Best hard drives on Reddit

151 reviews from r/unRAID, r/DataHoarder, r/editors and 17 more subreddits

151 reviews from
and
By Brand
/
By Product
#1

Seagate

4.5
(31)
"The ability to run SeaTools on Linux allows for better control over HDD power management."
·
"I've been using 5 12TB Seagate drives without issue for around 18 months now."
·
"Seagate brand is my go to now for drives."
·
"Seagate EXOS offers the best price/storage ratio in Europe."
·
"At least as good as any other you mentioned."
·
"I use the 16TB Exos and it's fantastic for storage!"
·
"Seagate exos are fantastic."
·
"I only use Seagate EXOS now. Replaced my IronWolf with them and saw a performance boost in read speeds."
·
"Seagate EXOS."
·
"I have been using 8 Seagate ironwolf for 4yrs now and never had an issue. I would highly recommend."
·
#2

WD

3.9
(19)
"I've been using a WD My Passport. It’s compact and holds a ton of data."
·
"Reliable performance and good price."
·
"WD enterprise disks are also a great choice for reliability."
·
"It’s really affordable and almost good as new and its sealed with Nitrogen so it takes a lot of vibrations and other NAS related abuse."
·
"Have used them for years since Windows MCE was a thing. Never had to use the warranty which is longer than the Reds."
·
"Zero issues and been up for 92 days."
·
"The WD Easystore 2TB is a great portable hard drive for backups, easy to store and manage."
·
"I use a WD Black 1 TB SSD."
·
"It works great IMHO"
·
"My last group of 4 3TB WD drives went around 7 years with 1 drive failure."
·
#3

Western Digital

4.0
(17)
"I prefer the Western Digital HDD's. If I catch them on sale I will buy the WD Red drives."
·
"I just buy the WD external HDD's and shuck them if I want to install them in my NAS."
·
"I will only buy Western Digital drives, and only WD Red for my NAS."
·
"A LOT of people really really like certified rebuilt drives from serverpartdeals or similar."
·
"I had a very good experience with Red Pro and shucking drives."
·
"Consistent write speed of about 90 MB/s and great price."
·
"The 8TB WD Red hard drive offers the best price for capacity without going for ultra high density drives."
·
"I just get whichever models of Western Digital or Seagate have a good $:capacity ratio, new when on sale."
·
"I am a WD Red plus 8TB kind of guy, but to be totally honest they all work."
·
"Generally I do western digital or segate."
·
#4

Samsung

4.7
(14)
"Excellent speed and durability."
·
"I like the heatsink shape, it doesn’t push on the battery connector at all."
·
"I find my Samsung T7 drives to be very well made, fast, and reliable."
·
"They are also backed up to my NAS which is in my basement. No issues using that either."
·
"I use the Samsung EVO 4TB and 8 TB SSD’s have not had any issues with them."
·
"I use Samsung T5 and T7 SSD’s. No issues 8 years in."
·
"I use Samsung T5 and T7 SSD’s. No issues 8 years in."
·
"I build my own and I stay away from the commercial ones. I would recommend a Samsung two or more terabyte 2 1/2 inch drive, and an external enclosure that will support that."
·
"The T7 Shield is one of the most popular drives currently available."
·
"NVMe SSDs are significantly faster than HDDs, making them ideal for gaming."
·
#5

Toshiba

4.6
(8)
"I use the Toshiba mg08 and it runs at a cool 19 degrees Celsius."
·
"They offer great quality, speed, reliability and can be obtained quite cheap here in Germany."
·
"They offer great quality, speed, reliability and can be obtained quite cheap here in Germany."
·
"They offer great quality, speed, reliability and can be obtained quite cheap here in Germany."
·
"Running more quiet, cooler and faster than the WD Red 10TB I had before. No fails/errors up till now."
·
"I’ve been eyeing the Toshiba 14 TB drives."
·
"I personally look for a 5 year warranty for my drives and then best price per TB."
·
"Toshiba N300 NAS drives."
#6

Crucial

4.5
(4)
"The site provides a list of compatible drives based on your specifications."
·
"A great value for a 1TB SSD at around $80."
·
"Fast and low temps"
·
"The Crucial P3 has a significant power draw compared to other options."
#7

GoHardDrive

5.0
(3)
"Refurbished 5yr warranty drives for cheap."
·
"Great deals on GoHardDrive and server parts."
·
"I only buy from GoHardDrive or ServerPartDeals since they are well established and have reputable warranty policies."
#8

Amazon

5.0
(2)
"16TB for $130"
·
"I’ve bought 6 renewed 16tb drives at different times."
#9

ServerPartsDeals

4.5
(2)
"Highly recommend recertified enterprise drives. Just scan for health before use."
·
"Used drives from a reputable place like serverpartsdeals are a great way to save money. The 90-day warranty gives you time to test the drive."
#10

Synology

4.5
(2)
"Get a NAS and never look back. It will give you at least some protection against drive failure and you can swap out drives for new ones to expand your storage pool as things fill up."
·
"My backup is a Synology NAS. As a backup it's fine because the lack of outright speed is made up for in reliability."
#11

