Is the SeaGate Archive HDD something for me?

R

Rak

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Hello friendly creatures of the internet!


I'm looking to move my anime from my 5 HDD to one big HDD and while browsing i saw that the "SeaGate Archive 8000GB HDD" coast 20chf more than the 5000GB models from WD, Toshiba and Co.

I know that this HDD isn't a WD Black and for archiving data, but would it suit my needs? Once i drop a video file on my HDD i never move it, only watch it. Since i would consider having this HDD external or HotSwap it would'nt run 24/7 but only when transferring data on it or when watching playing stuff from it.

What do you guys think? Would it be a good choice to buy one and use the smaller ones as backup?

:rolleyes:
 
I would not recommend the Seagate Archive HDD for consumer use.

The drive uses special "Shingled" write technology in order to fit more data on a single platter than a traditional hard drive. This special technology gets Seagate high storage densities, but really hurts the drives sustained write speeds (as writing more data on a single platter in this way requires more precision).

As the Drive name suggests this is a drive that is designed to archive and is not designed for regular use where you will be writing a lot of data to the drive.

I would say get a proper hard drive, as this thing has the capacity but no real write performance, even when compared to standard HDDs.

I hope this helps.
 
King of Old School said:
WD Red or HGST Hard Drives only.
Click to expand...
If you're running cheap HDDs then you're mostly right otherwise thats an awful blanket statement.


re OP

Think of that drive as more of a tape drive than a proper HDD. It'd be horrible for anything other than as a backup drive. If I was you I'd get a proper NAS if you find the HDDs are taking up too much space.
 
King of Old School said:
Not really IMO there the 2 best brands you can buy for HDD even tho HGST is owned bye WD now Seagate HDD in general aren't that trustworthy.
Click to expand...
Explain?
Its not the same case with enterprise. Its a bit like saying don't buy a Ford GT because Fiestas occasionally explode. Or don't buy nVidia cards because GT210s have a habit of dying after a year or so.

For example,
We (my work) run 90% HP servers. What do HP use as hdds? Seagate enterprise HDDs. Our failure rate is much lower with those than the few servers we have that use WD/HGST drives. We're talking a whole range of enterprise drives too.
 
barnsley said:
Explain?
Its not the same case with enterprise. Its a bit like saying don't buy a Ford GT because Fiestas occasionally explode. Or don't buy nVidia cards because GT210s have a habit of dying after a year or so.

For example,
We (my work) run 90% HP servers. What do HP use as hdds? Seagate enterprise HDDs. Our failure rate is much lower with those than the few servers we have that use WD/HGST drives. We're talking a whole range of enterprise drives too.
Click to expand...

Damn! Better sell the GT!!

I agree though. I've had a couple of Seagates fail but that was down to a thermaltacky PSU.

Most of the hardware articles that show the disparity aren't actually comparing the same class of drives either.
 
barnsley said:
Explain?
Its not the same case with enterprise. Its a bit like saying don't buy a Ford GT because Fiestas occasionally explode. Or don't buy nVidia cards because GT210s have a habit of dying after a year or so.

For example,
We (my work) run 90% HP servers. What do HP use as hdds? Seagate enterprise HDDs. Our failure rate is much lower with those than the few servers we have that use WD/HGST drives. We're talking a whole range of enterprise drives too.
Click to expand...

TBH I have never had a problem with Seagate either.
 
barnsley said:
Explain?
Its not the same case with enterprise. Its a bit like saying don't buy a Ford GT because Fiestas occasionally explode. Or don't buy nVidia cards because GT210s have a habit of dying after a year or so.

For example,
We (my work) run 90% HP servers. What do HP use as hdds? Seagate enterprise HDDs. Our failure rate is much lower with those than the few servers we have that use WD/HGST drives. We're talking a whole range of enterprise drives too.
Click to expand...

Seagate HDD have a higher fail rate than WD & HGST that is why i would never use any Seagate HDD.
I think even Logan from Tek Syndicate has said the same thing about Seagate HHD he only recommends WD or HGST.

I wouldn't trust Seagate as far as i could throw them, Your not going to change my opinion on Seagate, I've had too many Seagate drives fail on me, I've only had one WD fail on me.

WYP said:
TBH I have never had a problem with Seagate either.
Click to expand...

I have
 
If you use some googlefu and search for most reliable hard drive you'll find links with a lot more historical data with a lot of drives.

ZDNet Link

But these are usually data centres where the drives are spinning 24/7/365. Apparently it's the vibration that kills them and most hard drive manufacturers recommend a maximum number of drives in the same enclosure for this reason. The number of spin up and spin down cycles also plays a part, but I digress.

