Best HDD

[Mek0n 0]

Are Seagate SV35 the best to use in standalone DVR???

[WirelessEye 0]

I've been building computers for many years now. I can honestly tell you that Seagate drives are the most reliable. (From my experience).

 

Western Digitals are ok, but I've replaced a few. If you get a Western Digital, only get their Raptor series. Maxtors are Junk. Hitachi's/IBM's are Junk.

 

Seagate does have a 5 year warranty as well, but more importantly... I've never had to warranty one.

[rory 0]

I definitely prefer the Seagates, any version.

[Rafg 0]

Is the price Premium worth it for the DVR specific Seagate Hds (SV35, DB35 series) compared to their Desktop Hard Drives?

[WirelessEye 0]

Their website states that their DB35 and SV35 Series hard drives are meant for DVR applications and are "optimized". My exprience is that it does not matter. We have tons of their ST3750640AS Drvies and no problems yet-- and these things get written with TB's of data every day.

 

If you want you can buy the more expensive ones, but data is data and for $280 you can a 750GB 7200RPM w 16MB Cache (Regular) Seagate drive that will work just fine.

[rory 0]

Never even saw those before, will take a look .. dont know if the PC retailers sell them though?

 

They claim less heat though, but speed wise it looks the same, plus that will depend on the Bios settings as well as Windows anyway, among other factors.

 

Anyone here tested them yet?

[jjbeef7 0]

I have been installing DVR's for a while now, and I agree with the first person that Seagate seems to be the more superior. I have changed out quite a few hard drives and I dont believe one was a Seagate.

Jay

AACOM Inc

[griffonsystems 0]

i like western digital,, have been using the 500GB drives since they came out and no problems and my older systems out there (3years or so) have been 120 and 220GB wd drives and no issues so far

 

havent used seagate

[Rafg 0]

Spoke to a seagate rep about the difference of those SV drives and their normal barracuda series. He told me that the drives are optimized for 24x 7 operation, increased throughput for writing, spin down feature when not in use

also there is no error correction on these drives

[sparks 0]

Don't mean to hijack this thread but has anyone used samsung drives for thier dvr? How do these compare?

[aureliano 0]

From my own experience nothing beats Seagate.

 

I am unfortunately stuck with Maxtors..........

[phred 0]

Don't mean to hijack this thread but has anyone used samsung drives for thier dvr? How do these compare?

 

 

Have built a couple of dvrs with Samsung spinpoints. Nice quiet drives but too early to tell how they will fair longterm – oldest has been up for 11 months with no problems (left hand moving to touch large piece of Oak!). Overall my vote goes to Seagate - they don't give a 5 year warranty without good reason.

[sparks 0]

Thanks for the info on your sammy drives phred shame it hasn't been tested longer.

 

So it looks like Seagate is the way to go but should you only use certain models?

[phred 0]

Sparks – hold on. I will jump in my time machine and zap forward 5 years then come back and tell you how hard drive reliability panned out!

 

Joking aside – your guess is as good as anyones as to what will turn out to be the most reliable of the current crop of drives as they have not been tested in the real world for very long. If I knew of a drive model that had run for many years with zero failures it would be irrelevant today in terms of performance and capacity.

 

Based on passed experience I would suggest any model Seagate with the capacity you are after and relax with the 5 year warranty.

[sparks 0]

Thanks again phred info much appreciated.

[heloder 0]

We like them so much we did a PR on them:

http://www.saysecurity.com/seagateharddrvie.html

 

We use Seagate in all our DVRs: PC, Embedded and Mobile. We have the occasional problem, but not like the old days.

 

If you're building DVRs, you should be using Seagate.

 

I have a source if you need them if needed. Just PM me.

[WirelessEye 0]

Seems like everyone likes Seagates. Really anyone who has built enough computers or dvr's knows that one of the most unreliable components of the system (after the power supply) is the hard drive. If you are running Seagates, your cpu fan or memory will probably fail first.

