New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

[cookinpro]

I will be needing to buy a new internal sata 3.5" HDD as my current drive seems to be on its way out. Hard Disk Sentinel tells me that my 3 year old Samsung Spinpoint 750GB HDD (HD753LJ) has 102 bad sectors with about 79 days of life left in it.
I am looking to spend anywhere between $80-$110 on a new drive that will have either 750GB or 1TB capacity. I would prefer at least a 64MB cache (or higher) and 7200 RPM. My motherboard is an Asus M4A78T-E.
My main concern is that this new drive will be long lasting and reliable. I'm not sure if I should get a regular consumer grade drive or an enterprise drive.Can anyone explain the difference and the best way for me to go.

[wazza300]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

I can recommend the Samsung f3 1tb if you can get hold of any,they are a bit thin on the ground now

Seagate barracuda 1tb are ok also,

have you run chkdisk on the drive? a format might help aswell but backup the drive beforehand ect

[profJim]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

I highly recommend the Western Digital Caviar Black hard drives.
I've had no problems with my WD 640, WD 750, and WD 1TB Caviar Black hard drives.
I have two WD 640 drives and the most used drive currently has been powered on for over 13,600 hours.
A quick search shows that NCIX Canada has an excellent price:
WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5in Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM
Many hard drive warranties are now only 1 - 3 years, but Caviar Black drives have a 5 year warranty.

I can't recommend the current Samsung hard drives because they are Seagate hard drives sold with the Samsung name. My older genuine Samsung 2TB HD204UI has been an excellent backup hard drive, but I only connect it to my system for occasional backups. A web search using enterprise hard drive will provide links for more information. I've never considered using enterprise hard drives, as I've never had issues with using high end consumer hard drives.

I don't know how accurate or reliable Hard Disk Sentinel's remaining life predictions are.
Hard Disk Sentinel reports that my WD640 hard drive has 100% performance and health.
Here are the current results for my longest running WD 640 Caviar Black hard drive:

[cookinpro]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

Yes, I have run chkdisk on this Samsung drive and it verified that there are damaged sectors. The drive has been used for just over 17,000 hours in total.

[cookinpro]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

Thanks for your help. I went out and bought the 1 TB Caviar Black HDD from NCIX here in Toronto.
Would it be ok to use the cloning software program on Western Digital's website?
and if so.....would the new cloned drive be recognized as my systems C: drive and would it boot properly once the drive was installed as my one and only system drive??
Thanks for any and all assistance

[profJim]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

You're welcome, glad to help out.
Check out http://forums.tweaktown.com/storage-...clone-hdd.html where the OP successfully used Macrium Reflect freeware to clone his hard drive after Acronis and Ghost failed.

Let us know how your new hard drive works out.

[cookinpro]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

The operation went smoothly and the patient is doing well!!!! I used Macrium Reflect Free and it took just a bit over 15 minutes to clone the new Caviar Black.
I'm back in black and back ontrack. Thanks for the help. HD works well.

[profJim]

Re: New HDD needed, opinions wanted.

Good to hear that your Macrium Reflect Free software easily cloned your old drive to the new Caviar Black hard drive.
Thanks for the update.