When looking to purchase a new hard disk drive (HDD), choosing the right brand and model is important. The hard drive is a crucial component that stores all of your data, so you want one that is reliable, fast and offers ample storage capacity. In this article, we will compare top hard drive manufacturers and provide recommendations on which companies make the best HDDs to buy in a variety of use cases.
Key Factors in Choosing a Hard Drive Brand
There are several key factors to consider when selecting a hard drive brand:
- Reputation and reliability – Well-known brands like Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba have been making HDDs for decades and are trusted for quality and reliability.
- Price – Price often varies between brands for similar specs. Compare prices and look for sales.
- Performance – Seek time, data transfer speeds and cache size affect performance.
- Capacity – Consider how much storage you need now and may need in the future.
- Warranty and support – Look for at least a 2-3 year warranty. Pick a brand with good customer service support.
- Intended use case – Enterprise or consumer? Desktop or portable? These factors affect ideal features.
When weighing these criteria, some brands stand out as better choices for specific use cases. We’ll take a deeper look at top options below.
Best for General Consumer Use – WD and Seagate
For general home and consumer use, such as in a desktop PC, laptop or external portable hard drive, the top two brands are Western Digital (WD) and Seagate. Here’s an overview of what each offers:
Western Digital
- Broad range of models for any use case
- Reliable drives with competitive prices
- Fast performance from 7200 RPM WD Black line
- Budget-friendly WD Blue drives
- Green eco-friendly, low-power WD Green drives
- Speedy 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor drives for gaming
- 3-5 year limited warranties
Seagate
- Industry leader in storage capacity per drive
- Fast, durable drives for performance PCs
- Budget BarraCuda and Firecuda drives
- Huge capacity options up to 16TB
- Portable and slim external drives
- 2-5 year limited warranties
Overall, you can’t go wrong with either of these top brands for home builds and upgrades. They offer competitive speeds, large caches, a wide variety of capacities and form factors, and compelling warranties.
Best High Performance – WD Black Series
If you’re building a gaming PC or high-end system for intensive applications, then the WD Black line offers top-notch performance. Here are some of the benefits of WD Black hard drives:
- 7000 RPM spin speed for fast data access
- Up to 261 MB/s data transfer rates
- Large caches up to 128 MB
- Noise reduction features
- 5-year limited warranty
- Models available up to 6TB capacity
Specifically, the WD Black sn850 NVMe SSD is one of the best performing drives on the market. With blazing fast sequential read/write speeds up to 7,000/5,300 MB/s and up to 1,000,000 IOPS, it leaves SATA and traditional NVMe SSDs in the dust. It leverages PCIe 4.0, optimized controllers, and 3D NAND technology to achieve top-tier speeds for power users, enthusiasts, and gaming. A 5-year warranty provides peace of mind for this premium SSD.
Most Reliable – WD Gold
In mission-critical enterprise server and data center applications, reliability reigns supreme. No one wants their company’s servers crashing from failed drives and losing data. That’s why WD Gold HDDs are a top choice for maximum reliability. Key advantages include:
- Up to 2.5 million hours mean time between failures (MTBF)
- Self-encryption and secure erase features
- RAFF technology for vibration protection
- Enterprise-class reliability enhancements
- 24×7 tech support options
- 5-year limited warranty
WD Gold drives undergo rigorous testing and are specifically engineered for heavy workloads, high temperatures, and vibration prone environments. Whether for a NAS, RAID array, server, or enterprise storage, the WD Gold line delivers peace of mind.
Best Budget Hard Drives – Toshiba
If you need massive storage on a tight budget, Toshiba delivers. Their consumer HDDs offer high capacities and low cost per TB. Models like the Toshiba P300 provide up to 3TB for under $75. Key advantages of Toshiba budget drives include:
- Very low cost per TB
- Energy efficient options
- Reliable drives up to 4TB capacity
- 2-year limited warranty
- 5400 to 7200 RPM speeds
While not as fast as pricier WD or Seagate drives, Toshiba provides excellent bang for your buck with massive space for cheap. Their lower cost makes them ideal for backups, data archives, home media servers, and other applications where spindle speed isn’t critical.
Portable External Drives – Seagate
For compact portable external hard drives, Seagate is the market leader. Their slim, lightweight drives provide ample space for backups and travel. Top options include:
- Seagate Backup Plus Slim – up to 5TB, 120 MB/s transfers
- Seagate Backup Plus Portable – up to 5TB, polycarbonate case
- Seagate Game Drive for Xbox – Compatible with Xbox consoles, up to 4TB
- Seagate Expansion Portable – Simple add-on storage up to 4TB
These 2.5-inch external HDDs draw power over USB, making them completely portable. Durability features like aluminum or polycarbonate casing protect the drive. And capacities up to 5TB provide ample space for backups, travel photos, music, video, and more.
