Shadowstalker16: Aren't most HDDs rebranded OEM parts?

amund: I haven't used Toshiba myself, usually go for WD or Seagate. I would check the specific model for reviews and user reviews. In my experience WD has been best when it comes to stability and noise level.

blotunga: Yupp, I would also go HGST. What is weird that HGST is owned by WD...

JinKazaragi: I'm plannig to replace one of my old HDDs, I found an apparently good deal in a local store for a new 4TB Toshiba HDD (~70€) and I wanted to know if somebody here could give me some information about Toshiba HDDs since I never had one of them before.

I'm especially interested in the points "general quality" and "noise", speed would be interesting too but not that important since it's only to store installers, videos, documents and special scripts for uni.

JinKazaragi: I read somewhere that WD has problems with linux sometimes though, which is why I didn't consider their HDDs as an option for me.

Usually I would use a Seagate (never had problems with them) but I didn't find a good deal for one of them yet so I thought if the toshiba is good I would use one of them.

Concerning the reviews they vary between "worst" and "best".

dewtech: No

@OP

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive-q4-2014/

Been using 2 Toshiba external drives for 2 years, 1 is 1TB and second is 2TB, both are still working although I transport them every day in my laptop bag and they get vibration and stuff during use, the smaller one has fallen off the table a few times aswell, still works.

Best drives are HGST, at least from my experience and the internet kinda confirms it aswell

WinterSnowfall: I have two Toshiba 1TB external hard drives, about 2 years old. I see no notable performance difference between them and my other Seagate/WD external and internal HDDs.

In terms of noise, can't say I've noticed any annoyances and I'm quite noise conscious usually. They do tend to vibrate a bit more than your average hard disk, so placement is important for external hard drives (don't put them in direct contact with flat, hard surfaces during regular use).

In terms of reliability I have not had any problems with them yet, but then again you usually don't have problems with HDDs until they suddenly die out on you :).

I'd be a bit reluctant to buy a classic (non-SSD) 4TB drive at this point especially at that price, since it's probably built on classic platter technology and they've really, really pushed the technical limits of perpendicular recording in the 4TB models. I've set my paranoia limit to 2TB models, but that's just the way I see things (would not want 4TB of data suddenly dying out on me... and a 2TB loss is at least twice more manageable).