HDD Reliability

[LXi]

You guys has just become a bunch of nit pickers. Let me get straight to the point,

Unless you own/used 100 hdds from every single brand, your naive claims on these brands has absolutely no authority!

Im tired of people who has only owned 1 hdd from a particular brand which died on him, and then he just goes around trashing that particular brand. This is all bullsh*t, that 1 or 2 hard drive that crapped out on you has absolutely no representation on entirety of that brand's reliability status. I've seen people trashing Maxtor the most, well tell you what, I own 6 Maxtors in the past 2 years, and none of them crapped out on me. Of course, I have no right to claim Maxtor has superior reliability because I know for a fact that these 6 hdds I own represents absolutely nothing about Maxtors reliability status. There you have it. Base on my experience, including what I have owned, seen, read and heard:

Best: IBM, Quantum, Maxtor
Good: Western Digital, Samsung
Fair: Seagate, Fujitsu

The above is just my personal opinion, by no means you should follow my words. We'll need to consult with each particular brand's QA department in order to get correct reliability status on their products, which is almost impossible to accomplish.

 

[Mem]

LXi,glad to see you are unbiased, not like some members (THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE)read my previous posts.

 

[Modus]

Trinitron,

<<Who am I to tell you what to sell.>>

Yes, who are you?

Mem,

<<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>>

I called you stupid (actually, I called your statement stupid but that's close enough) because you managed to miss the the entire point of my argument, while at the same time adopting my own view almost word for word: namely that it is impossible to say for certain which hard drives are more reliable than others, and that we should instead base our decisions on price/performance.

<<glad to see you are unbiased, not like some members (THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE>>

Can you read? Seriously, can you? Because if you interpret my posts in this thread as claiming that Maxtor hard drives are any more reliable than other hard drives, your ability to do so comes into serious question.

LXi,

<<Unless you own/used 100 hdds from every single brand, your naive claims on these brands has absolutely no authority!>>

And even one hundred drives is barely an adequate sample.

<<Im tired of people who has only owned 1 hdd from a particular brand which died on him, and then he just goes around trashing that particular brand. . . I've seen people trashing Maxtor the most, well tell you what, I own 6 Maxtors in the past 2 years, and none of them crapped out on me. Of course, I have no right to claim Maxtor has superior reliability because I know for a fact that these 6 hdds I own represents absolutely nothing. . .

That's the first sound reasoning I've seen in this whole thread.

<<We'll need to consult with each particular brand's QA department in order to get correct reliability status on their products, which is almost impossible to accomplish.>>

True. THEREFORE, the only valid buying criteria for a hard drive is price/performance.

Excellent post.

Modus

 

[MWink]

Something to keep in mind. I installed 3 Maxtor DM+40 20GB a few days ago and MaxDiags said all were failing. All the drives worked perfectly and Maxtor said it was a bug. So don't worry if the Quick Test fails on a new Maxtor drive. Also, my few month old 30GB passed all tests.

As for reliability, I have found Maxtor to be the most reliable, followed by Western Digital. I have found Quantum and Seagate to be the worst. IBM is somewhere in the middle. I have also noticed that Seagate and Quantum don't take shocks very well. So if you hit your computer a lot, you might not want to get Seagate or Quantum. I tortured a Western Digital and could not get it to recalibrate (what happens when it gets knocked hard) itself. I have yet to try that test on a Maxtor or IBM.

 

[Mem]

Going by price to performance this is quite tough to decide,mainly because if you shop around you can pickup most brands at a real good price , so I would not like to make that call on a certain brand,as I said before members here have had good &amp; bad experiences with all the brands some of us have been more lucky,some have not.

 

[GopherMobile]

If one brand hard drive fails on you, and another brand doesn't, obviously if price/performance didn't quite matter you would get the brand that didn't fail next time. While you don't have full knowledge on the brand, it's just simple that you wouldn't want to by something that broke again.

Just because someone says certain hard drives have failed doesn't mean they're biased against the company, it's just their personal experience. Enough of similar experiences, all against one company, and you would tend to not want to buy from that company.

