIRC.

Also, more of a technical extra tidbit: The Seagate 1tb hybrid would be quite a bit faster then your old ST31000528AS. Not just becausee it is a SSD/HDD but new Seagate is a single platter design and the old one is 2 platter design. I'm sure even the WD RED with 5400rpm would be faster then the old Seagate simply due to platter density.

But I would suggest the Seagate SSHD it caches the most accessed files to the SSD portion.
 
Originally Posted By: JBinTX30
For a Hybrid Drive, which someone suggested, I would recommend one of these.

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-Solid-Hybrid-ST1000DX001/dp/B00EIQTOFY

I guess I thought a hybrid drive was one that had part SSD and part traditional HB all-in-one. Maybe that's a different type of "hybrid"?

As I read about the Seagate Hybrid, I'm intrigued. Given that it doesn't require any special drivers and installs just like a standard SATA drive, I should be able to use Acronis to the simply duplicate the 320 GB drive I'm running now and not have to reinstall the OS, apps, etc. like I would if switching to an SSD.

Hmm... for $78 on Amazon, the 1 TB Seagate Hybrid may be the choice option. It sure seems to get good reviews.
 
Originally Posted By: JBinTX30
But I would suggest the Seagate SSHD it caches the most accessed files to the SSD portion.

Can you force the OS to be saved to the SSD portion, or does the drive dynamically determine on its own which files to store in SSD?
 
It would do it automatically, AFAIK it doesn't show up as a separate partition. After a few reboots on a fresh install, most of the start-up files would be cached.
 
Originally Posted By: barlowc
Originally Posted By: rjundi
I would suggest a hybrid drive to speed up your old rig and give it way more life.

I had considered that about a year ago. At the time, I was going to drop in an SSD, run the OS and applications off of it, and use the 1 GB for pure storage. But in this thread there was some feedback (i.e. ToyotaNSaturn's post on page 3) that suggested my old machine may not benefit much due to lack of processing power and maxing out the bus.


You have a Core 2 Duo machine -- PLENTY of power for a SSD upgrade. On purely sequential speed alone, even with SATA II, you're looking at 285MB/s, around 100MB/s faster than the Barracuda you're looking at.

WD Green 3TB will be an excellent mass storage drive. $100

Kingston HyperX 120GB will be a great system drive. $75
 
Originally Posted By: JBinTX30
It would do it automatically, AFAIK it doesn't show up as a separate partition. After a few reboots on a fresh install, most of the start-up files would be cached.

This is my understanding too. Seagate uses something they call "Adaptive Memory Technology".

When Seagate introduced SSHD technology, the company created a set of advanced algorithms to track data usage and prioritize frequently used data for storage in the fast, solid state portion of the device. These algorithms, which form the basis of Adaptive Memory technology, were designed to change data priorities as different applications requested new data over time.

They have a whitepaper on it here.
 
There are four basic different types of Western Digital drives,
the Black, a robust hard use drive,
the Green, a light use drive that shuts off to save power
the Blue, a laptop drive, not as robust as the black
The Red, a Black drive with the Green's power saving features.

On the Red and Greens, Western Digital is having problems with the Intellipark,
which is supposed to put the drive to "sleep" to save power.
The wait time is too short.
and drives are constantly waking and sleeping,
with the result that they wear out.

Adjust the wait time to a higher number....
 
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I'm rather bullish of the new Toshiba 3.5" Drives, since they are basically Hitachis, since Toshiba bought Hitachis 3.5" manufacturing when WD purchased HGST. Other than that, I've had good luck with Western Digital drives. I have 4 green drives right now, all working well.
 
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