# Any hard drive manufacturer to recommend **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 4, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350 "2009-05-04T22:21:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/1 "2009-05-04T22:21:31Z")
Do any manufacturers of hard drives have a better reputation in general than the rest? I’m eyeing up a new drive after my old Samsung drive went pop, only then when I went online did I find a lot of negative reviews of their drives. Seagate seem to be more highly thought of, would anyone second that recommendation? Any others? ---
**Author:** ![dgrdfd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/eb8c5e/32.png) [@dgrdfd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dgrdfd)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/2 "2009-05-04T23:55:01Z")
I have a Seagate and Maxtor external and would never buy another Maxtor again. It’s unreliable and doesn’t work nearly as well as my Seagate. I can’t speak to internal drives though as that sounds like what you are looking at. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/3 "2009-05-05T00:23:59Z")
I think Western Digital is the best. Seagates are OK, but they were so unbelievably bad years ago, that I still have a bias against them. Samsung and Fujitsu are fine, also. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/4 "2009-05-05T01:21:22Z")
Personally, I’ll be staying away from Seagate for a while because of the [fiasco](http://news.cnet.com/seagate-fixes-7200.11-drives-except-when-it-doesnt/) (firmware bug in 7200.11 series). Western Digital seems to have the best reputation right now. For what it’s worth, I’ve bought several Western Digital and Samsung drives in the past year and haven’t had any of them fail. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/5 "2009-05-05T01:37:24Z")
pish. They’re all interchangable. The secret is to make sure you don’t have only one copy of the data you really care about. Second, it’d be more helpful if you had a STATIONARY copy of that data. Drive life goes up dramatically if it’s in a box that doesn’t move, plugged into a good UPS. Occasionally you see a problem or two (the bios issue above, the well-known ‘deathstar’ drives) but those problems are usually few and far between. Right now 1.5 and 2 TB drives are the cutting edge in storage densities for consumer drives, buy one or two 1T b drives and you oughta be fine. Online reviews are a self-sorting group. You hear about the problems, you don’t hear about the thousands of trouble free drives. And remember RAID \<\> backup! ---
**Author:** ![bink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/439d5e/32.png) [@bink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bink)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/6 "2009-05-05T04:08:28Z")
Just don’t get a LaCie. I’ve got a stack of dead ones and will never buy another. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/7 "2009-05-05T04:59:10Z")
I have to agree they’re mostly interchangeable – at least, Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate are IMO. I swear by Maxtor and Western Digital internal drives, personally. I bought a Western Digital 20 GB hard drive back when 20 GB was cutting edge (about, jeez, 8 years ago?) and it’s been rock solid up until my computer died last week. Even now, the drive is perfectly usable, but given how cheap storage is these days it’s not worth using up an entire drive bay and IDE connection for it any more. I’ve had three Maxtor 120-200 GB drives over the past few years, and not one has failed me yet. I haven’t had much experience with Seagate, but my last impression of them was reliable. I hadn’t heard about any firmware debacle until this thread, though. Also, if you’re looking for an external drive, don’t bother with an actual [external one](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136176). Get an [internal drive](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136150) and an [enclosure](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817729003), it’s better value for your money and likely more reliable. (Those drives I linked to are just for comparison, but I bought a couple of those enclosures recently to salvage my HDs from the dead computer and they’ve worked really well, I recommend them.) ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/8 "2009-05-05T07:33:47Z")
I have two laptops which outgrew their harddrives, and I replaced both with Western Digital. Had no problem cloning the old drive onto the new, and both laptops are buzzing along. (I’m posting from one.) So, I am no expert + anecdotal data = worthless as evidence, but there you have it. ---
**Author:** ![Redwing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/dfb087/32.png) [@Redwing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redwing)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/9 "2009-05-05T13:35:39Z")
I use Seagate or Western Digital myself. They’re both pretty much interchangable. Drives fail though, no matter who manufactured them. Usually, failures occur either in the first few months of use, or after several years. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-hard-drive-manufacturer-to-recommend/495350/10 "2009-05-05T15:15:18Z")
> [@Redwing](#): > > I use Seagate or Western Digital myself. They’re both pretty much interchangable. Drives fail though, no matter who manufactured them. Usually, failures occur either in the first few months of use, or after several years. Drives exist in one of two states: 1. Failed 2. Not Failed Yet