I've had a 2TB hard drive from Seagate for roughly a decade. Despite having no read / write errors to this day, it's getting old and I'm nervous about using it for data storage... especially since every once in a while I think I hear a click (could be just a fan though). I'm going to upgrade it to something newer, especially since it's filling up and I need a 4TB drive now. I'm thorn between two choices, which judging based on reviews are both very tied and hard to call... it would help to have your input please.

Option 1: Seagate BarraCuda 4TB, 5400rpm, 256MB cache

Option 2: WD Blue 4TB, 5400rpm, 64MB cache

I'm most interested in reliability: I don't care which is fastest, only which is guaranteed to last the most without breaking. Write performance in particular is secondary, as the most file-size intensive things I use are some games so read speeds would be more important. At this chapter I only understand that at least the Barracuda uses SMR technology instead of CMR, which yields in less performance to writing... not sure about the Blue one.

I plan to use it with Linux openSUSE Tumbleweed x64, mounted from fstab as a data drive supplementing my home partition: There will be a single ext4 partition on it (will likely format it from the YaST2 Partitioner), data will be transferred using rsync. I'm asking on the openSUSE / Linux forums too as I'd like to know which is expected to work best under this OS and with Linux in general.

Note: Please don't suggest "for X more you could get the Y enterprise version which is Z better". I already looked at the available options, given the stores I can buy from and the budget I must stay under... the two I linked above are the only versions I can get. The only similar option available in one store is another version of the Blue, same specs except it says "256MB cache"... let me know if that has any advantage instead.

Probably you will get a lot of answers, but unfortunately there is no answer. You will never know if there was a bug inside or ...
The best thing you can do is to have a backup. So probably you need to buy two.

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As you've had such good service from a Seagate, I'd have thought it would be a no brainer.......

You are speaking of drives over 2TB. Read this if you have not already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingl...etic_recording
https://www.truenas.com/community/re...mr-drives.141/
https://itigic.com/smr-hard-drive-th...ist-of-models/

Not sure what will break first.

A backup tends to help if either breaks.

Thanks for the input! Still undecided and leaning both ways to be honest. I'll likely make a decision tonight... it's possible I'll go with the Seagate given my experience with them has always been okay.

In terms of reliability I understand both are the same for the most part: I shouldn't expect one to fail more than the other, even if many reviews I read painted WD as being more reliable. From my personal experience, Seagate is indeed the more stable one; I had a Western Digital HDD 15 years ago and remember it failed and had to be replaced... my current Seagate however never suffered any data loss in 10 years of use and still works 100% fine as far as I'm aware, which I find remarkable.

The other point is the technology between the two models: The Seagate has 256 MB of cache, however it needs that because it's a SMR drive which I understand is slower thus it needs the cache... the WD one has only 64 MB of cache, however it's CMR. I understand this only affects write speeds though; I don't plan to write to it consistently and expect phenomenal speeds at it, therefore I don't really care... the only intensive writing will be when I use rsync to migrate all my data from the old drive, where my only expectation is that it finishes in one night so no more than 8 hours (almost 1.7 TB to copy but it will be from a SATA3 HDD to another SATA3 HDD).

Otherwise I'm well aware any drive can fail, and always keep backups of all important things. When having so much data on your drive though it's hard to backup it all, some of it would be lost not to mention your time migrating back and forth in case you need a replacement. My new PC will further take care of the drive though, as it's using an SSD as the home partition for application data to work with... this HDD is only used to archive big stuff in a reliable way, stuff that doesn't need to be accessed at lightning transfer rates but must be kept safe instead (it's like a second home partition).

Yet another update: I'm putting my decision on hold for the night after finding out that WD Blue drives have what seems to be called the "head parking issue". Essentially the head will move to an idle position whenever there are 8 seconds of inactivity, and that movement is believed to wear it out to the point where it officially only lasts for 6 months! You need a DOS tool to hack the HDD and set the parameter to 300 seconds... and even that no longer works for the Blue drives, it only did for Green. Yeah... no.

I'm looking at a Toshiba drive that might actually be a good idea to go with. What are your experiences with the HDWE140UZSVA?