Two Maxtor drives have caused problems for me.
One Quantum and one Western Digital drive have not.

Is it that tough a choice to make on your next purchase? Even if I was unlucky on the Maxtors, it just seems like the choice to stick away from. Now in this guy's case it's a good performer and that's what he's concerned with, he asked for recomendations. So people told him what has happened to them with their drives. If people get scared away from a company because its products fail, what is wrong with that? How many failing products do you need to buy before you don't want to buy from that company anymore?

 

[random]

That's the first sound reasoning I've seen in this whole thread.

Seeing as you have been arguing in it, does that mean you're reasoning was not sound also? Or are you just better than us?

 

[Hyper99]

As far as this is concern,
I have seagate that failed on me, started getting bad sectors and then died. Screw Seagate they were never a good maker of harddrive
as some people claim it to be.
As for Maxtor, the reliability of it is also on a scale of 5 from 1 to 10, so so.
My 8.4 Gig just made really loud sound after a year of usuage,
Jesus this thing is a screaming dead machine hehe
Like someone just stabbed it to death. Hahahaha
I was like what the hell, as I can smell it burnt
took it out, the think is smoked, and it was completely dead
No Power at all.
I have another drive attached to it to, it was a Maxtor 1.6 gig
it was OK but does have a pretty good amount of bad sectors on it.
I say I would go with WD or IBM on my next harddrive
Don't wanna have to lose data like these all the time
like some people are just lucky and some aren't like me
using Maxtor.
I have about 9 different Maxtor HD all are
getting worst the more I use it.
Bad sectors appear out of nowhere, the quality on it just isn't so good. Like a cheap tape you buy that just get worst the more you play it.
Maxtor has the most RMA and they are very good at it too
3 Day Turn Around, buy them if you think you're saving money
and are willing to take the risk of a dead drive within amount of time usuage could be couple of months to a year.
I've actually taken one apart myself to look inside
Crisis, dusts everywhere formed on the center of the disc
The dusts come from the disc itself, and as time goes it cause bad sectors randomly appear on your harddrive
reappearing, and disappearing and reappearing driving you nuts
causing you to lose valuable data
Like I said, they have a quality control problem.
Thats my experience with it, and I am not happy with any of my Maxtor purchase.
Anybody here have bad experiences as much as I have using
WD or IBM?

 

[Hyper99]

Oh I almost forgot the long dead Connor harddrive
It is one of the worst isn't it?
I am using their Cabo 1.6 CST1621A
and so far 150megs of bad sectors
Yes sir, I had to lock that out and having my fingers crossed.
Like some sort of Cancer that are just growing on it slowly
Seagate merged with them, hehehe seagate is seahell
That why they suck, just putting their label on it
but it still a connor harddrive
oh did I tell you that seagate have a heat problem
the thing get so hot it become fried, and bad sectors develop

 

[Triumph]

For once I have to agree with Modus here. (even if he does love winmodems and hates partitioning) buy by price/performance, and make sure it has a good warranty. i've never had a problem with any of my hard drives, that includes 4 maxtors, 2 wd's, a seagate, and a quantum. none of my friends have had troubles with their maxtors.

 

[DaddyG]

My 2 cents, I wouldn't say they are all crap, but as densities get higher and drives spin faster (and sometimes get hotter) I think we will see more failures than drives of 5 years ago. I've seen 3 out of 10 WD drives dead on arrival not good. I have also used lots of Samsung drives, people say they are crap, never had a failure in 40 plus drives, performance isn't great though. Whoever said Seagate were crap obviously hasn't been around long, in the 'old' days almost every system used the good old ST-225 from Seagate. Last point, many of these manufacturers have cross manufacturing agreements with one another, sometimes you don't know who really made your drive.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

I have to totally agree with Modus' first statement about track records and such. Now about this whole flame thing I'll keep my distance, but:

I know people who have had lots of problems with Maxtors and only use WDs. I know people who have lots of problems with IBMs and only use Maxtors. I know people who have lots of problems with WDs and only use Maxtors. (myself included)

What does that say? Nothing. Some people will have bad luck with some HDs, others wont have any problems with those same HDs. It is all about PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and finding one that works for you and your clients. I've had bad problems with WDs but does that make them bad? No. Just my personal experience. Same with this whole Maxtor/IBM flaming going on. Instead of having to knock people up, realize people have different opinions and you shouldn't criticize others or their work just because of it.

