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Are there any BAD hard drives to avoid buying now-a-days?

W

Whitedog

Diamond Member
I haven't had any need to buy a hard drive for several years now and haven't paid much attention to the market, but I remember years back there was what seemed to be a "black list" of drives to avoid.

One that comes to mind is the IBM's GXP's I believe. I heard many of tales of them failing.


The reason I'm asking, is my sister is asking me about this 'cause she needs to buy one. I'm not going to just tell her "Get a WD, or Maxtor"! I'd just rather tell her "What to avoid" and leave the rest to her.

Any input appreciated.

Thanks
 
I'd avoid Western Digital for their luck-of-the-draw noisy ball-bearing motors. Some are quiet, some go ZZZING!, some start quiet and zing later. No, thank you 😕
 
I just had two out of three Maxtor 160 GB dying than I bought in March.

I recommend Seagate, I don't trust WD or Hitachi. Don't know about Samsung.
 
I think western digital, maxtor and seagate are about the only good drive. Hitachi sucks IMO. I bought one it didn't work. The replacement worked at first but died in two days.
 
I've had two Western Digital WD800JB HDDs die on me in the last 6 months or so. Both were a little over a year old. The drives seem to have a problem maintaining power. Both drives would spin down and drop out intermittently. They were on separate channels and separate Molex power connectors.

The only other drive I've had die on me was an IBM Deskstar that died about 3 years ago after only 6 months of use. Bad sectors appeared and multiplied rapidly.

I replaced it with a Maxtor drive. I have two Maxtor 5T060H6 drives in the wife's computer that have been running for almost 3 years now without a problem. *crosses fingers*

I've heard from several people that Seagate drives are very reliable. This is the brand I plan on replacing my Western Digital drives with next time one of them drops out or after the 3 year warranty ends.

 
gosh who are you guys getting these HDDs from and/or why are you banging up your PCs? every hdd i've had from maxtor/wd/seagate work great, the ibm i had worked for a while, but it was that gxp and failed eventually (click o death).. but i got some 3 or 4 year old WDs that are still chugging, all my dead drives are like ~2GB, the newer ones have performed perfect for me. STOP DROPPING YOUR HDDs 😉
 
Originally posted by: asm0deus
gosh who are you guys getting these HDDs from and/or why are you banging up your PCs? every hdd i've had from maxtor/wd/seagate work great, the ibm i had worked for a while, but it was that gxp and failed eventually (click o death).. but i got some 3 or 4 year old WDs that are still chugging, all my dead drives are like ~2GB, the newer ones have performed perfect for me. STOP DROPPING YOUR HDDs 😉
Click to expand...

Same here. I've never had any HD fail (I've only used WD and Maxtor). One of my HD's (40 GB WD) is still running fine after 3+ years. That is the oldest one I still use.
 
I've had 2 maxtor failures within the last year, both drives were less than 1 year old. I have a 40gb 7200rpm WD drive thats close to 3 years old that still chugging along. Most times the drives themselves arent the reason fore the failure but the company who sold it. A wrong crash or jarring of gthe drive could have grave concequences down the road. I avoud maxtors now as I had my problems with them and the same has happened to my friends. Newer IBM/hitachi(sp) drives run cool and last long unlike the older ones. Seagatre has always been a favorite. You will run into a bunch of researched and unresearched opinions here though.
 
As you can see, we all have our own preference, and the fact that they're all different should answer your question - there are no "avoid this" brands 😛 My preference is WD.
 
WD and Seagate.

BUT I can definitely say... Do Not buy a used drive, especially in the less than 100GB range (all of the real clinkers are 80 and less and no longer for sale new, retail.) The only reason you would get a used drive is for shady, dumpster diving purposes. :|
 
FYI

I've never dropped a HDD and I always protect against ESD.

The problem is more likely the manufacturers. They have dropped their guaranty period from 3 years to 1 year for good reason, apparently.

Seagate SATA for my Christmas stocking (I hope). 5 year warranty. That says something about the manufacturer's faith in their product.

I do have a WD2500JB that hasn't had a problem since I installed it about 5 months ago, so the point about the smaller, older drives being less reliable than newer, larger drives could be on the money, IMO. Time will tell. 🙂



 
Originally posted by: BBond
FYI

I've never dropped a HDD and I always protect against ESD.

The problem is more likely the manufacturers. They have dropped their guaranty period from 3 years to 1 year for good reason, apparently.

Seagate SATA for my Christmas stocking (I hope). 5 year warranty. That says something about the manufacturer's faith in their product.

I do have a WD2500JB that hasn't had a problem since I installed it about 5 months ago, so the point about the smaller, older drives being less reliable than newer, larger drives could be on the money, IMO. Time will tell. 🙂
Click to expand...

They're back up to 3.
 
i'd agree that wd is bad, i've been loving my seagate drives, but i just had one die on me (out of three that i own, all of which are less than a year old). my maxtor drives have all been rock solid for years. so based on my experience maxtor is the best.
 
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