[protocol77]

I have a home server running WHS 2011 it is not in a raid setup nor do i want it to be i keep offline backups

I need to buy one maybe two more drives I usually would buy the WD Green 2TB drives but with all the head parking reduced lifetime stuff being discussed all over the place i am thinking of looking at different alternatives

the machine runs 24/7 although a fair amount of time the drives sit idle especially the ones with older content i mostly access the TV Shows and Latest Movies drives daily when streaming to my Media Players or when downloading with Usenet

i have them set in WHS 2011 to spin down after 90 minutes of inactivity i feel this is a good time as it is not too short to be constantly spinning up and down and also not too long as to eat into power consumption

i have mostly bought 2tb drives as they were the only affordable ones when i last purchased now with 3tb drives coming down in price i was thinking of going with one of them to space out the time between having to purchase more

so i was looking at the following

WD 3.5" Green 3TB WD30EZRX SATA3 64M HDD = $132

Seagate 3.5" Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001 SATA3 7200rpm = $139

Hitachi 3.5" Deskstar 0S03089 3TB SATA III HDD 7200RPM = $145

WD 3.5" Red NAS 3TB WD30EFRX 64M SATA3 HDD = $156

the prices do matter but not as much as getting a reliable drive also what i found weird was why the Hitachi costs more seeing as they are a not so popular brand as the others and also because WD owns them they must be decent drives

i basically want something i can use for a while and not have any issues where it will essentially tear itself to shreds with spin or power cycles

i hear horror stories of people with this happening with green drives (have not experienced this myself though) i am not sure if seagate has the head parking on theirs so cannot say the same

anyways some help in choice would be great especially from personal experience not just fanboy opinions because although i mostly have used and bought WD Drives i am not against buying another brand for better quality and reliability

[teaguecl]

You will find anecdotal evidence that every hard drive is the greatest one on the planet, and other evidence that the same drive is a huge PoS. Trusting one data point (one user's recommendation) is like playing roulette - it works out for you about half the time. The only way to have any idea about the quality of a hard drive prior to purchase is to look at reviews in aggregate. I like Newegg for this. Drives with lots of reviews and a good rating, are generally good bets. You still need to read the details to make sure there wasn't a mid-cycle change to the product or something.
Remember that there is a bit of luck involved, and that all hard drives fail. Every manufacturer, every model - some percentage of them will just fail. Your setup needs to be redundant enough that if (when) it happens, you aren't screwed. You mention that you do offline backups, which is great. I just wanted to point out that doing diligence on purchasing a high-quality drive is not a replacement for a good backup system - even pro grade drives fail from time to time.
Now that I've recommended that you not listen to individual recommendations - here's my recommendation I have a WD30EFRX I bought about a year ago. I put it in my unRaid setup. As far as I can tell it works.

[outatouch0]

I am a WD Black fanboy simply because I have had such reliability over the years. There are many fanboys and opinions very widely. There are just as many people to swear by each HDD make and model ever produced. Also, each one has their detractors - usually due to bad experiences.
I have recently read a lot of discussions on hard drives and I the best sense I have made of the issue is it's all a crapshoot. There are a certain amount of drives from all makers that will go bad but the great majority will work as advertised.
My new approach is to shop for price with an eye for what your intended purpose for the drive is and hope for the best.
ps I ALMOST bought a 4TB Seagate today.
Money is tight having to get my initial drives for my unRaid so I ordered a WD Red $151 at newegg +2-3 bucks for a bit faster shipping. I probably would have been fine with the less expensive Green - people here swear by them - but I chickened out for the reasons you mentioned.

[Dougie Fresh]

If it's for media storage, a 5400/5900RPM drive is more than sufficient. Don't pay a premium for a 7200RPM drive. After that, pretty much go on price.

[protocol77]

thanks for the helpful posts guys as i mentioned above i do keep offline backups meaning i have a second drive of indentical size that i store in an anti-static bag and in a foam cutout i was given at my local pc store that they have the drives shipped in and once a week sometimes once every two weeks depending on time available and amount of new stuff added

i put the offline drive in a docking station then run a program called freefilesync which will copy just the new or modified files over onto the drive i then disconnect that drive and pack it away again

i personally feel this is a safer option albeit more manually involved than a raid setup as i can be protected against power surges or virus corruption as i can simply replace the drive with a new one then run a restore from the offline drive onto the new drive and be up and running in minutes to a couple hours depending on restore amount

i use mirror backups so no proprietary file compression formats or anything just a straight forward copy and paste thing

[thethirdnut]

WD Reds have been good thus far.

The WD Greens - turn the Head Park OFF then using wdidle3.exe problem solved.