I've recently had two hard drive failures but they really old drives and the SMART warned me in time to get the data off them. One was a Maxtor Fireball 3 (40GB ) and a Western Digital WD4000KD (400GB ).

To the OP, I'd suggest get two drives of exactly the same capacity and mirror them accordingly, either using your motherboards RAID or use DrivePool. How about one WD and the other Seagate, to spread the risk (j/k by the way, get the same manufacturer).
 
King of Old School said:
Seagate HDD have a higher fail rate than WD & HGST that is why i would never use any Seagate HDD.
I think even Logan from Tek Syndicate has said the same thing about Seagate HHD he only recommends WD or HGST.

I wouldn't trust Seagate as far as i could throw them, Your not going to change my opinion on Seagate, I've had too many Seagate drives fail on me, I've only had one WD fail on me.
Click to expand...
WD has higher failure rate than Seagate now.
2015-drive-failures-barchart.jpg

Tek Syndicate isn't the gospel on everything. That is unless you're running a AMD cpu rig with a Korean monitor, Lian Li case and several niche versions of linux.


Ok then but that doesn't mean you need to using your personal experience as 100% the case with everything. I don't do the same with the awful crap I had to put up with with my several broken EVGA cards back in the day.
 
barnsley said:
WD has higher failure rate than Seagate now.
Tek Syndicate isn't the gospel on everything. That is unless you're running a AMD cpu rig with a Korean monitor, Lian Li case and several niche versions of linux.


Ok then but that doesn't mean you need to using your personal experience as 100% the case with everything. I don't do the same with the awful crap I had to put up with with my several broken EVGA cards back in the day.
Click to expand...

I haven't said Tek Syndicate is gospel it's not my fault if i agree with most of what they say, That's fine i just don't trust Seagate when it comes to HDD's i've had too many faulty drives from them i've had better luck with WD.

As i have said if your trying to change my opinion it's not going to work, I'm allow to like & dislike products as i see fit and no one can change that.
 
We also need to remember that this Data comes from backblaze, who are known for using non-enterprise drives in enterprise workloads and overloading enclosures with far too many spinning drives.

One other thing to note is that their data is by no means scientific, as some manufacturers barely have any drives tested and that a lot of failed drives came from the same bad batch in a lot of cases.
 
WYP is right, and the statistics can be bent any way you like without collaborating data.

In the link posted 31,400 Seagate drives versus only 1,681 WD drives failed, but of course they have a shed load more Seagate drives installed. No mention of how long they were operational for or how they were installed.

Weirdly, it's cheaper for them to install cheaper desktop class disks and have more fail than it is to use enterprise datacentre class disks.

Here's an interesting link for the WD Rainbow.
 
So a no to the Archive HDD! :D

Thanks for all the answears. I did want to buy a NAS but in the moment my budget is fairly tight and taken up by my new PC. Since it's mostly anime and manga that i'm storing i don't have the urge for a NAS for external acces. Thats why i'd like a normal ext. HDD or hotswap it.

gyF96vc.png


The sortiment isn't that big if you want to go big. :D

Edit: Just saw that there are external Drives from Verbatim (store n Save) and WD (My Book) in the 8TB range for around 280chf~

I wonder what HDD WD uses in that thing since they don't offer anything sub 300chf in the 8TB range.

Edit2:

According to reddit the My Book features a rebranded HGST HDD. Could be a good buy (?) since i always can remove the HDD from the enclusore for internal use.
 
Last edited:
I've had failures across all brands. The Reds were really bad when they first came out, 50% DOA failure rate for us. I haven't had a DOA in awhile, but I did have a 3TB Red die a month or two back. Had spares on hand just in case. I also had a Seagate (Dell rebrand) die recently, 300GB SAS in one of my servers, but I have spares for those as well.

I get about 1 Seagate Barracuda a month fail on me from our Dell workstations, but they are all being replaced with Samsung SSDs anyway this year so it's not a big deal.
 
In regards to the OP I actually think it might not be a bad idea, since the OP has amassed such a big collection, they might just copy it all and leave it I.E just storage. They can just leave the PC on or something if they are copying a large batch.

I favor Seagate drives cause I've never had one fail on me as of yet. 2 WDs though.
 
I bought one WD My Book with those nice 8TB Hitachi He8 drives inside! Used a bunch of tools to check if the drive is healty (for about 20h) and i'm now trying to empty one 2TB drive to see how it goes.

It's a very quiet drive which makes me happy! Just need to sort all my files somehow... Every folder has dozens of sub-folders with a ton of stuff in it. :I
 
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