I have been trying to delay this purchase to let prices come down but cannot any longer. I need a new 3TB drive. Have no brand loyalty and equally bad luck with Seagate and WD. This will be used only for large RAW format photographs so priorities are reliability first and low noise in a distant second.

Internal vs External-

I have eSATA and USB 3.0 so transfer speed isn't a consideration for external, but is the cooling of those enclosures effective? My desktop only has SSD internal because I prefer energy efficient quiet machines when possible, but if an external enclosure will head the HDD when unloaded a 32GB card, or dumping a TB on the drive initially I will go with an internal drive.

Brand/Model

What has a good rep these days? I was about to just choose between one of these

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda ... B005T3GRLY

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion ... 00834SJU8/

before I decided to come here. Open to any suggestions though.

Thanks!

Is this an archive "long term" storage disk?

_________________
On a clear disk you can seek forever.

Yes but it won't just sit there unused. I will dump files on it periodically and possibly retrieve them for processing. Any picture I work on I copy to SDD first.

But once files are on there, they are unlikely to get removed.

Thanks!

Well, you just buy two of them, same capacity different brands. One to use and the other to be a backup. This is the best solution for reliability and safekeeping.

_________________
On a clear disk you can seek forever.

You mean I should buy a 3TB WD Green and Seagate Barracuda for the best solution?

The WD green is slower (which I don't care about) and more expensive. The Seagate uses 3 platters at a higher RPM and speed but is not rated for continuous use for whatever that is worth. I will probably have them in the case unplugged until I use them. My box has 3 SSD's and no HDDs in it now to save noise and energy.

I guess just buy them and take my chances LOL. I just know very little about the internals was hoping one had a clear advantage with my priorities.

If you get the Seagate make sure you flash the firmware or you'll hear a random chirp every hour'ish or so.

Example: http://soundcloud.com/user3445428/weird ... nd-seagate

My specific Chip fix was for the 3TB Barracuda (1TB/Disk Platform) one listed here:
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/e ... Q/223651en

All drives: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/e ... Q/207931en

http://www.legitreviews.com/news/13250/

"Seagate Releases CC4H Firmware For 1TB/Disk Barracuda Hard Drives - Fixes Chirping
Today, Seagate released a firmware upgrade for the Barracuda (1TB/disk) family of hard drives (models ST3000DM001, ST2500DM001, ST2000DM001 and ST1000DM003). The new firmware download, version CC4H, is recommended to enhance the performance and/or reliability of the drive. Previous versions of firmware with these models and part numbers are CC46, CC47, CC49, CC4C, or CC4G. The upgrade is a free download available here and we are told that this helps with the chirping noises that some users are complaining about."