HDD Reliability

[KarsinTheHutt]

Ok - I've beat the Hard Drive issue to death, and I've pretty much decided on the Maxtor DiamondMax 40 GB 7200 RPM since Anand, people in this forum, and the zdnet folks seem to think highly of their performance.

I just want to know - has anyone had any problems with Maxtor drives of 30 GB or higher? If not, don't feel obligated to answer.

Thanks!

 

[HannibalX]

Well just a year and a half ago Maxtor made absolute crap, but their newer drives perform suprisingly well. You shouldn't have any problems.

Maxtors previous reputaion still has some folks shaking their head, so if you want to be on the safe side go with an IMB or a Seagate, always good performers.

 

[Vegito]

Yes, it seems that IBM has become the choice...

 

[Modus]

As a computer consultant and reseller, I've used every brand of hard drive available, and come to the conclusion that reliability is consistent across brands: consistently terrible.

Every single brand of drive I've used in a system has experienced roughly the same failure rate. Don't listen to people who say one brand or another is crap. They're all crap. That's why consumers still demand a three year warranty.

Base your decision on two factors alone: price and performance. For reliability, a proper backup regiment (always necessary in case of theft or disaster) and the industry standard three year manufacturer's warranty will give you peace of mind.

Currently, the brand of hard drive with the best price/performance ratio is Maxtor.

Modus

 

[Spearfodder]

Just sent my maxtor diamond max plus 40 back to maxtor after it died at 45 days old. No warnings, no nothing. Dead.

I've installed somewhere around 300-400 or so hdrives, and I just don't like maxtor's reliability. I'd stuck to quantums & WD's (yes I know other people have problems with them too, but I've had dozens over the years and never had one go bad on ME).

I'll never own another maxtor. Never ever again. I thought (after all the good reviews etc) that Maxtor had gotten their quality control up to par, but I don't believe that for a second anymore.

 

[HannibalX]

Modus you can't deny Maxtors bad track record and IBM's good track record. Their not "all crap" in my dads corportae shop, their AS 400's run IBM HD's, as do their main frames and NT servers. Why? Becuase IBM has been making quality equiptment since the 60's, and has proven their quality.

Such a blatently silly statement, I wouldn't buy a PC from you, sorry to say.

 

[Damaged]

And...just one more reason SCSI drives are more expensive AND still the choice for servers. RELIABILITY. They cost more because they are NOT a consumer grade product. They're also priced accordingly.

 

[HannibalX]

Yuppers Glad some one sees this.

 

[Modus]

Trinitron,

<<Modus you can't deny Maxtors bad track record and IBM's good track record.>>

Yes, I can.

I've used more Maxtor drives in my systems than any other brand. Guess what? A certain small percentage fail. But it's the same percentage I see with every other brand.

As for IBM's, just browse through our forum archives and you'll come across at least two people whose 35GXP's failed after less than a month.

My point? There is no conclusive proof that any brand of hard drive is more or less reliable than any other brand of hard drive. Such an assesment would require years of controlled studies and extensive surveys.

<<Their not &quot;all crap&quot; in my dads corportae shop, their AS 400's run IBM HD's, as do their main frames and NT servers.>>

Well good for Daddy.

<<IBM has been making quality equiptment since the 60's, and has proven their quality.>>

Please. Intel's supposedly been making &quot;quality&quot; stuff since the late 70's. That didn't prevent the Pentium FDIV bug or the i820 recall fiasco. There is no magic quality that makes one company's products any better than another's. The workers, managers, and engineers come and go. Technology changes and equipment evolves. Manufacturing is outsourced to third world countries and companies sign cross-licensing agreements.

So I'm sorry to break it to you, but there's no such thing as a &quot;quality brand name&quot; anymore.

<<Such a blatently silly statement, I wouldn't buy a PC from you, sorry to say.>>

If you're going to try to insult me, at least learn to spell and write in complete sentences. This is pathetic.

Modus

 

[utopia]

IBM and Segate are the best ones, quantum and maxtor are behind, from my experience....

 

[HannibalX]

Yeah well Daddy has 20 years experience at this, and does a whole lot more and exspects a whole lot more from hardware than comsumers playing solitar who bought it from a PC Techi.

We're not talking about Intel genius, last time I checked they didn't make hard drives.

I wouldn't buy a computer from you, not becuase I don't trust your character, but I don't trust your knowlegde.

 

[random]

My ranking is

IBM and Quantum

Seagate

WD

Maxtor

Samsung

 

[HannibalX]

Oh put Fujitsu at the bottom, I have used like 12 total Fujitsu drives in my time and had problems with all of them.

I used to intern at the United Way MIS department, they had allot of old 386's and 496's that had been donated to them. They all had Fujitsu drives, they were slow and eeek something like 15% of the drive was recorded by Nortan Disk Doctor as being bad.

