# Are SSHDs any good?



## The VCR King (Mar 12, 2016)

When I get my new power supply I plan to buy a replacement 1TB disk to speed up my system. Should I get another HDD, an SSD, or try an SSHD?


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## voyagerfan99 (Mar 12, 2016)

SSD


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## Laquer Head (Mar 12, 2016)

Oh dear god no.. Once he gets the mythical PSU.. we then get 12-18 months of back and forth on SSD/HDD


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## The VCR King (Mar 12, 2016)

voyagerfan99 said:


> SSD


Thanks.  I'll go with an SSD then.


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## spirit (Mar 12, 2016)

SSHDs are a waste of time in my opinion. I had one for a few months and it died, but whilst it was still working it was essentially just a 5400 RPM hard disk with an 8GB flash cache. Windows itself was cached in the 8GB flash storage which was nice, it meant Windows booted up and shut down quickly like it did on an SSD, but the rest of the system ran at 5400 RPM speeds because that was stored on the 5400 RPM HDD. That meant it was really slow and the 7200 RPM regular disk that my ThinkPad shipped with was actually faster. The only speed benefit I saw was the booting up and shut down times and that was it. So these 'SSD-like performance!' claims are rubbish.

That SSHD was the biggest waste of £80 ever. It was slow and it only lasted for about 5 or 6 months before it bit the bullet and died. A few months later I had gotten sick of it and so I spent about the same again on a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB and then not longer after that, the SSHD died. To be fair I had been used to SSDs since 2011, but this SSHD was unbearable to me and it annoyed me that actually the regular HDD the laptop shipped with was faster. I should've done my research. Never again!


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## The VCR King (Mar 12, 2016)

spirit said:


> SSHDs are a waste of time in my opinion. I had one for a few months and it died, but whilst it was still working it was essentially just a 5400 RPM hard disk with an 8GB flash cache. Windows itself was cached in the 8GB flash storage which was nice, it meant Windows booted up and shut down quickly like it did on an SSD, but the rest of the system ran at 5400 RPM speeds because that was stored on the 5400 RPM HDD. That meant it was really slow and the 7200 RPM regular disk that my ThinkPad shipped with was actually faster. The only speed benefit I saw was the booting up and shut down times and that was it. So these 'SSD-like performance!' claims are rubbish.
> 
> That SSHD was the biggest waste of £80 ever. It was slow and it only lasted for about 5 or 6 months before it bit the bullet and died. A few months later I had gotten sick of it and so I spent about the same again on a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB and then not longer after that, the SSHD died. To be fair I had been used to SSDs since 2011, but this SSHD was unbearable to me and it annoyed me that actually the regular HDD the laptop shipped with was faster. I should've done my research. Never again!


Wow, I didn't know they were so bad! I'll definitely stay away from those!


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## aldan (Mar 13, 2016)

kinda like your stayin away from power supplies?


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## beers (Mar 13, 2016)

I have one in my work laptop.

It sucks balls.


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## spirit (Mar 13, 2016)

beers said:


> I have one in my work laptop.
> 
> It sucks balls.


When they first came out most SSHDs were 3.5" and 7200 RPM so the performance was actually OK, but most of them seem to be 2.5" and only 5400 RPM now.


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## The VCR King (Mar 22, 2016)

This leads me to my next question. If I get a 1TB SSD to replace my 1TB HDD, could I simply clone my HDD to my SSD and just run it or do I need to do a total Windows reinstall and all that lovely crap?


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## johnb35 (Mar 23, 2016)

How long has it been since you've done a fresh install? If it hasn't been in the last year, I would just do a fresh install as you'll get better performance that way.  And you realize that a 1tb SSD is almost $300 right?


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> How long has it been since you've done a fresh install? If it hasn't been in the last year, I would just do a fresh install as you'll get better performance that way.  And you realize that a 1tb SSD is almost $300 right?


My last fresh install was about six months ago when I did some other upgrades.


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## beers (Mar 23, 2016)

I'd just fresh install, it takes literally 15 minutes to set everything back up including installing from USB.

Boi you need to read your signature again before envisioning blowing all of this cash.


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

beers said:


> I'd just fresh install, it takes literally 15 minutes to set everything back up including installing from USB.
> 
> Boi you need to read your signature again before envisioning blowing all of this cash.


Yeah I am doing the PSU first, that's top priority.

