Question: I’m about to purchase a SATA hard drive. I was wondering if, aside from the storage capacity, are there any other factors I should keep in mind? I care above all about reliability. Is a more expensive drive less error-prone than a low-end one?
Answer: The “enterprise” or “server” drives are more expensive, but have higher estimated MTBF as compared to “consumer” drives. They use higher quality parts. If you compare only “consumer” drives than some price differential really won’t tell you much. You usually don’t find “enterprise” drives in stores. You usually find them as OEM drives that you can order online or from certain suppliers.