3

I've had yet another USB hard drive fail on me. It is still working but HDSentinel gives it 8% health and 9 days to live. (It will occasionally around every 48hrs just switch off and on again on its own)

I decide this time I want internal only and will hope it lasts me longer (I only got about 10-12 months from the other some how).

The two I have seen are pretty similar and almost the same price. They are both Seagate 2TB.

ST2000DM001 - 6 heads - £58.14 // ST2000DM006 = 4 heads - £58.74

Now the one that is 50p more, has 4 heads. The other has 6 heads. (Also its the higher model number (ie. the 006) that only has 4 heads)

I also did notice that the original RRP for the 6 heads version was actually £30 higher to begin with.

I want to get this bought immediately, but thought i would ask here rather than phoning the company selling it, I'd rather an independent, expert opinion.

Thanks for the help

(Note: This might be related. Its about platter size and count VS reliability/lifespan -- not sure if this is even the same as heads, Im assuming those drives have one head per platter)Does a greater number of hard drive platter increase the risk of failure?

Big T Larrity
  • 285
  • 1
  • 3
  • 9
  • Both/depends. More heads vs everything else similar means: More capacity, faster data reading/writing,.... but also more air resistance inside, more power usages, usually more noise, .... – Hennes Jan 11 '18 at 11:12
  • The two drives are identical in RPM, capacity. It will be inside a case. Power consumption isn't an issue. I've editted my question to be more specific by what I mean as 'Better' – Big T Larrity Jan 11 '18 at 11:17
  • *"Im assuming those drives have one head per platter"* -- Wrong, read my answer in the link you posted. Fewer R/W heads *could* lessen changes of failure, but product reliability has many factors. If you seem to have a lot of failures, maybe you need to handle these devices more carefully. If you really understood how they work, you might treat them more delicately. – sawdust Jan 11 '18 at 19:52

2 Answers2

3

It doesn't make enough practical difference to worry about for consumer drives.

But do go for the M006 version.
Any M001's still being sold are old stock, they are not longer in production. Who knows how long it has been on the store-shelve already? Could very well be that the 2 or 3 year factory warranty is already expired.

Tonny
  • 29,601
  • 7
  • 52
  • 84
  • ok thanks. There is one years warranty from purchase date online. But it seems odd that the 06 only has 4 heads and the 01 has 6. I can only assume they decided 4 heads if better than 6 and changed their design. I'll get the 4-headed M006 as per your recommendations (like you say probably not gonna be a huge difference) NOTE: I am 100% bothered only about RELIABILITY. Dont care about sound levels, power consumption, etc – Big T Larrity Jan 11 '18 at 11:18
  • @SuperMegaBroBro - It could simply be a newer revision of the hardware. A HDD manufacture can do all sorts of things with firmware, they are continuously improving their product, and I agree the number of heads a HDD has shouldn't make any practical different on the lifespan of the drive. There are drives with5 year warranties that exist for that purpose. It is worth pointing out most external drives, use the same model, you can purchase as an internal. The exception might be the smaller 2.5" portable drives. – Ramhound Jan 11 '18 at 11:36
  • @SuperMegaBroBro the 4 vs 6 heads would mean that they have 4 hard drive surfaces instead of 6 and therefore higher density platters on the 4 head version. Newer tech, higher density and possible marginally faster speed. – Mokubai Jan 11 '18 at 11:37
  • @Mokubai Exactly. With increasing densities manufacturers reduce the number of heads/platters as a matter of course: Iess parts means cheaper and less things that can break/are subject to wear. – Tonny Jan 11 '18 at 12:44
  • Drives don't wear out while sitting on the shelf. Nor do warranties expire prior to sale to end-user. You seem to believe in "newer is better" consumer mentality. Maybe the newer version has "new" technology, but is it proven? A big reason for new versions is not "improvement" but rather **cost reduction**. Electronic manufacturers specifically review their products just to find ways to build them cheaper. A 10% savings goes straight to the bottom line (i.e. profit). So newer is not always better. – sawdust Jan 11 '18 at 20:08
  • @sawdust Consumer mentality??? I'm an IT professional and have dealt with thousands of hard drives over the last 35 years. Drives (at least the spinning disk types) can degrade due to storage (sticky lubricants (common), degrading of platter surface due to moisture in the air (very rare)). As for warranty: I have had enough cases where the drive manufacturer wouldn't except warranty starting at "date of sale" if that date of sale was past the factory warranty period. And date of sale is often impossible to proof (e.g. Drive serial not on invoice) so manufacturing-date is all you have. – Tonny Jan 12 '18 at 08:34
3

If the drive size (physical and data) stays the same but the number of heads goes down, then the areal density of the data has gone up. That would be due to process and technology improvements - you would expect that reliability would be improved too with those improvements.

So, as Tonny says, go for the later model.

As to reliability, I would look at reviews on somewhere like Newegg and anywhere else that has a lot of reviews (to get a reasonable spread of opinions), and bear in mind that people might be more likely to leave a bad review if they have encountered a problem than if there was no problem and they aren't thinking about the disk drive.

I expect an internal HDD to last longer than an external one which gets moved around, and also there is no intermediary USB interface to fail.

No answer about HDD reliability would be complete without saying that you have to keep backups of all data that you don't want to lose.

Andrew Morton
  • 2,957
  • 2
  • 20
  • 29
  • thanks for your help. Yeah I do have a backup of all my actual work (only due to pure luck that I have a warning of this drive failing). I ended up going for the 4 head, newer model above from the two. Its right there with the cheapest I can find so if it fails again within 12 months then maybe its the drive quality, or maybe i need to cool my system or something (although 1 of the 2 fails I've had this last 24months is an external drive). – Big T Larrity Jan 12 '18 at 15:08