And I have an honest question. What is the benefit of doing a fresh Windows install? I got my computer set up how I like it and it runs fine. I hate doing fresh installs because then I have to reinstall everything and I have to get everything back to what it was.


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## Geoff (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Yeah I am doing the PSU first, that's top priority.
> 
> And I have an honest question. What is the benefit of doing a fresh Windows install? I got my computer set up how I like it and it runs fine. I hate doing fresh installs because then I have to reinstall everything and I have to get everything back to what it was.


I'm guessing you install tons of programs that you find on the internet, like free video converters, PC cleaning software, etc  Doing a fresh install wipes all of that out so you don't have useless programs installed and running, taking up unnecessary storage and memory.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

Takes longer to clone an OS than it does to install it fresh. For best performance install fresh.


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## Laquer Head (Mar 23, 2016)

Geoff said:


> I'm guessing you install tons of programs that you find on the internet, like free video converters, PC cleaning software, etc  Doing a fresh install wipes all of that out so you don't have useless programs installed and running, taking up unnecessary storage and memory.



I can nearly guarantee he is this type of user..


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## Geoff (Mar 23, 2016)

@The VCR King You should take a screenshot of your installed programs first, then we can see if it's worth it to reinstall 



Laquer Head said:


> I can nearly guarantee he is this type of user..


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

My programs:


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## beers (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> My last fresh install was about six months ago





The VCR King said:


> Installed: 8/22/2014



Hmmm......


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## voyagerfan99 (Mar 23, 2016)

.....There's 42 things of crap you don't need in there.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

Here's what I'd circle and remove if you don't ever use these:

YTD Video Downloader
Windows Essentials 2012
Windows Driver Package (can't tell if this driver software or a tool to update your drivers, if it's the latter then remove it)
Unlocker
Streaming Internet Radio Toolbar
Sapphire TRIXX
ReadySHARE Cloud (unless it serves some kind of purpose and you need to use it)
PL-2303HXD Vista Driver Installer (unless it is actually a driver for something you have, Google says it's a USB-Serial adapter - what serial peripherals are you using?)
PC Wizard
Muffin Player
Office 97 (I get why you might still be using Publisher 2002 if you don't use it all that often, but if you still use Office 97 as your Microsoft Office suite, remove it and use a web-based solution like Microsoft Office Online or Google Docs, or look at OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead. Besides, this looks like a 'leftover')
Java 8 Update 45
InterActual Player
InfraRecorder
IceChat
Google Earth Plugin
Free YouTube Uploader
Firebird SQL Server
DVICO FusionHDTV (if you don't watch TV on your PC)
Desktop Encyclopedia
Defraggler
ControlCenter
Cisco Connect
ATI Catalyst Install Manager (just update your graphics drivers)
AnalogX NetStat Live
America's Greatest Chili Cook Book (if you don't use it)
Active DVD Eraser

Obviously I don't know what you use each of these for and I don't know if these are important for anything you do/hardware you have without researching, but at a glance the above looks like it could all be removed.


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

beers said:


> Hmmm......


I could've sworn I've done an install recently. Time flies I guess


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

spirit said:


> Here's what I'd circle and remove if you don't ever use these:
> 
> YTD Video Downloader
> Windows Essentials 2012
> ...


I'll get rid of some, but I still use:
Windows Essentials 2012 (that's the program for movie maker and media center)
Unlocker (it's come in handy more than once for programs that I can't delete)
ReadySHARE Cloud (that's for my Netgear NAS system and I have it set up for cloud on my phone)
Office 97 and Publisher 2002 because I like the older Office versions and I use them daily for school work
IceChat because I use it for other forums and gaming communities
DVICO FusionHDTV because I watch over-the-air TV on my PC daily
America's Greatest Chili Cookbook, me and my mom both use it

Everything else will go though, thank you for helping me narrow it down a bit.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> I'll get rid of some, but I still use:
> Windows Essentials 2012 (that's the program for movie maker and media center)
> Unlocker (it's come in handy more than once for programs that I can't delete)
> ReadySHARE Cloud (that's for my Netgear NAS system and I have it set up for cloud on my phone)
> ...


OK that's fine. I didn't know what all of those were so best you decide.

For the sake of security and productivity, I would recommend removing Office 97 and Publisher 2002 and using OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead (or an online suite). I'm amazed that these old versions of Office still work under Windows 7 or whatever you're using. But it's your call.

I would scan with Malwarebytes, too.


