Reliability of Toshiba drives.

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  1. Posts : 40
    Windows 10
       #1

    Reliability of Toshiba drives.


    Hey, all.

    Basically, I want to know if you've had good experiences with Toshiba drives (particularly external ones). Have they been fast, reliable, delivered consistent performance? How are they in comparison to WD drives & other drive manufacturers? The drive in particular that I want to know about is TOSHIBA MQ04ABF100. This drive is part of a Silicon Power external HDD enclosure.
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  2. Posts : 2,487
    Windows 10 Home, 64-bit
       #2

    A bit of Google implies that this series of Toshiba drives utilize "SMR" technology....shingled magnetic recording.

    Which is apparently frowned on in some circles.

    I have no personal experience or opinion; I have not bought an HDD in 7 years and have never owned a Toshiba.

    Buyer beware—that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR | Ars Technica
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  3. Posts : 4,453
    Win 11 Pro 22000.708
       #3

    This is a reference indicating that the MQ04ABF100 uses SMR: Toshiba publishes list of consumer HDDs that use shingled magnetic recording – Blocks and Files

    SMR is supposed to give poorer performance than drives that don't use that technology. I can't speak to any impact on reliability.

    The claimed MTBF (mean time between failures) for the drive is 600,000 hours (68 years). Toshiba MQ04ABF100 - hard drive - 1 TB - SATA 6Gb/s Specs & Prices - CNET I don't know how credible that is, but it seemes adequate.
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  4. Posts : 5,048
    Windows 10/11 Pro x64, Various Linux Builds, Networking, Storage, Cybersecurity Specialty.
       #4

    Silexium said:
    Basically, I want to know if you've had good experiences with Toshiba drives (particularly external ones). Have they been fast, reliable, delivered consistent performance? How are they in comparison to WD drives & other drive manufacturers? The drive in particular that I want to know about is TOSHIBA MQ04ABF100. This drive is part of a Silicon Power external HDD enclosure.
    For the past 5 years, I have been using Toshiba HDD's with very good reliability.

    However the drive you have specified is only 5400 RPM versus a 7200 RPM which would be somewhat faster.

    Why not an SSD instead, especially for 1 TB?

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  5. Posts : 6,253
    Windows 11 Pro - Windows 7 HP - Lubuntu
       #5

    A 1T SSD is almost same price of first line HDD.
    Have used many Crucial BX500 .
    They are fast and cheap. So far so good
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  6. Posts : 31,480
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #6

    The main impact of SMR on drive performance seems to be on the write speed. I have quite a few external USB 1TB and 2TB HDDs, a Seagate, a WD and the rest are Toshibas (some in the MQ04 family, so definitely using SMR). All seem equally reliable, none have ever had problems.

    For external long-term storage speed is not an issue for me. Though for a USB connection at least, SMR doesn't seem to have much impact.
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  7. Posts : 40
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Bree said:
    The main impact of SMR on drive performance seems to be on the write speed. I have quite a few external USB 1TB and 2TB HDDs, a Seagate, a WD and the rest are Toshibas (some in the MQ04 family, so definitely using SMR). All seem equally reliable, none have ever had problems.

    For external long-term storage speed is not an issue for me. Though for a USB connection at least, SMR doesn't seem to have much impact.
    What write speeds do you get on your SMR drives? On my external drive, I get around 20 - 70 MB/s, which is really slow. There's nothing wrong with the drive itself (no strange sounds when running, no problems connecting to my PC, no S.M.A.R.T. issues...). The drive is about 60% full & it's encrypted using BitLocker, so that might have an effect on performance.
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  8. Posts : 4,224
    Windows 10
       #8

    @Silexium: Indeed, with 1TB SSDs now US$95 to US$150 or so (see this Newegg Search for example) I agree with other posters that HDDs at that capacity are a bit dicey (especially 3.5" drives). In fact, you can buy a pretty good 2TB 2.5" refurb HDD for about US$65. I was just surprised to observe that pricing on 7,200 RPM models for such drives is higher than the last time I bought some a couple of years ago. I paid right around US$100 for models with SSHD capabilities in 2018 or 2019; now, they cost around US$130-140. Sheesh!
    --Ed--
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  9. Posts : 2,487
    Windows 10 Home, 64-bit
       #9

    EdTittel said:
    I paid right around US$100 for models with SSHD capabilities in 2018 or 2019; now, they cost around US$130-140. Sheesh!
    There's a lot of weird component pricing going on lately....power supplies for instance.

    Guessing it's a mix of politics (international trade policies) and maybe COVID affecting supply chain.
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  10. Posts : 40
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #10

    ignatzatsonic said:
    There's a lot of weird component pricing going on lately....power supplies for instance.

    Guessing it's a mix of politics (international trade policies) and maybe COVID affecting supply chain.
    Most likely.
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