What's the best brand name for hard drives?

i tend to look for the waranty, right now there’s a spinpoint and a lacie (probably WD) on my desk, both working nicely, the samsungs have a pretty good price/value ratio i must say, haven’t had a crashed samsung yet, but this is the first year selling them, so yeah, haha

WD is great, Toshiba is also good. But it also depends on what your using it in, i.e. laptop desktop. I have had a ton of experience with HDD’s. It also depends on what your using them for. Gaming, storage, music or movies it all matters.

iceblu is exactly right, your intent for the harddrive will greatly dictate what kind of specs you should look for. That should be your top priority when shopping is getting the specs you want. Technically speaking, most harddrives are built out of the same parts. As long as you have some sort of warranty to protect you against a lemon, any brand you’ve already heard of should be fine as long as it matches the specs you need. Different brands excel at different things. If I was shopping for a external USB 2.0 harddrive for backup, I might go with WD, whereas if I was shopping for a external FireWire HD for video editing, I might go with someone else. Just an example.

In terms of just general purpose, I’ve never had a problem with WD. I have had plenty of problems with Iomega.

I’ve always been a fan of samsung internal hdd’s…they’re nice and quiet, look nice (maybe not so important :-) and in my experience, have never had hardware-related problems. Not too expensive on newegg either.

Seagate has, at times, surprisingly low prices for high capacities. WD costs a bit more, but is known for better reliability. I just bought a WD External drive with USB, Firewire and eSata connections, 500gb, and I use the firewire connector: As fast, possibly even faster than the internal drive in my PC. I’ve edited HD video from it, I’ve installed/played games from it, and I use it for everyday storage. Zero buyer’s remorse.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136170

after years of being screwed over by maxtor and seagate, I bought a WD and it was flawless. I’ve used them ever since.

I’m very happy with my WD MyBook external 1TB – and only $230.

Just to be more specific I’m almost always purchasing internal SATA drives, normally in 3.5” but sometimes in the 2.5” size. They’re used for either normal system disks or backup storage so I value reliability, price, and speed in roughly that order.

Seems like a lot of people like WD and surprisingly Samsung (I’m a bit weary of them being so new to the market).

Also I originally settled on Seagates because they have a 5-year warranty while WD has 3 yet people seem to prefer WD more… Why is that?

Extended Warranties are typically characteristic of products with a history of failing: See Xbox 360’s warranty extensions as the biggest example of this recently. Seagates are cheap, WDs are sturdy… but, there’s always exceptions.

I had a WD drive in my machine for 2 years before it toasted. The following year I bought one and it’s lasted 4 years so far, running at around 10–16 hours a day average (with many times it being accessed DAYS on end).

Western Digi, always. I’ve melted down too many Maxtors and Seagates.

lacie and buffalo have always been good for me. my first external hd was an acomdata, i thought they were all pretty much the same. they aren’t. i lost so such stuff when that thing crashed.

People like Samsung- but I’ll bet you money Samsung just buys their drives wholesale from some other manufacturer and bumps up the price by re-branding the generic HD as a Samsung HD.

Good point Lovelocke and in 3 years the cost of replacing the drive is minimal in any case.

I’ve used LaCie extensively for more than 3 years (I’m in the tech field) and I have to say they’re just not that good. Service is great but one is really paying more for the same equipment in slightly fancier casing.

Another thing I realised is that Seagate acquired and merged the Maxtor product lines and I remember Maxtor being of questionable quality. Now there’s no distinction between the brands…

I bow to the wisdom of Fluther and will go for WD..

@shockvalue the only thing a Maxtor HD is good for is to use as a doorstop.

agreed