 

[Prodigy^]

LXi: a couple of months ago we had a thread here where everyone signed in and told about the problems they'd had with harddrives. the winner was clearly IBM. from that we can conclude that IBM is a lot more stable than Western Digital for example

http://forums.anandtech.com/arcmessageview.cfm?catid=27&amp;threadid=169964

out of around maybe 60 replies from people it ended up being as follows:

-------------------------------

HD's Failed (or big problems)

Western Digital (WD) -45
Maxtor -18
Quantum -14
Segate -12
IBM -10
Conner -6
Fujitsu -5
Samsung -2
JTS??? -1
Caviar?? -1

 

[LXi]

Prodigy: Only 60 people? Looks like you didnt get my point, do you really think these 60 people's hdds can make a clear representation of the entire hard drive market? Like modus said, the number is too insignificant to give a clear enough view of the reliability status of each brand. We'll need hundreds of thousands of customer to survey in order to draw any conclusions about these hdd brands.

 

[Modus]

Mem,

<<Going by price to performance this is quite tough to decide>>

Not at all.

There are only three or four worthy brands and each brand has only two or three current trim lines (basically it goes value: 5400, performance: 7200, waste of money: SCSI). You simply read the reviews with the performance benchmarks for each drive and use PriceWatch and other means to find the lowest price for each. Eventually, one drive will win. Bingo, decision made.

Reliability is only an afterthought, especially since all manufacturers offer a no-hassle three day warranty.

random,

<<Seeing as you have been arguing in it, does that mean you're reasoning was not sound also?>>

I don't read my own posts. I read other people's. Oddly enough, that's what a forum is for. Nice try, though.

Triumph, DaddyG, RagingBitch, LXi,

True.

Modus

 

[LXi]

No hassle three day warranty? Hm... I think you mean three year warranty right?

 

[Modus]

Gotta love the security of a three day warranty. LOL

Maybe I should start reading my own posts, eh?

Modus

 

[Mem]

Modus, the reason why I said &quot;tough choice&quot; was it took me quite awhile to decide when I purchased my HD, I had it down to Maxtor,IBM,Quantum,WD, I read reviews but it`s a little like graphics cards you know goto one site they recommend V5,another Geforce &amp; so on,so that did not really help. You can see it was only four brands but it was hard to choose.I chose IBM mainly because I have never used there drives before &amp; I like trying new know Brands out (I do take price &amp; performance into consideration in reviews,but as I said you can get confused by reviews),as for reliability well I have been lucky so far all the brands I have used never failed.

 

[Linux23]

F**k the reliability afterthought theory. I would rather have a good reliable, expensive hard disk drive, instead of a cheap lousy drive. I know that all hdd's have problems, and none are guaranteed to last forever, but damit if I have the time to swap out the drive, box it up, pay for shipping, wait a week, receive the drive, unpack it, install it, format and partition it, install the OSes on it, and restore my data from dat, which contain a backup made a month ago. So I lose my valueable data, but I have a new hdd, that usually fails in the next 6 months because they send you a refurb.

I personally don't like to restore over 250gb of data, I just don't have the time, sorry!

&quot;Stay Away from Maxtor&quot;, if you think I am kidding I have two of their drives boxed up and sitting on my desk next to me if you think I am kidding. And these were sent back to the factory for replacement, I didn't immediately say, f*** Maxtor, this is coming from years of experience with this company!

