Hard drives
- Samsung 1.5% (as against 1.8%)
- Seagate 1.8% (as against 2.0%) (1.6% not including the 7200.11 160 GB)
- Western 2.0% (as against 1.5%)
- Hitachi 3.0% (as against 3.1%)
Surprisingly, Western Digital has been unthroned by Samsung and Seagate. Western's rates are up significantly and the competition has improved. Hitachi still brings up the rear by quite some distance, though its rate has improved slightly. Only three drives have a 5% or worse rate. These are listed below and the third is the 7200.11 160 GB which is at 16.4%: this is probably old stock with the problematic firmware of this series.
Here’s the breakdown model by model for 1 TB drives:
- 3.65% Western Digital Caviar Blue (WD10EALS)
- 3.59% Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C (HDS721010CLA332)
- 2.89% Western Digital Caviar Black (WD1001FALS)
- 2.79% Western Digital Caviar Black (WD1002FAEX)
- 1.61% Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (ST31000528AS)
- 1.57% Western Digital Caviar Green (WD10EARS)
- 1.31% Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 (ST31000524AS)
- 1.27% Western Digital Caviar Blue (WD10EALX)
- 1.15% Samsung SpinPoint F3 (HD103SJ)
And the breakdown for 2 TB drives:
- 5.53% Western Digital RE4-GP (WD2002FYPS)
- 5.07% Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 (HDS722020ALA330)
- 4.75% Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 (HDS723020BLA642)
- 4.42% Western Digital Caviar Black (WD2002FAEX)
- 3.48% Seagate Barracuda LP (ST32000542AS)
- 3.40% Seagate Barracuda XT (ST32000641AS)
- 3.05% Western Digital Caviar Green (WD20EARS)
- 2.98% Seagate Barracuda Green (ST2000DL003)
- 2.20% Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen (HD204UI)
Overall, the 2 TB drives are less reliable than the 1 TB drives. Samsung’s models have the lowest returns rates in both ranges. Note that with the Western Digital RE4-GP (WD2002FYPS), there was quite a low sample (253) and half the returns (7) were made on a single sale: this abnormal rate for what is a “pro” drive can therefore be explained by a problem with transport.
