Any good 1TB drives? Samsung, WD, Hitachi all have trouble

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bkh
Posts: 93
Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2003 10:20 am

Any good 1TB drives? Samsung, WD, Hitachi all have trouble

Post by bkh » Mon Dec 31, 2007 5:54 pm

Anyone know of a 1TB drive that is good and a safe choice for data we wish to keep?

From newegg.com customer comments, the (extremely speedy) Samsung 1TB drives are having many problems with excessive numbers of sectors going bad.

The WD 1TB drives are advertised by many vendors as 7200rpm but seem in fact to never exceed 5400rpm. If a manufacturer won't tell the truth about its products I don't want to buy from them.

The classic Hitachi 5 platter drives test quite fast, but dissipate large amounts of power.

Any good experiences with the new Hitachi drives that have a low-power idle mode?

Or do we just need to wait another year for the 1TB drive category to settle down and for experience to settle the issue as to which drives actually are good and reliable?

wim
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Location: canberra, australia

Post by wim » Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:42 pm

WD green power drive got a very good review on spcr, i think your reason for not wanting to buy from them is silly. they can say the drive will grow wings and fly for all i care, hopefully we all know what a hard drive is supposed to do and as long as it passes spcr reviewers scrutiny then it is a decent product.

i guess, there are reasons (stupid reasons) why they don't want to say it's a 5400 rpm drive.. but that's marketing dept's fault :wink:

bendit
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Post by bendit » Mon Dec 31, 2007 7:04 pm

paranoia about W/D seems irrational. Letting it go will suddenly reveal a worthy 1tb drive.
Last edited by bendit on Mon Dec 31, 2007 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

porkchop
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Post by porkchop » Mon Dec 31, 2007 7:07 pm

i second wim's comments.

i wouldn't worry about the samsungs too much either- the reason it seems like there are alot of bad reviews is because most people write reviews when they have troubles- not when everythings fine.

wrong
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Post by wrong » Tue Jan 01, 2008 1:43 am

WD's telling the truth (although it could be clearer). It's the "many vendors" that are telling porkies. The 1TB GP is 5400rpm - but so what? It's about as fast as the Seagate - a bit slower than the Hitachi, but much quieter and cooler. If you're on this site because you like cool and quiet, you have a winner.

bkh
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Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2003 10:20 am

Post by bkh » Tue Jan 01, 2008 10:05 am

>paranoia about W/D seems irrational

Idealism is irrational, I suppose. This particular concept has a long tradition: "you reap what you sow", "karma", "what goes around comes around" --- by our choices we create the kind of world we have to live in.

>WD's telling the truth

Evidently not. Vendors would get legal liability if they listed products with specs different from what is provided by the manufacturer.

Luminair
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Post by Luminair » Tue Jan 01, 2008 11:12 am

bkh wrote: Evidently not. Vendors would get legal liability if they listed products with specs different from what is provided by the manufacturer.
You are wrong

bkh
Posts: 93
Joined: Tue Jan 28, 2003 10:20 am

Post by bkh » Tue Jan 01, 2008 8:00 pm

>You are wrong

Interesting. I looked around a bit and you are absolutely right. I had a vague concept of "false advertising" but didn't know what I was talking about and I made an over-broad statement.

It turns out that, roughly speaking, the vendor runs afoul of the Federal Trade Commission's consumer protection rules when the vendor makes a representation that is likely to mislead the consumer about something that is material to the consumer's purchasing decision. Simply stating a wrong spec isn't enough to get into trouble -- it has to be a spec that a reasonable consumer would care about. [http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/policystmt/ad-decept.htm]

Moreover, the vendor need only have a reasonable basis for the claims in advertising [http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/ad3subst.htm] Presumably, specs from the manufacturer would be a reasonable basis, but the vendor is not required to parrot the manufacturer-provided specs if the vendor knows better.

So the vendor can legally give a spec that differs from the one provided by the vendor if (1) the spec doesn't matter to the reasonable consumer, or (2) the incorrect spec isn't likely to mislead the reasonable consumer, or (3) the vendor has a reasonable basis for believing the manufacturer's spec is wrong and the one provided by the vendor is correct.

So, Luminair, I've learned something because of your comment. Thanks.

tonyw
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Post by tonyw » Thu Jan 03, 2008 11:33 am

I second bendit's comments. I own a WD 1TB GP drive and it's been fine, no problems.

SileX
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Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:57 am

Post by SileX » Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:20 am

The Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB is the best as far as I know. Sure some people complain, but usually only people with problems complain.

To prove my argument, just have a look at http://www.macfixit.com and see that it is filled with problems of Mac OS X and Mac applications and Macs. Does it mean that they are problematic? Just the opposite! It is hard to find problems with them as compared to, say, Windows. But such site ONLY reports the rare cases --I say RARE-- in which there are problems. Do not be mislead by that!

And yes, WD did try to cheat. Actually, they have changed the specifications on their web site to be less misleading, but still are misleading. That is the reason many vendors sell it as 7200, because WD stated that it changed between 5400 and 7200, which is FALSE (I have a saved copy of their web site indicating that!).

Now they say that they have models between such speeds with fixed speed for each model, which is less misleading but also a LIE, because absolutelly all 1TB models they sell are 5400 rpm.

I agree not to buy for such a liar!

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