Where Should I Buy Hard Drives From?

Seems to me that buying RAID boxes is cheaper than buying data recovery services in the long run.

Anyone have another point of view?

We use Tech Data at my company, I just looked and I see they have the WD40PURX (4TB SATA) for $170.00 USD each. Not sure what everyone else is getting them for. And we don't do any data recovery services, or add ons. Usually with WD, RMA's are handled by them, regardless of where you purchase them at.

Btw, this might be relevant here, cross posting from our ASIS 2014 roundup:

Seagate +Rescue

Seagate has introduced a new series of 4, 5 and 6TB disk drives that come with a data recovery service as an option (Drives can also be purchased without this service). +Rescue, the service, comes at an additional price, though the Seagate product rep was unable to give specific numbers.

How it works: If a drive (or RAID) fails, the end user/integrator sends Seagate the disk (or disk array) and Seagate uses their own internal process (both software and hardware) to recover the data and send it back to the user. Because they have developed this 'mixed' solution (HW & SW) they claim nobody else can do what they do. To further clarify this statement, Seagate says they have a 90-100% data recovery rate using the +Rescue service.

We use Ingram Micro and have been very happy with the performance and reliability of the Western Digital Purple series hard drives.

We have been buying our high performance storage systems from StorSAN with WD RE Enterprise drives. The key point for WD enterprise drives is the anti-vibaration firmware which the desktop drives do not have. In 5 drive and up systems vibrations can cause read write errors and impact performance. This is why I think WD recommends the desktop drives for up to 4 drive systems. We have used purple and black in 4 drive systems. The camera count on these systems is small so performance is not stressed. We have large StorSAN enterprise installes that are 4 ~ 5 years old, large camera count running 24/7 and the WD Enterprise drives have been very reliable. if we buy on the open market we shop around for the best price but the danger is how old is the drive. When you get the drives check the manufactures date. If they are old be sure you can return them.

As Ari points out, large online resellers often sell at lower prices than direct distributors, for small quantities. For larger quantities, say, at least a sealed box of 20 drives per shipment, you should be able to negotiate a better deal from a direct distributor than shopping online, plus you may save by not paying taxes if you open an account with a distributor. The direct distributors are listed in the "Where to Buy" section of the hard drive manufacturer's websites.

Regarding warranty service, as long as you don't buy a "gray market OEM" drive you get manufacturer swap support regardless of whether you buy from an online reseller or a direct distributor. Some direct distributors also have Return for Credit programs and even hard drive tech support.

The data recovery option by Seagate is interesting as a sales tool but the price of this "insurance" would need to be very low, given the low percentage of HDD failures, and on top of that the % of failures where video is critical and needs to be recovered. And as Ari points out, RAID protection in many cases. It will be very interesting to see if the industry responds favorably to this idea of pre-selling data recovery insurance.