Hi all,

I'm prepared to buy a 2T HD for home use. I have been running WD Caviar Black series for sometimes, having full confidence on its performance and quality. However on searching I found Seagate ST2000VX000 2TB Barracuda offering much better price, very interesting.

Seagate ST2000VX000 2TB Barracuda SV35.5 SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD (7x24 Digital Video)

Specification
=============
http://www.overstock.com/Electronics...9/product.html


WD Caviar Black 2002FAEX 2TB SATA3/64MB HDD

WD Black
SATA Hard Drives
Maximum performance for power computing
http://store.westerndigital.com/stor...emeID.30153100


Could you please shed me some light on selecting them? Is the quality of "Seagate ST2000VX000 2TB Barracuda" reliable? What about its performance vs WD Caviar Black 2002FAEX 2TB?

TIA

B.R.
satimis

I cant find any performance comparison between the Barracuda SV35.5 and WD 2002FAEX. I'd guess that the WD would be a little faster.

Reliablity is very hard to measure. Since the SV35 series are meant to be '24/7' drives, they should be pretty reliable. WD doesnt give out mtbf figures for most drives now, but the blacks are pretty much identical to the RE drives which have a mtbf of 1.2 million hours. The seagate SV35 series have a mtbf of 1 million hours, so they WD blacks might be a little more reliable. Though its not a very good comparison, and sometimes manufacturers will change how they measure mtbf so it might be almost useless comparing mtbf.....

You should probably just stick to the company that you prefer and have had experience with. I usually buy Seagate and avoid WD because a few of their drives have failed me. However, I am loosing confidence in Seagate with some of their more recent issues (firmware and reliability).

Well,
I'm not any brand favourite, and I thought that WD's RE drives would be doing good 24/7 but after 1-2 years operating almost every drive (have 8 in the servers) was failing.
So I couldn't understand the price/reliability of WD if maybe Seagate's Constellation drives were supposed to do the same and cheaper
(well I had replaced WD drives under guarantee and are still used in the servers).

These days the new generation of hard drives are hard to compare in terms of reliability or similar, It would be just your personal choice and price I guess that would matter (the WD and Seagate drives are on the market around 1 year I think, so I guess troubles (if there will be) are still to come).

I hope it helps you a bit.

Hi all,

Thanks for your advice.

Before posting I have been searching around for comparison "2T WD Caviar Black" vs "Seagate ST2000VX000 2TB Barracuda SV35.5" without result. I used Seagate before -> then Maxtor -> and then WD Caviar Black (only this series) for more than 15 years. Only Seagate HD needed replacement once. Seagate Barracuda series are better than other Seagate series. Seagate Barracuda is about 30% cheaper in price than WD Caviar Black. Maybe I'll try.

Seagate ST2000VX000 2TB Barracuda SV35.5 SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD (7x24 Digital Video)
What does it mean "Digital Video"? Thanks

B.R.
satimis

It means "Optimized for 24x7 video surveillance systems."

The Barracuda series is the best I think. I have only bought this type because of low price, good performance, and reliability (usually or in the past anyway).

Thanks

Edit:
Just found "AV Class Hard drive is NOT good for desktop"

AV Class drives have firmware designed specifically to record and playback multiple video streams. Its firmware is very different than desktop firmware.

see;
http://www.hdstor-inc.com/Portals/66...Whitepaper.pdf

satimis

Well, I think I'm gonna buy an AV class HDD for my next PC, it looks even better than a desktop HDD. The firmware doesn't concern me unless it is buggy.

Hi,

Consumer grade drives can and will sometimes fail. Enterprise units can and will sometimes fail. The differences are in the $$ spent for the quality, operational loads or activity that are well beyond consumer uses. Not to rehash the debate so you can look here: Consumer vs Enterprise grade harddrives discussions from tomshardware.

I do not own a drive over 500GB. My SOHO and workbench needs are serviced well by Toshiba, WD & Seagate drives. I have replaced my Laptops HDD with 'SSD' then place the removed drives in USB enclosures to be used among the varied systems.

I would not recommend any of the 'Green' drives from any manufacture to be used for extended use.

I have used Seagate's SV drives in a number of servers and desktops not used for recording video streams and they have all worked just fine. The actually make a very nice server drive sicne they are rated for 24/7 operation. I generally prefer ES series fors servers and raid arrays. Barracuda are maintream desktop drives primarily.

