jsmangis Loc: Peoria, IL

I hope I am posting this in the proper category because it has to do with archival storage of digital images. I have been using WD My Passport portable hard drives for several years without any problems. I see that Costco has a Seagate 5TB Backup Plus Hard Drive on sale for $119.00 for the month of July. My question is twofold:

First, are Seagate hard drives more or less reliable when compared with WD drives?

Second, is the above mentioned drive able to be formatted in ExFat so that it will work on either PC or Mac platforms?

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

First, I don't see data on the 5TB Seagate, but the 6TB version (ST6000DX000) has decent reliability - 2.84% failure rate in the first year based on Blackblazes' sample of 1882 drives in service.

Secondly, you can format the drive with any file system that your OS will allow, including ExFat

Lundberg02

Use Raid 1 and don't worry about it.

SonoraDick Loc: Tucson

I bought that Seagate drive... twice. I returned the first after my computer didn't recognize it a couple of times. No such problem (yet) with the replacement.

There are plenty of Seagate detractors here and all over the internet, but I haven't had any worse results with them than WD. I think that Costco deal is a good one. I'd advise against using Seagate's software (I think it's called "Dashboard"); I found it worthless on my first drive. That's pretty standard advice with any drive, I guess.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

At the risk of offending all the Seagate devotees, Seagate drives are so bad that there is a class action suit against them because they fail so often. Maybe this 5TB drive is a different design and will prove to be durable, but $119 is a lot of money to throw away. Shopping for a hard drive is like shopping for a parachute - don't look for the lowest price. HGST (Hitachi) has an excellent reputation, and there are several available on Amazon.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3028981/storage/seagate-slapped-with-a-class-action-lawsuit-over-hard-drive-failure-rates.html

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hgst+drives

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I bought 2 Seagate 3 TB drives and both failed within the first month I have 5 year WD drive still going strong But everything is backed up through Back Blaze

AlMac Loc: Newcastle Upon Tyne - UK

I have had 4 Seagate external drives fail on me. Now using WD and had no bother up to now.

Linckinn Loc: Okatie, SC and Edgartown, MA

I am amazed at all the Seagate failures reported on UHH. I have used Seagate drives for years, since back when large clunky contraptions could only hold a few 100 MBS. I have never had one fail, and I'm sure I've used over a dozen.

I find their "Slim" portable 2 tb to be fantastic. Small easy to carry when traveling, very quick and easy to plug in 2 and redundantly back up when importing off an SD card. Also their color specific portables for quick recognition.

I bought a WD 2 tb portable from B & H, and while I accept everyone's word that it is more reliable, I am sticking with Seagate for its ,ore compact size.

Just my experience, and with redundant back- up, failure would not be disaster.

Carl D Loc: Albemarle, NC.

Never had good luck with Seagate, I only use WD now with no problems so far.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

The cheap consumer drives are generally pretty poor. Better to get an enterprise-class drive and a portable case. WD has two in particular that are good for this purpose, their Black and RE drives. Both offer 5 year no,questions asked warranties. I've been using and recommending them for years and have not seem reliability issues. People seem to ugrade their systems with their drives intact.

For RAID you need at least two drives.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

Seagate hard drives was discussed on this forum not long ago. One uhh member said his Seagate hard drive crashed and he lost precious memories. He regretted not having a backup system. But I remembered his last sentence. "Never buy a Seagate Hard Drive." Some of the Hard Drive Companies have bought up other competitors, so the quality control may be suspect.

mainshipper Loc: Hernando, Florida

Agree with the RAID recommendation as that's a necessity if you are putting all your images (eggs) in one drive (basket). The single drive consumer units that are sold everywhere should NEVER be used as the primary and only storage for anything.

flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

I own a number of Seagate external hard drives, have used them for years and never a problem.

I consider the Costco offering that you mention a very good buy.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

With Seagate, as with all drive manufacturers, there are models that are reliable, and some that are really poor. It often depends on which factory that particular series of drives came from (drive manufacturers typically have factories in multiple countries - everywhere from Malaysia to Japan...). The referenced Backblaze study shows that some of the 1.5 and 3TB Seagates have terrible reliability, while the 5TB is decent - all depends on the model. Seagate , like others, has had its ups-and-downs. For years, the 15K RPM Chettah was the speed demon of the industry, and I have some 4GB (yes that's GB, not TB) Seagates, >20 years old, that I recently spun up and they work fine. On the downside, the FC and SCSI Barracuda 7s of that same period were a disaster, and I'm sure you can find similar stories for every manufacturer. I agree with several points that have been made both in previous and the current post including:

Most manufacturers have multiple levels of drives from cheap consumer-grade to enterprise quality. As Gene mentioned, WD has many, with varying degrees of quality, price, intended application and warranty. In general, you get what you pay for. MTBF numbers between manufacturers are typically useless for comparing drives, as each manufacturer uses their own method (some test, some calculate based on individual component reliability) and the numbers are often unrealistic. Some manufacturers refuse to publish MTBF for this reason.

all spinning drives ultimately fail - maybe in months, maybe in decades. Placing all your data on a single, large capacity drive is an invitation to disaster. The use of multiple drives (either in a RAID configuration or on separate servers or externally) with an off-site backup copy is your best protection.

At this moment in time, HGST (which has just been acquired by WD), have some very good reliability numbers.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

It's a fact that every drive made will fail! The question is when? I have had great luck with BOTH Seagate and Western Digital. Presently, almost all my external drives are WD RED, either in a Thunderbolt Duo or Synology NAS devices. ALL of this storage is RAID 1. Hope this helps.