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Maybe I've missed something. I haven't been following hard drive news really, been too busy following GPU and CPU news (or lack there of). I want to make that clear.
Anyway, back in January hard drive prices for the three 'big' manufacturers seemed in line with what many consumers seemed to feel was appropriate based on perception of quality to value. I feel the brands still stack up in the same order (by consumer perception). That being HGST (formerly Hitachi), Western Digital (WD), and Seagate. HGST being quality, and Seagate being value, with WD being the middle of the road so to speak. But prices, since January, have changed so greatly I am greatly confused as to whether this still holds true.
I have been watching 8TB drive prices, mostly external (WD and Seagate), and have noticed WD prices have shot way up and Seagate prices have fallen. In January there was about a 10% price difference between the brands, but now the price difference is about 35%. Since external drives are a real mystery as to what is really inside shell I started comparing internal drives.
Now it gets just plain weird. I looked at 8TB NAS quality hard drives today. (HGST NAS 0S04012, Western Digital WD80EFAX, and Seagate IronWolf ST8000VN0022). HGST was the least expensive, Seagate cost 10% more, and WD was 18% more. Yes, all three drive were on "sale", but they have been on "sale" in a similar fashion for months now (although the models may have been different).
So what's up? Why are WD drives so expensive suddenly?
Just as a little note about external drives: The last drives I shucked; the WD contained an 8tb Helium drive with a plain label and the Seagate contained an 8TB Barracuda labeled non-helium drive. That might explain a bit of the price difference for the external drives.
Only thing I can say is that 'WD Red' series was also offered for business utilisation in the past, which adds them to another category for me. Workload 24/7, better endurance, higher MTBF. This usually means they are on the more expensive end so consumers pay extra here. Maybe WD is relaunching this series and placing them for business clients mostly, so they try regulate drive sales via price tag now? To differentiate their product lines more.
Please see http://www.wdc.com/products/internal-storage/wd-red.html and http://www.wdc.com/products/business-internal-storage/wd-red-pro.html for starters. I understand they are considered high end for NAS, and WD got a 'Pro' series for data centres too. Didn't use them and I don't know if you have a need for such drives. A WD Blue could be enough for some hours a day intense workload? I'm still happy with my Seagate Constellation ES drives I bought a while back which were affordable for the common pleb that is me. I don't go cheap but I buy quantities, so they were the way to go.For 'home consumers' WD launched a bunch of elegant (I guess) all-in-one solutions, see here:
http://www.wdc.com/solutions/home-storage-solutions.html
360+ bucks for the dual bay My Cloud Home NAS 8 TB (2 4 TB drives) right now. Big disadvantage, they are to be perma-hooked to the internet and you need a WD software to access. Seems this is what WD wants private consumers to use. If it's their message I guess I did comprehend.Well, I used to swear by Toshiba, but a couple of premature failures have put me off that.
I always have my eye on external storage, so I would be interested to see what the concensus is.
🙂
I took a drug test last week and am waiting for the results today or tomorrow for a new job. When I get a yes, to celebrate I plan to order the Seagate Backup Plus Fast Portable Drive 4TB
It seems to get 4 plus stars reviews everyplace, only $99!! plus I can pay for it at Walmart.com with my Paypal. Thoughts?... Better ideas?
My current machine is 2TB HD. I have
30GB in Renders and Backdrops
85GB in my Megashare hard drive mirror (hmmm maybe I should look into deleting some of those files I'm not sharing!
755GB in DAZ and assets$99 or thereabouts is what I can afford right now (went from $42K / year job to minimum wage plus tips :sigh:)
@Tucker, FYI HGST is wholly owned by WD. HDD prices have gone a bit askew because demand has changed a little with SSD's being more in vogue and affordable for the typical PC owner.
Oh yes, thanks for reminder I forgot. So one manufacturer less actually. If HGST is still in use maybe it is to become the affordable brand and WD is the more top range one. HDDs running out of favour is somewhat reason for the weird pricing. But for my backups I'd like older and solid tech. Of my HDDs few do run for a decade more or less and are humming along. Can't complain.
@La_Pucelle, don't get any results for your link but I found these are 2.5" drives? So they don't need extra PSU, data and energy provided by one cable, good. Seem okay priced for backup drives, but use it only for this purpose (turn on, copy data, turn off). Not as addition to your storage and not running for hours. I made the mistake once. Didn't quite turn out the happiest day.
What capacities and storage (SSD or HDD) you here are using for your work? Is a M.2 SSD a good investment?
@centurio While HGST is owned by WD, it is kept separate from WD and everything WD does. HGST and WD do not share facilities, technology, R&D, or anything else. So a HGST drive is not a WD drive. In the storage world things are crazy. Samsung make awesome SSDs, but Samsung does not make hard drives. There are Samsung hard drives out there, with Samsung's logo, but Samsung has nothing to do with the drives or the warranty on the drives. Seagate produces Samsung drives. That is just one example, there are many more. Another one is Maxtor hard drives; owned by Seagate and still produced by Seagate... I don't know where they are sold though. And there is Lacie, also owned by Seagate, the Lacie brand has lots of lines (hard drives, SSDs, DVD burners, maybe more?) but what brand inside a Lacie device is a total mystery. More recently it's a safer bet that a Seagate brand will be in a Lacie device.
Getting back to the weird pricing. I have only looked at pricing of drives where I live, and maybe that has something to do with it. I recently was given prices in the USA and discovered US prices (after currency conversion) were more expensive. Maybe WD's prices are higher because they have penalties against them right now (where I live? IDK)? Maybe it's just a combination of WD being the well liked brand so they are taking advantage while Seagate is being very competitive. I just don't know.
You gave very good advice to @La_Pucelle that it isn't wise to leave a 2.5" portable drive on all the time. Personally I like 3.5" externals, but I don't take my drives anyplace... well not too often anyway. I like the Samsung T5 External SSD line. It's a native USB C connection so it's faster than any SATA SSD, it's an SSD so it can take some bumping around, and where I live they cost just slightly more than a regular internal SATA SSD. They do cost a lot more than any Hard Drive, and they currently only go up to 2TB.
As far as M.2 SSDs go here are some things to consider: if you are going to by a M.2 drive MAKE SURE it's a NVMe interface, not a SATA interface. The easiest way to tell is that a SATA M.2 drive will 2 notches in the interface, while a NVMe will only have one. Next make SURE your computer supports NVMe drives. Many computers support both, but not all of the 'older' ones do. Also check to to make sure your computer will accept the length of the drive you plan to use (m.2 drive come it different lengths, you computer must have the space to mount it, and the hole to secure it). Again this probably isn't an issue for many computers. The other thing I would like mention is what kind of NVMe speed does your computer claim to offer. My computer is old and it's NVMe speed is something like 10gbps max. (New motherboard's are up to 32gbps).
Once you've got that all figured out ask yourself how you plan to use the drive. NVMe drives are great for many things. Running Windows, and launching software quickly, and for your computers paging file (swap file) is all good. But using a M.2 drive to tackle big read/writes there is a better solution. M.2 drive lack heat sinks/spreaders, and the heat sinks/spreaders that currently exist as add-ons haven't been very effective. With large transfers (like gaming, or video editing) the m.2 drives heats up, and slows down. For large DATA transfers I would recommend a PCIe SSD card (not a PCIe NVMe slot adapter card). PCIe SSDs fit into a PCIe slot, and have an integrated heat sink. Unless you have a really good computer, AND are really into gaming, or video editing I don't think you would benefit from such a costly add-on though.
I hope I gave you some information to help you decide if a m.2 drive is a good investment for you.
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