Western Digital vs. Seagate External Hard Drives - Which are Better?
Review Standard
For this review of Western Digital vs. Seagate external hard drives, we will be comparing overall customer satisfaction rates from the sites Newegg, Tiger Direct, Best Buy, and Amazon.com. The reasoning behind this is, these popular websites have a massive number of customer reviews, especially for computer products. For the most part, 1000 positive customer reviews are more persuasive than a couple of expert reviews.
Western Digital and Seagate manufacture several different models and capacities of external hard drives. Some receive better reviews than others. The review standard for this article will focus on which company has the highest average, from the four sites listed above. That way, we will be able to draw a highly accurate conclusion for Western Digital vs. Seagate external hard drives about which is better.
Western Digital’s External Hard Drive Customer Satisfaction Rate
Newegg.com has a selection of over 60 different Western Digital external hard drives. Out of those 60 different models, there are several that don’t have any reviews at all. The overall numbers for the site are:
- 5/5 Stars: 8 models
- 4/5 Stars: 19 models
- 3/5 Stars: 12 models
- 2/5 Stars: 6 models
- 1/5 Stars: 0 models
Tiger Direct has a selection of over 45 different Western Digital external hard drive. Out of those different models, there are several that don’t have any reviews at all. The overall numbers for WD external hard drives on Tiger Direct are:
- 5/5 Stars: 3 models
- 4/5 Stars: 0 models
- 3/5 stars: 4 models
- 2/5 stars: 1 model
- 1/5 stars: 0 models
Amazon.com has a very wide selection of Western Digital external hard drives. Because the site’s filtering structure is unlike Newegg and Tiger Direct, it’s hard to get exact customer review numbers on the external hard drives. However, upon scanning the majority of hard drives that could be found in a search, an estimate of the results is:
- 5/5 Stars: 30% of models
- 4/5 Stars: 40% of models
- 3/5 Stars: 20% of models
- 2/5 Stars: 10% of models
Seagate’s External Hard Drive Customer Satisfaction Rate
Newegg.com has a selection of over 39 different Seagate external hard drives. Out of those 39 different models, there are several that don’t yet have reviews. The overall numbers for the site are:
- 5/5 Stars: 11 models
- 4/5 Stars: 11 models
- 3/5 Stars: 5 models
- 2/5 Stars: 3 models
- 1/5 Stars: 1 model
Tiger Direct has a selection of over 17 different Seagate external hard drives to choose from. Out of those 17 different models, there are several that haven’t been reviewed. The overall numbers for Tiger Direct are:
- 5/5 Stars: 3 models
- 4/5 Stars: 3 models
- 3/5 Stars: 1 model
- 2/5 Stars: 0 models
- 1/5 Stars: 0 models
As mentioned above, Amazon.com’s interface ‘search’ interface is not the best for gathering data like this. However, many people do purchase external hard drives from Amazon.com Thus, here is the estimate:
- 5/5 Stars: 40 % of models
- 4/5 Stars: 15% of models
- 3/5 Stars: 25% of models
- 2/5 Stars: 10% of models
- 1/5 Stars: 10% of models
Conclusion
As far as Western Digital vs. Seagate, it is actually very hard to draw a perfect conclusion on which is the best brand. However, this might be one of the more accurate reviews out there. Of course, there are several other factors to consider such as, total number of reviews for each model, number of total models each company offers, which capacities Seagate vs. which capacities Western Digital, etc…
I have owned both brands, and never had a problem with either one of them. Chances are good, that both Seagate and Western Digital make great overall hard drives. After all, they are two of the most popular external hard drive manufacturers. Both companies also manufacture some lemons…
The winner is Western Digital. Western Digital has more reviews and overall better reviews for the models that are out there. Seagate is not necessarily a company to avoid, but if you are looking for the best chance of getting a quality drive, between Western Digital vs. Seagate external hard drives, WD is the way to go.