Really, the Untited Way got allot of old junk, companies will donate and look good for the papers while at the same time get rid of all their old crap, hehe I must have thrown away 10 or 12 Fujitsu drives right after they were &quot;donated&quot;, then they were &quot;donated&quot; to the dumpster.

 

[Mem]

I remember a few months ago there was a big harddrive survey on reliability &amp; IBM came out top, of course you could go &amp; buy a IBM tomorrow &amp; it might breakdown within a week,remember you could buy the best harddrive or motherboard for reliability &amp; have problems with reliability.My point is surveys are only a guide,&amp; everybodys harddrive will give different mileage even on same models.I have had Quantum 100% reliable
WD 100% reliable
Fujitsu 100% reliable
IBM 100% so far.

 

[tmj]

I've had good luck with Western Digital drives. I had one fail on me when I changed the BIOS settings to use several extra tracks and get more capacity (like overclocking). Bad idea; it killed the drive. WD replaced it and I learned my lesson.

But aside from that, no failures, and I've bought quite a few. Once I even DROPPED a WD 6-gig on my floor from about 5 feet up and it (amazingly) still works. I just got a 45GB WD today, so we'll see if they continue live up to my expectations. And no, I won't OC this one.

I've had 2 separate Maxtor drives fail on me for absolutely no frigg'n reason, so I won't be buying them anymore. Those were purchased a little over a year ago, so maybe Maxtor has changed since then, but I doubt it.

 

[Modus]

Trinitron,

<<I wouldn't buy a computer from you, not becuase I don't trust your character, but I don't trust your knowlegde.>>

This coming from a guy who bases his entire impression of Fujitsu hard drives on the fact that all 12 he's ever used have had problems. What is that, a 100% failure rate? I guess Fujitsu makes pretty awful drives, eh? Please.

Modus

 

[HannibalX]

And this is coming from a guy who thinks all hard drives are identicle in performance/breakdowns/quality. Whatever you say Mr Tech God ROFL LMAO.

 

[Mem]

Sorry Modus but I use a IBM right now, it is good as gold stop knocking harddrives from other companies no harddrive make is really the best even Maxtor get problems.

 

[Modus]

Trinitron,

<<And this is coming from a guy who thinks all hard drives are identicle in performance/breakdowns/quality.>>

My point was that without a properly conducted mass survey or study, we can never know which hard drive brand is the most reliable. We instead have to rely on word of mouth from such intelligent people as yourself who would indict an entire company because all twelve of their drives he's come across were bad. I decline.

Mem,

<<Sorry Modus but I use a IBM right now, it is good as gold stop knocking harddrives from other companies no harddrive make is really the best even Maxtor get problems.>>

I am in awe of the stupidity of that sentence. First of all, I didn't knock IBM or any other company's drives, I simply explained that there is no evidence that they are any more or less reliable. Second, you have to read more closely. I'm not praising Maxtor for their quality, I'm praising them for their price/performance ratio, and showing that quality is essentially irrelevant when there is no accurate gauge for it.

Modus

 

[HannibalX]

Yeah you go ahead and decline. It's your money and your customers after all. Who am I to tell you what to sell. So go ahead and sell all the Maxtor drives you can! You'll make more money off tech support and repairs that way!

LMAO.

 

[Mem]

Modus you did not read my previous post,why are you trying to start a argument with Members when I say good as gold (I mean so far) next you call people stupid this from a ELITE member well I won`t insult you ,why because I know better,&amp; people like you can never get someone like myself annoyed.

 

[GopherMobile]

My other older computer had a Maxtor 3.2, and it died. It got replaced by another Maxtor. The current Maxtor one works fine, although a tad slow.

In my current system I have a Maxtor, WD, and Quantum. The only one I've ever had a problem with was the Maxtor. One time, upon starting Windows I received a &quot;Windows cannot read drive C&quot; error. I rebooted and everything worked fine after that, did thorough scandisk and all was well. So I dunno if anything really went wrong -- the drive has worked fine every since then(though I've shifted all my important stuff to the other drives just incase ).

Oh one other thing...Quantum isn't perfect. Their Bigfoot drives used in older Compaq computers were crap, from what I've seen at least. The computer shop I work at gets a lot of those systems in, and the problem almost always leads to those hard drives. The rest of Quantum drives are ok from what I've seen, but the bigfoots suck =).

 

[KMurphy]

And remember winmodems are the best

I personaly like IBM drives the best also. Very quiet and reliable. Of course you may get a bad drive every once and a while. That's why warranties were invented .

 

[Mem]

KarsinTheHutt,if you want a Maxtor harddrive go for it,use this post as a guide but remember some members will give there personal experience with these drives &amp; other makes, yours might be good as gold so don`t let people sway you, in the end it`s your money &amp; your choice.

 

[HannibalX]

Exactly.