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

spirit said:


> OK that's fine. I didn't know what all of those were so best you decide.
> 
> For the sake of security and productivity, I would recommend removing Office 97 and Publisher 2002 and using OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead (or an online suite). I'm amazed that these old versions of Office still work under Windows 7 or whatever you're using. But it's your call.
> 
> I would scan with Malwarebytes, too.


Ok. I'll probably go with LibreOffice because I actually use it on my slower Vista machine and it's amazing.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Ok. I'll probably go with LibreOffice because I actually use it on my slower Vista machine and it's amazing.


Yeah it will be miles better for you than Office 97. Office 97 is older than you are.


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

spirit said:


> Yeah it will be miles better for you than Office 97. Office 97 is older than you are.


Yeah I really like LibreOffice. I use it on my old Vista machine and on my laptop which ran Ubuntu up until it died and I like it. Really user-friendly programs!  Just got done installing it. I like it mainly because it's free but has everything that MS Office has.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Yeah I really like LibreOffice. I use it on my old Vista machine and on my laptop which ran Ubuntu up until it died and I like it. Really user-friendly programs!  Just got done installing it.


Great, wave goodbye to that ancient version of Office then!  

What exactly does Unlocker do?


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

spirit said:


> Great, wave goodbye to that ancient version of Office then!
> 
> What exactly does Unlocker do?


What Unlocker does is it force-deletes files that Windows won't let you delete. For example one time I uninstalled a game that I didn't want anymore but the Program Files still remained and when I tried to delete them Windows would say I didn't have permission to. Opened Unlocker, clicked the game's program files folder, boom, gone!


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> What Unlocker does is it force-deletes files that Windows won't let you delete. For example one time I uninstalled a game that I didn't want anymore but the Program Files still remained and when I tried to delete them Windows would say I didn't have permission to. Opened Unlocker, clicked the game's program files folder, boom, gone!


Oh ok. Sounds quite good. I was going to suggest you might want to use Revo instead which removes programs that have been damaged, but it doesn't remove single files. I think in the future I'd recommend using Revo to remove programs that won't uninstall properly but Unlocker sounds good for removing files that won't delete. Now you mention it, I think I've heard of people using Unlocker before.


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

spirit said:


> Oh ok. Sounds quite good. I was going to suggest you might want to use Revo instead which removes programs that have been damaged, but it doesn't remove single files. I think in the future I'd recommend using Revo to remove programs that won't uninstall properly but Unlocker sounds good for removing files that won't delete. Now you mention it, I think I've heard of people using Unlocker before.


Hmm, never heard of Revo before. I'll give it a try sometime, thanks!


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Hmm, never heard of Revo before. I'll give it a try sometime, thanks!


Best thing is there's a portable version so you needn't even install it.  

It's recommended by a lot of people. I've used it a lot in the past. It also removes registry keys and temporary files that uninstallers leave behind.


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

spirit said:


> Best thing is there's a portable version so you needn't even install it.
> 
> It's recommended by a lot of people. I've used it a lot in the past. It also removes registry keys and temporary files that uninstallers leave behind.


Ooh I like the idea of the portable version. Definitely trying it now!


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## Laquer Head (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> My programs:



HOLY SWEET FLYING CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## The VCR King (Mar 23, 2016)

Laquer Head said:


> HOLY SWEET FLYING CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Cmon dude... It's not THAT bad...


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## voyagerfan99 (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Cmon dude... It's not THAT bad...


Yeah it is.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Cmon dude... It's not THAT bad...


Hmmm you have more 'crapware' than most people on here at least or you'd expect from somebody interested in computers would have. I'll say I have seen much worse and actually to be honest if you buy any PC brand new it will come with a load of shit pre-installed, but I did point out quite a long list of stuff you could remove and the list is still quite long even when you keep the ones I pointed out but you say you use.


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## Darren (Mar 23, 2016)

Laquer Head said:


> HOLY SWEET FLYING CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





The VCR King said:


> Cmon dude... It's not THAT bad...





voyagerfan99 said:


> Yeah it is.



It's not NEARLY as bad as I would have expected. In fact, that's really not too bad at all for a teenager. In terms of the amount of junky programs you have, that's about typical for a freshly installed machine. I've seen WAAAYYY worse on most of my friends machines I help them with.


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## spirit (Mar 23, 2016)

Darren said:


> It's not NEARLY as bad as I would have expected. In fact, that's really not too bad at all for a teenager. In terms of the amount of junky programs you have, that's about typical for a freshly installed machine. I've seen WAAAYYY worse on most of my friends machines I help them with.


