2TB Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint replacement

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Have been using these for backup/archive purposes, and just tried to purchase another - it seems that this model has been discontinued. Any suggestions for a suitable alternative? Needs to be 2TB, and preferably, 5400rpm.
 
I'm currently a fan of WD Green drives
 
WD Green for backup solutions, so we have 2TB drives on non server hardware (NAS devices). We have them about 2 years old and going strong. On a side note, we mirror everything and have multiple backups, so a single drive failure isn't an issue.

We only use SAS drives in server for reliability/performance reasons
 
I've had 4 failures of WD green drives in 18 months... just a heads up. I am using them in a RAID5 NAS and a home RAID6 server. Bad move. All 4 were definitely faulty, as they went back to WD and were swapped out under warranty. They weren't all from the same batch either... and what's more, 2 of them that have failed are the ones that have already been replaced.

Having 8 of the damned things is obviously going to increase my chances of failure, but 4 failures in 18 months?

My drives were the WD EARS 1.5TB green drives... so avoid those if I were you.
 
After using Seagate for a long time, I moved to WD, then moved away from them to Samsung due to too mainly disk failures with WD. Considering they've been around a long time I'd really expect them to have sorted their problems out - but don't want to take the risk.
 
thing is youll never hear of a disk that has perfect reviews. while ive never had bother with samsung plenty of others have. just because of the mechanical nature of the disk, like a camera shutter, can fail after day 1 or day 1,000,000.

you pays your money you takes your chances.
 
...but 4 failures in 18 months??
 
WD15EARS

It's no longer listed on the WD site, and seems to be replaced with the WD15EARX. Looks like even WD realised the EARS was a crap dive.
 
We use mainly stagnate SAS drives and out of 20 dries, we replace 2 a year and have done since 2 years after initial purchase. Currently I have 2 on predicted failure

WD have not been noticeably bad, but I do avoid Maxtor and Fujitsu
 
Appreciate the link.. but 4 failures in 18 months is high. Even a replacement drive broke again. I'll be replacing them soon.
 
The post was more a comment for the OP... I'm 90% Samsung drives here at the moment....
 
I've never had a samsung failure.... but I only have 2 of those. They're considerably older than the WDs though.
 
Yep... all the same model and revision. Like I said.. that drive is no longer listed on the WD site, so looks like it's been withdrawn. Good riddance.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Yep... all the same model and revision. Like I said.. that drive is no longer listed on the WD site, so looks like it's been withdrawn. Good riddance.
Click to expand...
Are WD Green drives approved for use in NAS/Raid ? I thought they were desktop class drives.
 
-RV- said:
Are WD Green drives approved for use in NAS/Raid ? I thought they were desktop class drives.
Click to expand...

Not many affordable drives are.... to be honest I've never had any bother with non approved (samsung) drives running 24/7. Just follow the recommended/compatible list from the nas manufacturers.
 
-RV- said:
Are WD Green drives approved for use in NAS/Raid ? I thought they were desktop class drives.
Click to expand...
Depends what filesystem you run on them ;)
 
Pookeyhead said:
WD15EARS

It's no longer listed on the WD site, and seems to be replaced with the WD15EARX. Looks like even WD realised the EARS was a crap dive.
Click to expand...

Maybe you were unlucky - I am using one of these as my main data drive, and have had no problems whatsoever.
 
Jez2011 said:
Maybe you were unlucky - I am using one of these as my main data drive, and have had no problems whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Unlucky 4 times in 18 months? If you think so, then sure. That kind of "luck" I can do without though.


Enterprise grade drives for me from now on. You can't put a price on Data.
 
well you can and its double for a desktop drive with slightly better sector recovery (but then RAID controller should deal with this anyway) and MTBF (which is an average number anyway) compared to a desktop drive. when you should have a backup in place anyway it doesnt seem the extra cost is justified.

enterprise = SAS 15k (at a push the faster of the SCSI 10k is still pretty handy albeit older) with appropriate controller.

in my opinion.. :D
 
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incidentally for poos and giggles (that and im bored) i just worked out the age of my samsung 2tb's..

2x HD203WI are 2 years 7 months old
1x HD203WI is 2 years 5 months old
2x HD204UI are 1 year 5 months
1x HD204UI is 2 months old
2x HD204UI are 1 year and 10 months old

:D
 
We pay around £300 for our 1TB SAS drives.

Multiple copies on different SATA drives is cheaper and more sensible.
 
Did anyone ever find a source for the 2tb sammy drives?

I have a couple of them in my drobo and wanted a couple more to fill the last 2 bays as they were filling, had to slum it with a 1.5tbh spinpoint as a stop gap but still want another sammy drive in there.
 
digitalfailure said:
Did anyone ever find a source for the 2tb sammy drives?

I have a couple of them in my drobo and wanted a couple more to fill the last 2 bays as they were filling, had to slum it with a 1.5tbh spinpoint as a stop gap but still want another sammy drive in there.
Click to expand...

Last reputable seller I saw with stock was Redstore but even they've sold out now. Annoying as I have a full compliment of Samsung 2tb bar one empty bay. Should've gotten two last time.
 
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