As recommended, I'm looking at the Ironwolf 4TB version of the Seagate. It's about 25% more expensive in the stores I can buy it from compared to the Barracuda, making it a very tough choice to even consider (mother will not be happy). But just so I know in case I could have it as an option, same questions: Is it non-SMR, does it have any wear-inducing issues like that head parking problem, and will it work well as a single ext4 partition?

Edit: Seeing reviews that suggest the Ironwolf model has the same aggressive head parking issue that's likely to wear it out. Is there really no hope for buying a reliable HDD at this day and age? Will wait for your thoughts on this.

Buy an enterprise level drive. Run a raid. Make backups.

I have 4 WD Blue 3TB drives in a raid6 array. In the past 5 years 2 have failed and been replaced.

Price is reasonable, but reliability not so. As has been said, buy enterprise/server drives if reliability is the major concern.

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They are data drives so reliability is important. I was never a fan of RAID as it seems like a messy solution, and in the past I heard of people actually losing data this way; I make periodic backups on external drives instead... got rsync scripts for that, I just plug it into the USB port run the script and it mirrors the desired directories. It can't cover everything but it's safe and convenient.

I'll take another day to think, but at this rate I'm probably going to go with the 4TB Ironwolf. It's a financial effort considering, but since it's not that big of a difference and it's the only safe route it may be for the best.

Every choice does boil down to cost. I bought an enterprise level 1TB drive a while back that was the same cost as a 6TB desktop.

That Toshiba X300 is an excellent hard drive and superior to either WD Blue or Seagate IMHO. I have two 4TB X300 Toshiba drives and I am very pleased with them. Toshiba's X300 line are all CMR with 128MB cache and 7200rpm. All that translates to superior performance, both read and write, due to CMR, rpm speed and cache when compared to the two 5400rpm drives you posted.

Around here for standard hard drives, all the fabricators I know are using either WD Black with their 5 year warranty or the Toshiba X300 line. The X300 line will give you the most bang for your buck if you don't want to spend for a WD Black.

Thanks for all the tips and advice! I went ahead and ordered the Seagate Ironwolf 4TB (ST4000VN008). It was the best option as I've only had positive experiences with SG so far, and this NAS intended drive is meant to be resilient. The desktop versions (Barracuda for SG and Blue for WD) seem to be designed to break or work badly just so you buy new ones... sad to see that PC users are considered second tier trash as the general rule, though for a high-end PC I think a NAS oriented drive is more fitting anyway.

Just to add to folks telling you this is impossible to measure per-drive, it is - in aggregate they're all posting similar MTBF but individual drives won't reflect that (like any other mechanical object) and usually the 'bad experiences' get amplified in reviews/comment sections.

On your selection - the 'NAS drives' may be more resilient, or they may not, its tough to say (and again, even for enterprise drives with >1m MTBFs it will still be impossible to predict how a single example fares) - in some cases its only slight firmware differences that allow them to segment the product further and usually the 'big difference' is TLER and/or power saving features (in effect a 'use upcharge' on people who may need such things). If you're keeping backups I think that's the best you can hope for - if the drive dies the real 'problem' is just being out the purchase price/hassle of replacing it. I do know on some of the nicer Seagate models their warranties are relatively long (5 years is starting to look typical) and they claim to include some data recovery 'feature' in the RMA process, so that may or may not be applicable to what you ended up with (I know it is on the IronWolf SSDs fwiw).

I'm not sure I'd agree with your summation of newer drives as 'designed to break' or 'pc users are second tier trash' but I know that's a popular refrain these days (and has been for years). If you're looking for a higher end drive the WD Black and Seagate Barracuda Pro (As well as the Toshiba X300 you already mentioned) are the 'go to' offerings, at least as the marketing goes. I know some of the larger ones can also put up pretty impressive performance in their own right (I've seen the 6TB Blacks doing >300MB/s in some reviews for example).

I've run many many enterprise level drives. Some have lasted decades before we finally updated them. You'd be amazed how many commercial type drives in existence still that were bought decades ago.