Yeah true, I have seen worse. Brand new PCs sometimes come with more genuine crapware than he has actually.


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## Laquer Head (Mar 23, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> Cmon dude... It's not THAT bad...



It's pretty bad.


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## Darren (Mar 24, 2016)

Laquer Head said:


> It's pretty bad.



I once worked on an ex girlfriend's grandmother's machine (blech), and it took like 2 hours to run CCleaner and not even exaggerating, 20 mins to boot up. It was an XP machine that wasn't terribly old, but good God there's an impressive amount of trash people can find and install without knowing.


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## johnb35 (Mar 24, 2016)

I've never seen it take 2 hours to run ccleaner but I have seen it take a good 20-25 minutes on a couple of machines.  I was like, OMG no wonder it was taking forever to load.   SHHH  don't tell Geoff that it really works cause he won't believe you.


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## Laquer Head (Mar 24, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> I've never seen it take 2 hours to run ccleaner but I have seen it take a good 20-25 minutes a couple of machines.  I was like, OMG no wonder it was taking forever to load.   *SHHH  don't tell Geoff that it really works cause he won't believe you*.



*grabs some popcorn and hides to watch the show*


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## voyagerfan99 (Mar 24, 2016)

I had a customer that browsed so many different websites that no matter what I set his browser settings to, his HDD would fill up and he'd bring it in for me to run CCleaner on it.


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## Darren (Mar 24, 2016)

CCleaner can help a lot with computers that need it, or do nothing at all for those that don't, or break absolutely everything. I had to reinstall Windows once after running CCleaner. I make backups now when I do the registry cleaner.


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## johnb35 (Mar 24, 2016)

Darren said:


> or break absolutely everything. I had to reinstall Windows once after running CCleaner.


I've never had one single problem running Ccleaner on the hundreds of machines I've used it on.


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## Darren (Mar 24, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> I've never had one single problem running Ccleaner on the hundreds of machines I've used it on.


Edited my previous post. It was the registry cleaner part and it completely borked my Games for Windows Live app for GTA IV. Only way to make the game work again was reinstall 7. Granted GFWL is terrible, but still.


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## johnb35 (Mar 24, 2016)

Thats why you never run a registry cleaner at all.  You take too much of a risk in breaking something.  In fact, you really don't get a performance increase from running a registry cleaner.  And if you do, its really not noticeable anyway.


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## Darren (Mar 24, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> Thats why you never run a registry cleaner at all.  You take too much of a risk in breaking something.  In fact, you really don't get a performance increase from running a registry cleaner.  And if you do, its really not noticeable anyway.



Fair enough I guess. I've had it help some, either placebo or otherwise. Before you do a clean you're prompted to create a backup so might as well try it. I don't expect wonders by any means, but I'll do it while I'm in CCleaner for the normal cleaning function.


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## voyagerfan99 (Mar 24, 2016)

I ran TFC on a test web server the other morning because it was low on space. Freed just under 1GB of space.


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## The VCR King (Mar 27, 2016)

So would the process of cloning a 1TB HDD to a 1TB SSD be the same as 1TB HDD to another 1TB HDD?


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## beers (Mar 27, 2016)

The VCR King said:


> So would the process of cloning a 1TB HDD to a 1TB SSD be the same as 1TB HDD to another 1TB HDD?


Sure, they're just storage.

Personally I'd do a fresh format though and transfer data over afterward, especially since it's been a while.  Then you won't inherit all of the other unused garbage on your current drive.


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## johnb35 (Mar 27, 2016)

Same process but are you really gonna have the money to spend $300 on a 1tb SSD?


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## Laquer Head (Mar 27, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> Same process but are you really gonna have the money to spend $300 on a 1tb SSD?



I'll answer that for him... NO


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## voyagerfan99 (Mar 27, 2016)

Use the SSD you have already. Just listen to us when we tell you how to separate things between the drives and you won't have low space issues on your SSD


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## JaredDM (Apr 2, 2016)

Getting back to the original OP's question, it's definitely best at this point to stick with a separate SSD OS drive and add a secondary HDD.  SSHDs have a lot of future potential, and I suspect you'll be seeing a lot more of them in the future.  However right now they are all experiencing a lot of issues with these including NAND memory failures, PCB failures, firmware issues, and the likes.  The merging of the two technologies is just too new and they haven't worked out the bugs yet.

