How reliable are 3rd party laptop HDD manufacturers?

[Quasmo]

Looking to get a laptop HDD how relaible are the Fujitsu, Toshiba, and other hard drive companies?

 

[RebateMonger]

I BELIEVE that Toshiba has put out some "not-so-great" laptop drives in the past. I've replaced a couple of them and have read of some issues. But that doesn't really say much about their current production.

Obviously, Fujitsu makes a lot of good drives. I see quite a few of their SCSI drives in servers. I know nothing about their laptop drives.

 

[Sunner]

Where do you think HP, Dell, etc buy their drives?
Yep, from the company that offers them the best price on that particular day, and the HD's they get will be no worse or better than what you can buy.
So, the HD in your laptop is most likely a 3'rd party drive, only it's bought by the company that made your lappy, rather than by you
The other option being that said company actually manufactures hard drives as well, Toshiba and Fujitsu are the only companies that do this as far as I know(Does Hitachi make lappys?).

That said, you'll get lots of answers depending on who you ask, but the only way to get a statistically sound answer would be to gather statistics from HP, Dell, etc, who actually handle sufficient volumes of them.
Needless to say, they'll never tell you, so just buy what seems good to you.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Quasmo
How reliable are 3rd party laptop HDD manufacturers?

There aren't any "3rd party" manufacturers.
There are HD manufacturers and companies that buy their HDs and resell them.

 

[MichaelD]

I can't speak for their current drives, but two years ago, I was replacing failed Toshiba HDs in at least two of our HewlettPackard laptops every week. Those darn drives were the most troublesome things ever!

Almost all the major HD manuf's make laptop drives; pick one with the capacity you need, the price you want to pay and the warranty that makes you most comfortable.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Almost all the major HD manuf's make laptop drives; pick one with the capacity you need, the price you want to pay and the warranty that makes you most comfortable.

Yap that is the way to go.

Technical Computer Reality does not conform to users emotional needs; there is No Bad Brands or good Brands among the name Brands manufacturers of components. There might be Good Models and bad Models within each Brand.

With Hard Drives it takes long time (more than a year at time) before you know that a specific model is Bad.

So, I buy whatever Brand name according to needs and price. I also have Acronis TrueImage10, and I keep images of my Drives, and periodically update the image.

If a drive dies it just a matter of 20min. or less to "Ghost" it to a new Drive.

So (as an example) this is $32 that cans alleviate Disk Drives and other constant anxieties that accompany computer components ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/...?Item=N82E1681528708SF ).

 

[Nocturnal]

I fix laptops on a daily basis. I see TONS of Toshiba and Samsung drives that go bad. I would never purchase either of those two for a laptop. If you do, make sure you back up your data. But in any case, Western Digital Scorpios are so cheap from Newegg.

 

[JustaGeek]

I only buy Seagate drives. Can't go wrong with 5-year warranty.