Hard drive choices are limited now

noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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i need to get a larger hard drive for my desktop, looking at around 1-2TB, but the choice is so limited since hitachi and Samsung was swallowed up. the choice is now Seagate, which I hate with a vengeance, WD, i have not had anything to do with WD since Amiga days and in those days they was noisy things that too ages to spin up and toshiba, no idea what they are like.

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  • alan1302alan1302 Posts: 6,336
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    noise747 wrote: »
    i need to get a larger hard drive for my desktop, looking at around 1-2TB, but the choice is so limited since hitachi and Samsung was swallowed up. the choice is now Seagate, which I hate with a vengeance, WD, i have not had anything to do with WD since Amiga days and in those days they was noisy things that too ages to spin up and toshiba, no idea what they are like.

    Think it might be fair to say hard drives will have moved on a bit since the Amiga days.
  • Roland MouseRoland Mouse Posts: 9,531
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    noise747 wrote: »
    i need to get a larger hard drive for my desktop, looking at around 1-2TB, but the choice is so limited since hitachi and Samsung was swallowed up. the choice is now Seagate, which I hate with a vengeance, WD, i have not had anything to do with WD since Amiga days and in those days they was noisy things that too ages to spin up and toshiba, no idea what they are like.

    WD has improved a lot in the noise dept.
    I brought a 128GB WD drive back when 128GB was the largest drive you could get and it's so loud you have to turn the TV up.
    I have recently brought a 1TB WD drive and you have to put your ear against it to even tell that it's spinning.

    The 128GB noisy one is still going strong many years later so it reliable, but noisy.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    alan1302 wrote: »
    Think it might be fair to say hard drives will have moved on a bit since the Amiga days.


    I should say so, apart from Seagate drives, they still seem unreliable.

    WD has improved a lot in the noise dept.
    I brought a 128GB WD drive back when 128GB was the largest drive you could get and it's so loud you have to turn the TV up.
    I have recently brought a 1TB WD drive and you have to put your ear against it to even tell that it's spinning.

    The 128GB noisy one is still going strong many years later so it reliable, but noisy.

    I like Hitachi or i did like them, i have a hitachi in this desktop, but it is only a 250Gb and is pretty slow by today's standards. But WD grabbed hold of them and they now seems to be vanishing, I can see why the prices have stayed high, not enough competition now.

    i know spinny drives don't sell as much as they used to, but still the cheapest way to get lots of storage at a decent speed.

    i will have to have another look around.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 7,341
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    I've got a Toshiba external hard drive which in my experience has been a life/time saver.
    My previous laptop only had a 222 gig hard drive but the Toshiba Hard Drive's bigger and reliable. My advice is to invest in external hard drive and a few USB flash drives.
  • neo_walesneo_wales Posts: 13,625
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    Prices stayed high? http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives/ cheap as chips these days.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    motsy wrote: »
    I've got a Toshiba external hard drive which in my experience has been a life/time saver.
    My previous laptop only had a 222 gig hard drive but the Toshiba Hard Drive's bigger and reliable. My advice is to invest in external hard drive and a few USB flash drives.

    I have got a few external drives, but I do need a more portable one and I have got a few usb flash drives. but a external drive will not be fast enough for what I want and it is another box, got plenty of space in my tower

    but thanks anyway.
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    neo_wales wrote: »
    Prices stayed high? http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives/ cheap as chips these days.

    Still not down to what they was, but thanks for the link I see there is a Hitachi there.
  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    neo_wales wrote: »
    Prices stayed high? http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives/ cheap as chips these days.

    in the sense of about the same as they were a year ago, and more expensive than 2 years ago.
  • neo_walesneo_wales Posts: 13,625
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    flagpole wrote: »
    in the sense of about the same as they were a year ago, and more expensive than 2 years ago.

    They are cheaper now than two years ago certainly for 2 and 3TB drives.
  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    neo_wales wrote: »
    They are cheaper now than two years ago certainly for 2 and 3TB drives.

    3TB might be, they were very new at the time. but not the 2TB

    ebuyer were selling the WD 2TB Green WD20EARX for £65 before the incident.
  • neo_walesneo_wales Posts: 13,625
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    flagpole wrote: »
    3TB might be, they were very new at the time. but not the 2TB

    ebuyer were selling the WD 2TB Green WD20EARX for £65 before the incident.

    £60 now :D you need to shop around more chap.
  • Roland MouseRoland Mouse Posts: 9,531
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    There is no end....

    The bigger the hard drives become, my crap just expands to fill them! :(
  • neo_walesneo_wales Posts: 13,625
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    There is no end....

    The bigger the hard drives become, my crap just expands to fill them! :(

    They are easy to fill. I'm an avid film fan and as I buy DVDs I rip to hard drive(s) and copy to externals as well and before you know it you've filled 12TB+++ and growing all the time. :( Still they are cheap enough to buy these days.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 8,345
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    At around £30 per TB for traditional hard-drives (in capacities of 2TB upwards, why would you want anything smaller?), and 2GB per pound for consumer SSDs of most sizes, I think the hard-drive market has never looked better.

    Some old manufacturers have merged, but those that remain all produce decent products; the traditional hard-drive manufacturers do anyway, and I would hope the initial problem with flaky firmware and controllers for some SSDs is now long in the past.

    Choice isn't a good thing if some of those choices are bad.
  • flagpoleflagpole Posts: 44,641
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    neo_wales wrote: »
    £60 now :D you need to shop around more chap.

    How about a link?
  • noise747noise747 Posts: 30,692
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    Looking for a 1TB, i don't need anything larger, it is only going to be used for temp storage anyway, videos as they are being worked on and some stock video.

    These so called green drives are pretty slow, Stuck a samsung one in some ones machine last year and it was so slow, i thought it was 5 year old technology.

    It is a shame that some of the older drive manufactures have gone, my 250Gb Hitachi deskstar have been 100% reliable, certainly better than when IBM made them. but alas, the poor drive is not up to it any more, due to being too slow and not large enough. It will then be put into the other computer, once i get the new drive, once I sorted out which one to buy.

    Only one choice really, WD.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 8,345
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    Given that 2TB drives aren't much more expensive than 1TB (roughly £65 vs £50), even if you only need a 1TB drive, the small additional cost of the 2TB drives offers two benefits: extra space if you need it, and extra speed if you don't use the extra space.

    A 2TB "green" drive is always going to be slower than a high-performance 2TB drive, but if you compare it with a high-performance 1TB drive and then put 750GB of data on them both, you may well find the 2TB green drive is faster overall due to the data occupying a much smaller part of the outer (fastest) physical part of the disc, making reading faster and seek-times shorter.

    The only thing to watch with larger drives is that some older machines may have problems with drives of more than 2TB, but as you only need 1TB, I wouldn't recommend spending more on say a 3TB drive -- restricting your usage to about 50% of the drive capacity will provide pretty much optimal speed.
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