Hard Drive Reputation

Seagate

In the beginning Seagate seemed to have the lowest quality drives matched with the most aggressive marketing. As a result the market was continually flooded with their garbage. Then one day many years ago they bought out Control Data. This company was known for making the highest quality drives. But it was just one lab, so Seagate added a high-end line produced by that lab. Today Seagate continues their aggressive marketing while selling drives of these two quality levels, though the super low end was notably improved and the high-end stayed about the same. Meanwhile, other brands such as Hitachi kept improving their quality until it outpaced that of the Control Data lab.

One thing about aggressive marketing is to look out for tricks that cost. With Seagate there are a lot of forum posts with users complaining that their Seagate drives failed just days after the warranty expired. In our opinion there are way too many of these for it to be coincidence. These stats should be considered a red flag. Or, if you're at all like us, then aggressive marketing in general should be considered a red flag.

Hitachi

Fast, quiet, reliable, and cost effective. Hitachi has made very few mistakes, and should almost always be considered a highest-value option.

Western Digital

This company has sold a lot of drives and generally has a high reputation, especially for general PC use. Possibly their highest reputation drive is the 2TB Black drive, a favorite amongst thousands of IT professionals because it is very fast, cheap and reliable.

HGST

This company was initially a subsidiary of Hitachi, and was formed through its acquisition of IBM's disk drive business. It was acquired by Western Digital in 2012, and by 2018 it was phased out, with its remaining products marketed under the Western Digital name. This explains why some HGST model numbers can be found under Hitachi or Western Digital.

Currently, the most reliable 4TB hard disk drive in the world (from known statistics) is the HGST HMS5C4040BLE640.

Toshiba

Toshiba has earned a lot of respect as the underdog. In the hard drive industry there are not enough numbers to form conclusions, but it is clear that they are progressive and have some good drives.