NAS Hard Drives – WD Red and Seagate IronWolf
When selecting hard drives for a NAS (network attached storage), go with drives designed for 24/7 operation and RAID environments. Top options include:
WD Red NAS Drives
- Specialized firmware for NAS compatibility
- RAID optimization
- NASware 3.0 features
- Up to 14TB capacities
- Designed for 24/7 operation
- 3-year limited warranty
Seagate IronWolf NAS Drives
- Built for NAS with AgileArray firmware
- Rotational vibration sensors
- RAID optimization
- Up to 18TB capacities
- 5-year limited warranty
- Options for standard or Pro NVMe SSD caching
These NAS-specific drives are tuned for performance and reliability in RAID setups. Always choose NAS drives over generic desktop drives for your NAS enclosure or server.
Surveillance and Security DVR Drives – WD Purple
When you need 24/7 recording for surveillance cameras or a security DVR system, WD Purple is purpose-built for this workload. Key benefits include:
- AllFrame AI technology to enhance recording
- Tuned for write-intensive workloads
- Reduced video frame loss and jitters
- Supports up to 64 HD cameras
- 3-year limited warranty
The WD Purple optimization provides reliable recording, playback, and storage for peace of mind. Choose the enhanced WD Purple Pro models if you need up to 360 MB/s transfer rates in RAID configurations.
SSDs vs HDDs
When it comes to speed, SSDs (solid state drives) are much faster than HDDs. But HDDs offer far more storage capacity for the money. Here’s a quick comparison:
SSD Advantages
- Faster read/write speeds – up to 560/510 MB/s for SATA SSDs; up to 7,000 MB/s for NVMe SSDs
- No moving parts – more durable and shock-resistant
- Lower power consumption
- Usually more expensive per gigabyte
- Lower capacity options, often 500GB to 2TB
HDD Advantages
- Lower cost per terabyte – ideal for mass storage
- Higher maximum capacities – up to 16TB for consumer HDDs
- 5,400 to 7,200 RPM speeds
- Longer read/write times due to physical head movement
For peak system performance, use an SSD for your operating system and applications, then store your files and backups on a spacious HDD. This provides the speed boost from SSD while still enabling massive storage capacity via HDD.
M.2 Form Factor Drives
M.2 SSDs are a newer form factor that offer ultra-fast speeds in a compact design. They come as either SATA or PCIe/NVMe drives. Key benefits include:
- Small, flexible board can fit in tight spaces
- Interface bandwidth up to PCIe 4.0 x4 lanes
- No cabling required
- NVMe models boast blazing speeds over traditional SATA
Top options for M.2 SSDs include:
- Samsung 970 EVO Plus – up to 3,500/3,300 MB/s reads/writes
- WD Black SN750 – up to 3,470/3,000 MB/s reads/writes
- Crucial P5 Plus – up to 6,600/5,000 MB/s reads/writes
For the fastest speeds, choose an M.2 PCIe/NVMe drive rather than SATA. But SATA M.2 runs cooler and is still significantly faster than a 2.5″ SATA SSD.
How Are Hard Drives Measured and Compared?
Understanding hard drive specifications helps you compare models and select the best drive for your needs. Key factors include:
Drive Capacity
Measured in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB), capacity indicates the maximum amount of data a drive can store. Standard hard drives range from 120GB to 16TB for desktop models.
Spindle Speed
This measures how fast the internal platters spin, indicated in revolutions per minute (RPM). Common speeds are 5,400 RPM for budget drives, 7,200 RPM for mainstream drives, and 10,000+ RPM for high performance drives.
Cache Memory
Also called buffer, this embedded memory improves read/write speeds by accessing frequently used data faster. More cache, usually 64-128MB, means better performance.
Interface and Bandwidth
The interface affects how fast data can be transferred to and from the PC. SATA III offers 6 Gb/s. The faster NVMe SSD interface enables PCIe Gen3 x4 or newer PCIe 4.0 theoretical bandwidth up to 4,000-8,000 MB/s.
Access Time
This is the average time it takes the drive to locate a piece of data. Faster access times translate to better drive performance. Access times are measured in milliseconds (ms).
IOPS – Input/Output Operations Per Second
IOPS measures performance for random reads and writes. Databases and other applications needing many small file transactions require higher IOPS. Top NVMe SSDs exceed one million IOPS.
Form Factor
The physical size and shape of the drive matters if space is limited. Common form factors are 3.5-inch desktop drives, 2.5-inch notebook drives, and M.2 sticks that mount directly to a motherboard.
Shock Resistance
If you’ll be traveling with a portable external drive, look for models with extra ruggedization and shock resistance. An accelerated drop test measures shock survival in meters.
Conclusion
With a wide range of models and specifications to consider, choosing the right hard drive for your needs takes research. As a recap, key points to remember include:
- WD and Seagate rule the consumer HDD market; WD Black offers the highest performance
- WD Gold and Seagate IronWolf NAS drives are made for RAID setups
- Toshiba provides massive capacities for budget drives under $75
- Seagate dominates the portable external drive market
- For pure speed, SSDs significantly outperform HDDs
- Compare spindle speed, cache size, interface bandwidth, and access times
Before purchasing your next hard drive, consider how you’ll be using it. Analyze your performance, capacity, and budget needs. And choose a reputable brand that provides a compelling warranty, such as WD, Seagate, or Toshiba. With the right HDD or SSD selection, you’ll enjoy a super-responsive PC and ample storage for all your precious data.