 

Anyhow, good thread.

[phred 0]

Perhaps a topic for a new thread but i'm a neub here.

 

What do you guys prefer for power supplies?

 

I have probably seen more PC power supply failures over the years than hard drives.

 

I now use nothing but Antec for my own builds – no failures so far.

[rory 0]

Im swapping out a motherboard now on a DVR .. already changed everything else .. but it keeps powering off .. and yes it has a Seagate now also .. was WD before, but I changed it because it was too noisy is all.. the Seagate is nice and quiet ..

 

BTW, im switching an MSI for an Asus mobo .. would have gone Asus from the start but the MSI was all i could get on the island at the time

 

Also switching a Coolmax PSU for an antech, but i doubt thats the issue.

But to Phred, ive used even the cheapest PSUs before and they lasted ..

it all depends .. I think im going Antech from now on though . the dual fans.

[phred 0]

Rory

 

I could not point my finger at any particular brand of PSU, most I have had to change have one common trait though– lightweight. By comparison, you don't want to drop an Antec on your toe.

[WirelessEye 0]

Antec PSU's are nice, probably the most reliable I've seen. I've replaced a lot of the Enermax PSU's so stay away from those.

 

MSI Mobo's used to be the bomb, although they fell off a couple years ago. Now I only use Asus, and only their top of the line stuff. A good motherboard is just too inexpensive as far as the rest of the system is concerned, to get a cheap one. What I can say tho, stay away from Gigabyte. I used to have good luck with them, but now I've had nothing but RMA's 90% of the time (with 3 different model Motherboards). And if you ever have to RMA anything through Gigabyte... well... enjoy...

 

The hot ticket right now are Core 2 Duo's (Tunic cooled) on Asus Mobo's. You can overclock like crazy and it's still rock solid reliable. Ahhh I can smell the voided warranty now.

[rory 0]

Yep I can feel the difference with this Asus, over the previous MSI and other MSI's ive been using lately .. MSI's are much easier to get down here though and also considerably cheaper .. this Asus board just cost me $160 .. its only $80 in the US .. the MSI's start at $110.

 

Worst thing is, the MSI board i just replaced (cost $180) .. if it is bad (still need to test over time here at my place) even though I got it back in November 2006, they wont replace it (bought it locally) and even if I send it back to MSI in the US, that would cost me more than the cost of a new Mobo ..

 

So if its bad its going in the garbage literally ..

 

Other than that the system is up and running great right now ..

Onboard video also ..

 

And yeah the Antec is running smooth also ..

[phred 0]

Problem with mobos is they rush them out the door before the job is done then spend six months sorting out the bios bugs. I never buy the latest thing for that reason.

My home dvr system has a core 2 duo 6200 on an Asus mobo – totally over the top for the Vguard RT4 card.

When I first put the system together and powered up I though I had a serious problem as the CPU fan revolved a few times then stopped. Turns out that is all the cooling it requires. Even running as a dvr with four channels at D1, 25fps per channel I only use 4% cpu so the processor fan rarely turns. Makes for a nice quiet machine and the lack of heat can only be a good thing long term.

 

Anyway , thanks for sharing your experience guys. Looks like we have come to similar conclusions quite independently.

 

Apologies to anyone who feels I hi-jacked the thread.

[kake 0]

I have had the best success with Seagate by far. Stay away from Maxtor as they are not a quality product at all. Since Seagate now owns Maxtor I suspect you will see the Maxtor name disappear and we'll only remember it in our nightmares

 

Here's a very good report on HD performance by Google, a must read if your in the Digital Video market. http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

[CSG 0]

Interesting article,, too bad they didn't give brand comparisons.

 

I've used quite a few Maxtor's without incident in desktop and server applications, with no issues. I've had 2 Seagates die on me, one a Seagate Cheetah and a Barracuda. I got warranty on the barracuda.

 

Well the're all one happy family now,as Seagate owns Maxtor.