 

[Modus]

So what would you say to all those people who had great experiences with Maxtor drives and failures with other brands? If you're smart, nothing -- limitted personal experience is meaningless for this sort of thing. You can't judge a whole company based on the reliability of two drives.

For instance, I've only used Quantum hard drives four times in my systems. All of them were 10G 5400rpm drives about a year and a half ago. Two of them were DOA. Does that mean Quantum drives have a 50% failure rate? Obviously not. But they did for me. Still, I would use Quantum drives in a second if it weren't for their strangely high price and the mediocre performance of their current models; I realize that my experience must have been an anomaly.

The point everyone here has been making is that there can be no accurate measure of a company's reliability. Therefore, the only factors to work with when buying a drive are price and performance.

Modus

 

[LXi]

Linux23: Like I said, you cannot draw any conclusions about Maxtor based on the 2 hard drives you own. In my experience, as well as many other people's, Maxtors have been good and reliable. The thing is we need a lot more than just 2 hdd to make a valid conclusion about Maxtor's reliability. Simly trashing Maxtor because of 1 or 2 hdd is foolish. And years of experience? By you alone? I wouldnt say that's a very strong arugment. Everyone's experience tend to be different from the others, it takes a lot more than 1 person's experience to make Maxtor bad.

 

[Linux23]

You're right. Plain and simple, buy what you can afford. I had two unpleasant experiences with Maxtor drives. Both drives were returned to the factory, and both failed within 6 months of eachother. Whether or not that means Maxtor is a horrible hdd manufacturer is debatable. There is no proof, and they are still in business.

Unfortunately when my two Quantams, and my WD fail in my main system, needless to say, I won't be looking for a Maxtor drive. To each his own, as they say!

**Life is a box of hard drives, you never know what you'll get**

 

[LXi]

Linux23: Yea agree, its like a toss up, there is absolutely no way to determine a drive's reliability accurately. But either way, it only takes one bad experience to ruin its reputation. Because most of the time one bad experience will scare away the customer.

 

[novice]

Had to jump in as well. I know people who have never had a hard drive fail. I suppose it is possible that there may even be a few Connor hard drives still working- somewhere. Myself, I have had 3 drives fail in the 4 and a half years I have had PC's. My first PC had a Connor go bad in 18 months. Of course by then, both Connor and the PC maker were out of business. Bought a Quantum to replace it and the mounting screws supplied with it were not properly threaded, stripping the mounting holes in the drive! (Remember, I was a real newbie) Took it back and got a Western Digital, then added a second used WD bought from a friend. It failed within 6 months, but was still under warranty, and WD was still in business. They replaced my 2.1 gig with a 3.2 gig (which scored major points with me) So then I decided to replace the slow Quantum Bigfoot that came in my 2nd PC, and got a super deal on a WD 13.6 gig Caviar. It went bad after just 8 months and I am sending it back this week. I know it is a small sample size, but I am not looking for another WD to replace it. I will probably buy the best deal I can find on a Maxtor or Quantum. I do know I would NEVER buy one of the budget WD drives with the 1 year warranty, given my experience. My best computer buddy has run Maxtors for years with zero problems and I have had one of his old maxtors running for about 6 months now in one of my systems and it is working fine. He has switched to IBM for his newer drives and is very pleased with them as well. Based on what I have read and in talking with people who use them I rank them as follows:
1. IBM
2. Maxtor
3. Quantum
4. Seagate
5. Western Digital
6. Samsung and Fujitsu
And I currently am running 2 Maxtors, 1 Quantum Bigfoot, 1 Quantum lct10, and 1 Western Digital in the 4 systems. I don't have an IBM yet, because I seem to find better deals on Maxtors and Quantums.
Chuck

 

[dennilfloss]

&quot; Still, I would use Quantum drives in a second if it weren't for their strangely high price and the mediocre performance of their current models.&quot;

Mmm...Modus,

My Quantum Fireball Plus LM was dirt cheap and I wouldn't call its performance mediocre. It has nearly Barracuda access time. Compared to my Fireball CR of 10 months ago, it feels nearly 3 times as fast.