Hi,

Thanks for your advice.

I'll buy a 2T HD for testing ONLY. Neither I'll run it 24x7 nor I'll need 2T in capacity. I have two 1T HDs here, one WD Caviar Black and one Seagate. For already having 2 1T drives I consider to get a 2T HD.

I'm now looking at;
Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB Barracuda SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD
http://www.nexus.com.au/seagate-barr...2000dm001.html
-> Specification.

It's price is quite interesting to me. I can get it here (Hong Kong) at USD98.46 (approx). I have no target budget but avoiding to buy a 14 person van to carry 2/3 persons.

B.R.
satimis

More than a few people would agree on that, but I've had no issues with the WD Green drive I use (1 TB EADS) or the WD green drives I've installed for other people. I know a few people using other branded green drives who havent had any issues either.

If you dont 'need' 2TB, buying one is pretty pointless...they run pretty much the same as the 1TB models.

ST2000DM001 looks similar to the ST2000VX000 if you just do a quick check on the specs. But the ST2000DM001 is a much lower warranty period (1 or 2 yrs, without a serial number I cant check it currently...which is patr of why I dont like seagate anywhere near as much as I used to).

If seagate felt the ST2000DM001 was the same quality or as reliable as the ST2000VX000 they would have the same warranty period....

Thanks for your advice.

There is NOT much difference in price between 1TB and 2TH, except WD Caviar Black. Adding to it is I already have 2 1TB HDs. Therefore I prefer to have a new 2TB HD

Price comparison:-

1TB
===
Seagate ST1000VX000 1TB Barracuda SV35.5 SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD (7x24 Digital Video)
USD 92

WD Caviar Black 1002FAEX 1TB SATA3/64MB HDD
USD 101



2TB
===
Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB Barracuda SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD
USD 98
http://www.comx-computers.co.za/ST20...ions-52307.htm
Performance
Spin Speed (RPM) 7200 RPM
Ave latency 4.16ms
Radom read seek time <8.5ms
Random write seek time <9.5ms


Hitachi Deskstar HDS723020BLA642 2TB SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD
USD 111
http://www.hgst.com/internal-drives/...eskstar-7k3000
Performance
Data buffer (MB) 64
Rotational Speed (RPM) 7200
Media transfer rate (Mbits/sec, max) 1656
Interface transfer rate (MB/sec, max) 600


WD Caviar Green 20EARX 2TB SATA3 6Gb/s /64MB HDD
USD 98
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c.../wd20earx.html
Performance
Drive Transfer Rate 600 MBps (external) / 100 MBps (internal)
Seek Time 8.9 ms (average) / 21 ms (max)
Spindle Speed 7200 rpm
Track-to-Track Seek Time 2 ms
Average Latency 4.2 ms


WD Caviar Black 2002FAEX 2TB SATA3/64MB HDD
USD 179


The price of WD Caviar Green 20EARX 2TB is also quite interesting. But I have no previous experience on them knowing nothing about their quality. Anyway this box is for testing only. In seldom occasion I would run it 24x7.

B.R.
satimis

I'm not overly fond of the newer 'made in China' Hitachis.

WD Caviar Green 20EARX is NOT a 7200 RPM drive. Its listed by WD as 'IntelliPower' and WD makes out that the spindle speed chnages....AFAIK it doesnt, and they are 5400/5000 RPM drives (spindle speed depends on the model).

The Caviar Green drives arent so good as boot discs, they are a bit slower than the current 7200 RPM drives. Since you already have a nice fast WD black, I'd use that as the boot drive, and the Green as storage if you got one.

Hi,

I'm sorry for late reply, but I have experience 2 of the 10EARX (1 TB drive) failed in 1 year
(bad sectors, slow speed like the very first USB flash drives, which had only 256MB, and they were faster...)
another 3rd drive is failing also, but I was lucky I got the data off to new Seagate 1TB Constellation drive, which is also meant for some enterprise environment but at reachable price.
The drives were running quite a lot through the week around 16hrs/day, weekends 24hrs for storing backups at my home ( stupid ?#%&($%&$ me ).
So for now my vote is for Seagate Constellation and hoping they will perform better.