Any IT Guru's in the house?

[Macie_UK 0]

Can anyone offer some real-world recommendations for 3TB SATA drives?

I'm currently edging towards the Hitachi Deskstar, mainly because I've read bad things about the WD Caviar Green and the Caviar Black is only available in 2TB form.

Any others worth considering?

[smilinjack 0]

Don't know about the big drives, but the Hitachi earned the nickname Deathstar due to it's high premature failure rate. I've had two let me down in the past. I'd never buy one, they came with cheap tower units I bought. I've always gone for Western Digital and they seem tough reliable drives, at least in the lower capacities. Generally quieter than Seagate too, which of course is the other big player.

[fr499y 0]

seagate or WD are absolutely fine, we use them at work ( School ) so they deffo get hammered!!! Also internal or external drives?

Internal: SeaGate Barracuda XT 7200RPM ( as 10K is virtually impossible to find in that size at a good price )
or as you said the Cavier Green which is fine!

or if you going external, try the My Book Essential 3GB from WD or FreeAgent =]

[Macie_UK 0]

Smilinjack - I've not used anything other than WD or Seagate until the current bunch of 1TB Samsung drives were bought a couple of years ago, so the only knowledge of other kit I have is from what I can glean online. It's online reviews that seem to pan the WD green, but I balance that with the fact that people like to make the effort to moan and as far as I can see the Black is only up to 2TB, which isn't enough.

Fr499y - It'll be internal, will need 2x 3TB fairly soon, so I'll check out the Barracuda.

Cheers fellas