A few years from now, I suspect I'll be giving the opposite advice especially now that Toshiba is really throwing their hat in the SSHD ring.


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## johnb35 (Apr 2, 2016)

JaredDM said:


> A few years from now, I suspect I'll be giving the opposite advice especially now that Toshiba is really throwing their hat in the SSHD ring.


Doesn't matter as I'll never buy a Toshiba drive even though they are owned by Western Digital.  I feel the Toshiba drives are one of the worst drives out there.


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## voyagerfan99 (Apr 2, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> Doesn't matter as I'll never buy a Toshiba drive even though they are owned by Western Digital.  I feel the Toshiba drives are one of the worst drives out there.


I'd even take a Hitatchi DeathStar before a Toshiba drive.


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## beers (Apr 2, 2016)

voyagerfan99 said:


> I'd even take a Hitatchi DeathStar before a Toshiba drive.


Man, the DeathStar moniker is over a decade old at this point


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## spirit (Apr 2, 2016)

500GB SSDs are now affordable (you can get them for about £120 or £130) and 1TB SSDs will be becoming more affordable soon. Once 1TB SSDs are available for about £100 that will be the end of the SSHD. Sure, a 1TB HDD currently costs about £50 but one day a 1TB SSD will cost that too. I'd happily pay £100 for a 1TB SSD for the extra speed benefit, especially given that my last 1TB SSHD cost about £80.


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## JaredDM (Apr 4, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> Doesn't matter as I'll never buy a Toshiba drive even though they are owned by Western Digital.  I feel the Toshiba drives are one of the worst drives out there.



Toshiba isn't owned by WD, that's HGST.  While they may have had some issues years ago today they are actually really good drives.  Right now it's Seagate you should be avoiding like the plague.  HGST are currently the reliability winners, despite their past "DeathStar" issues.  In a few years, you'll all be hating Seagate far more trust me.


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## voyagerfan99 (Apr 4, 2016)

JaredDM said:


> Toshiba isn't owned by WD, that's HGST.


HGST is a Western Digital company


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## Laquer Head (Apr 4, 2016)

I thought HGST was Hitachi, and now owned by WD.

Toshiba is their own group, I thought


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## voyagerfan99 (Apr 4, 2016)

Laquer Head said:


> I thought HGST was Hitachi, and now owned by WD.
> 
> Toshiba is their own group, I thought




According to Wikipedia:



> Hitachi 1967 - 2003, see next item
> Hitachi Global Storage Technologies[1] – 2002 merger of Hitachi and IBM disk drive businesses, sold to Western Digital in 2012 with part of 3.5″ manufacturing facilities going to Toshiba


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## johnb35 (Apr 4, 2016)

Yeah I screwed that up.  Toshiba is its own company.  Hitachi is owned by WD.  And he is right, I'll never buy a Seagate drive ever again.


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## Laquer Head (Apr 4, 2016)

So many mergers and acquisitions with tech companies, hard to remember who is who


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## Darren (Apr 4, 2016)

My Barracuda is still going strong after nearly 5 years. Put them in several other machines and they've been fine. I usually just grab a WD Blue or Seagate Barracuda for builds, whichever is cheaper.


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## spirit (Apr 4, 2016)

Darren said:


> My Barracuda is still going strong after nearly 5 years. Put them in several other machines and they've been fine. I usually just grab a WD Blue or Seagate Barracuda for builds, whichever is cheaper.


Both are good drives however I think the Blues are only 7200 RPM up to 1TB. Any bigger and they're only 5400 RPM. 

Seagate 3TB drives have really poor reliability rates (had first hand experience too), so I always buy WD 3TB drives even though they're slower, but otherwise either WD or Seagate is fine.


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## beers (Apr 4, 2016)

johnb35 said:


> , I'll never buy a Seagate drive ever again


I'll second that, the 1.5T capacity was also very horrific.

I pretty much just buy hgst these days.  The 4TB 7200 rpm nas drives are pretty decent.


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## The VCR King (Apr 5, 2016)

beers said:


> I'll second that, the 1.5T capacity was also very horrific.
> 
> I pretty much just buy hgst these days.  The 4TB 7200 rpm nas drives are pretty decent.


I had a Seagate 3TB a long time ago in my ReadyNAS and it failed after about 6 months and I RMA'd it and got my money back instead of a replacement drive. Seriously though, what's up with Seagates horrible failure rate?!


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