HGST

4.5
(2)
"Used enterprise disks from eBay have been reliable and cost-effective."
·
"Refurbished 12, 14, 18 TB from serverpartdeals and goharddrive. HGST and Seagate."
#12

Easystore

4.0
(2)
"Easystore are cheap and reliable."
·
"Great value for shuckable drives under $15/tb."
#13

HP

2.0
(4)
"The Pavilion has an SSD slot, but the performance difference with the i3 CPU is minimal."
·
"The Elitebook is slow due to the hard drive, and it lacks internal SSD support."
·
"The slow loading on the pavilion is primarily caused by that drive. Old school HDDs are sloooow."
·
"Swapping them will just make the Elitebook perform like ass instead."
#14

SSD

4.0
(2)
"It's best to do some cleaning on those drives by removing games they don’t play."
·
"SSDs offer higher speeds for reading and writing."
#15

Areca 8050T3U-4A

5.0
(1)
"I'd say Areca 8050T3U-4As built in RAID5 are probably the most cost effective."
#16

OWC Thunderbay

5.0
(1)
"I just got an OWC Thunderbay 24TB a month ago and it's phenomenal."
#17

Nintendo

5.0
(1)
"Wii U can use a hard drive, then get a large SD card for vWii and GameCube. It's a great setup this way."
#18

StarTech

5.0
(1)
"This is a great solution for servers that need to see raw disks."
#19

Enterprise

5.0
(1)
"Used enterprise SAS drives on eBay are a great value!"
#20

ServerPartsDeal

5.0
(1)
"I can vouch for ServerPartsDeal; I have 2 refurbished 18TB drives, one as parity, and all is well."
#21

Iron Wolf

5.0
(1)
"Great for NAS and security camera drives, designed for 24/7 operation."
#22

Lexar

5.0
(1)
"The Lexar NM790 is the coolest running Gen4 drive and widely reported to be the best option."
#23

Professional HDD

5.0
(1)
"Take professional hdd's for nas/san use. They can handle the combined vibration from all other hdd's in your server."
#24

OWC

5.0
(1)
"The OWC Express 1M2 is perfect for managing multiple active projects with its ample storage."
#25

WD Red

5.0
(1)
"If you want a cache drive with SSDs, def go WD Red. The throughput on those are nuts."
#26

Best Buy

5.0
(1)
"It’s worked great, no complaints."
#27

Max Digital Data

5.0
(1)
"I just added a 20TB MDD Drive a few months ago. It's running in Disk 1 Slot, it replaced a 12TB WD. No issues so far."
#28

Coolerguys

5.0
(1)
"Power adapter works perfectly for powering the enclosure."
#29

Refurbished Drives

5.0
(1)
"There's no reason not to use refurbished drives with a 5-year warranty."
#30

NVMe

5.0
(1)
"You can do similar with NVMe."
#31

ServerPartDeals

5.0
(1)
"They have reputable warranty policies."
#32

12 TB Drives

5.0
(1)
"Buying 12 TB drives for $90 was a no brainer for me."
#33

Server Parts

5.0
(1)
"Consistently good prices and coupons available."
#34

SAS Drives

5.0
(1)
"SAS drives if your machine supports it."
#35

Aroma

5.0
(1)
"I'm rocking two, both using Y cables, so my USBs are maxed, but I'm having no issues."
#36

External USB3 HDD

5.0
(1)
"Don't underestimate external USB3 HDDs. They'll give you 1GB speeds."
#37

NVMe SSD

5.0
(1)
"NVMe ones too are super space efficient in the context of minilab."
#38

Ironwolf

2.5
(2)
"If you wanna invest more, then Ironwolf or WD Red are gonna be good options."
·
"Ironwolf and red feel like such a scam."
#39

Dell

4.0
(1)
"I like the 8TBSSD to edit off of."
#40

Sabrent Rocket 4

4.0
(1)
"The 8TB Sabrent Rocket 4."
#41

eBay

4.0
(1)
"Your cheapest bet is to get a used hard drive on ebay that was previously used in a data center."
#42

Toshiba, WD, Seagate

4.0
(1)
"Any drive from Toshiba, WD or Seagate."
#43

Maxtor

4.0
(1)
"Unfortunately, you can commonly only find them up to 250GB. The largest IDE drives I've ever found in the wild were 320GB and those are rare."
#44

RaidSonic

4.0
(1)
"Works reliably for me since ~1 year, but the case does not dampen the sound."
#45

G-Technology

4.0
(1)
"The G-DRIVE SSD is a good option for external storage."
#46

Phobya

4.0
(1)
"A separate power brick can be added for drives, and it's easy to set up."
#47

Glyph

4.0
(1)
"The Glyph Atom EV is also a solid choice for external drives."
#48

LTO

4.0
(1)
"LTO is at the top of the list for that purpose. The drives are expensive, but the media is affordable and reliable when stored."
#49

mybook

4.0
(1)
"Reliable drives that last for years."
#50

G-Tech

4.0
(1)
"G-Tech used to be one of the gold standards for external drives."
#51

Microsoft

2.0
(1)
"Only official Expansion Cards can play X|S Optimized games."
#52

SanDisk

1.0
(1)
"The SanDisk is unreliable; I just had a brand new one die last week."

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