Most Reliable Hard Drive Brand (Poll)

[imported_ic144]

Hey guys,

I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB that died last weekend. My friend is recovering the data for me. In the meantime, I'd like to get a new HD to store my photos, movies and MP3s which would require about 250 GBs of HD space.

I've heard Maxtor's had reliability problems in the past and Western Digital was the way to go. But After going through Newegg.com, I noticed quite a number of people had to RMA their new WD HDs.

So I'd like to ask everyone here.

In your experience, which hard drive company is the most reliable?

I'd want to buy another hard drive that'll die out on me in an year and now all my data is at risk.

Any opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Continuity28]

All hard drive companies will have RMAs, but from experience, I'd say there are definately some differences in reliablity. Don't anyone chew my head off, but if I had to give an order, it would be:

Seagate - 9
WD - 8
Hitachi (recently) - 7
Maxtor (no recent experience because I've been driven away long ago) - 5

 

[d3n]

Look at that Seagate percentage on the poll, 100% of 1 vote. I'm there!

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I hate to say it, but Seagate lately has been the most reliable. at work we pretty much have an equal amount of WD, Maxtors Seagates and Hitachis, and I've only had to replace one Seagate in the last year, compared to dozens of the others.

 

[Firsttime]

I've only owned 2 HDDs a 2gb Seagate, it lasted 7 years and would have lasted longer but the motherboard died and I replaced the computer, and a 80gb Hitachi which has been very nice for the 1.5 years I have had it. From what I have read though I would have to put Seagate first with Hitachi and WD next and Maxtor waaay behind. However the large numbers of "my maxtor died story" might have something to do with there just being so many more of them in pre-built computers.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Have a Seagate from the 1980s (IBM AT) still works.

 

[j00fek]

had 2 maxtors die 1 wd. no seagates yet but im sure to have atleast one

 

[eplebnista]

Seagate

 

[potato28]

Seagate. Ive sworn by them...

 

[Juno]

no arguments, wd has been a luck for me since i started building computers.

i would give seagate a try if a wd drive dies on me.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I voted seagate, but you are missing one manufacturer in there - Samsung Never had any of their drives die on me. Same with seagate, but I've owned far more samsungs than seagates. Don't even mention WD to me, I hate those things almost lost data TWICE because of their drives... never with anyone else.

 

[imported_ic144]

 

[imported_ic144]

Originally posted by: Continuity28
All hard drive companies will have RMAs, but from experience, I'd say there are definately some differences in reliablity. Don't anyone chew my head off, but if I had to give an order, it would be:

Seagate - 9
WD - 8
Hitachi (recently) - 7
Maxtor (no recent experience because I've been driven away long ago) - 5

well yea.

I could RMA a sound card or video card easily. But this is the hard drive we're talking about. Data loss can be irreplacable.

IMO, reliability comes before performance and features when it's a hard drive we're talking about.

 

[imported_ic144]

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
I voted seagate, but you are missing one manufacturer in there - Samsung Never had any of their drives die on me. Same with seagate, but I've owned far more samsungs than seagates. Don't even mention WD to me, I hate those things almost lost data TWICE because of their drives... never with anyone else.

I thought about Samsung, but they're such a minority, I didn't expect many ppl with experience in Samsung.

About WD, my OS is running on the 74GB Raptor. But it's true. That is actually the 3rd Raptor that's I got that's finally running stable.

1st Raptor: DOA w/ SMART error.
2nd Raptor: Lived with it for 1 year with regular BSODs. Tested software and hardware. Replaced RAM and reinstall XP with no result.
3rd Raptor: BSOD gone. Running fine so far so good.

So my computer is still going. But all my data was stored on that other HD. I designed it that way so if my OS HD died, my data wouldn't die with it. I was aware of the problem happening vice versa, but I didn't think the chances of that happening were high.

 

[shabby]

My maxtor failed, my wdc failed and my seagate failed. So who am i supposed to vote for?

 

[BUTCH1]

I found an old seagate 40mb drive when cleaning out the garage 6 mths. ago..
just for ***it's and giggles I powered it up, a small dust /lint ball blew out of it's
breather hole and it was louder than a food proccesor full of wing nuts but there
it was...the C: prompt, DOS 5.0 ready to go....

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: ic144

Originally posted by: SparkyJJO
I voted seagate, but you are missing one manufacturer in there - Samsung Never had any of their drives die on me. Same with seagate, but I've owned far more samsungs than seagates. Don't even mention WD to me, I hate those things almost lost data TWICE because of their drives... never with anyone else.

I thought about Samsung, but they're such a minority, I didn't expect many ppl with experience in Samsung.

About WD, my OS is running on the 74GB Raptor. But it's true. That is actually the 3rd Raptor that's I got that's finally running stable.

1st Raptor: DOA w/ SMART error.
2nd Raptor: Lived with it for 1 year with regular BSODs. Tested software and hardware. Replaced RAM and reinstall XP with no result.
3rd Raptor: BSOD gone. Running fine so far so good.

So my computer is still going. But all my data was stored on that other HD. I designed it that way so if my OS HD died, my data wouldn't die with it. I was aware of the problem happening vice versa, but I didn't think the chances of that happening were high.

I don't know by i had a similar problem with one raptor, the 36 gig one... funny thing was is that one day it just BSOD and thats it could not get it running, put the drive in another comp all is fine, it seems like the board hated the raptor donno why.

But I prefer WD over seagate... only reasons is that i had 1 segate drive die on me ages ago 500mg lol, i have an old 60 gig slowly degrading, and a 120 gig sata seagate 7200.7 which is good but performance is poor (slower read/write speeds than other drives)
On the WD side i got one 200 gig hdd sata which runs hot, and another 200 gig ide one which had some compatibility issues with a few boards but otherwise works fine when its all sorted, and that raptor insident.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

I've lost four WDs and one maxtor. Still have a 10GB seagate drive that still works. All my Hitachi and Samsung drives are still going strong as well.

- JaAG

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: JustAnAverageGuy
All my Hitachi and Samsung drives are still going strong as well.

- JaAG

Too bad the OP didn't think about adding Samsung or at least "Other" to her poll. :roll:

 

[BW86]

Seagate has my vote.

 

[gsellis]

No IBM in the poll? Just kidding.

 

[Atlantean]

I would say seagate by a longshot, but only because I have had 8 or 9 of them over the years and all of them still work. Plus they back up their newest harddrives with a 5 year warranty, so if that doesn't say quality (as in seagate knows how good their drives are), I don't know what does.

 

[Alex]

i'd say seagate.... i've never owned any seagate other than a 2.5GB drive way back in the day but that lil guy sure was a warrior!
i was part of the ibm deskstar nightmare and that kinda crossed ibm or hitachi whatever they're calling themselves these days outta my hard drive manufacturer list.... i've had a WD die on me before but i've been using the same WD for about 4 years now and its been solid so no complaints... currently i got 2 WD and 1 Maxtor and none have died.

 

[humanure]

I know a lot of people have had trouble with them, but i have a 7 year old maxtor that still works fine(in a hp p3). still i would say best is seagate, then wd.

 

[Boyo]

I have never once had an issue with WD and they too offer a 5 year warranty on most of their HDs...That's my two cents.