POLL: Who makes the most reliable Hard Drive?

[Torghn]

It seems there are many varying opinions so I decided to make this poll before my next Hard drive purchase. I use to run IBMs exclusively, but after my first failure I decided not to replace it with another IBM do to so many complaints and the headache its' been to have it RMAed.

 

[circut16]

I would put my vote twords WD , maxtor's good to.

 

[zephyrprime]

It varies. Look at storage reviews reliability database.

 

[Torghn]

I would like 2 80gb+ 8mb Cash Hard drives for a raid 0 set up. The maxtors are cheaper, but the Western Digitals have a 3 year warrenty. Makes the choice tough.

 

[modedepe]

Seagates have been the best for me, but it varies for everyone. Frankly, I think it's almost just luck of the draw if you get a good one that lasts or not.

 

[Lyfer]

I have used all brands, seagate has been the "most reliable". There RMA process is very fast, that is why I use only seagate.

 

[Corporate Thug]

all i use is WD SE cuz i never have had a problem with them

 

[Aganack1]

I've used just about everything out there and they all seem to work about the same... i personaly use seagate for the most part. but a big part of it is are you using ata or scsi.

 

[eplebnista]

Seagate

 

[VansTheMan]

I have two WD 10.2GB 7200RPM drives that have been powered on for 3-4 years straight, with occasional breaks for moving/power outages. I've never had any problems with them at all. :: knocks on wood:: I just got an 80GB WD Special Ed and it seems to be great too. I vote WD.

 

[slicksilver]

Another vote for Seagate

 

[Schadenfroh]

IBM deathstars

 

[Slammy1]

Another Seagate fan here, and I have a Raptor and 80GB SE drive on my system right now. I upgraded from Seagate SCSI to the WD, and after dealing with the glue sniffers in WD tech support I must say I'll go Seagate next.

 

[Regs]

Ever since Maxtor barred the Quantum Fireball pos , all the hard drives have been pretty good. I would have to vote for WD, since it's only fair that I only own a WD drive.

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: Regs
Ever since Maxtor barred the Quantum Fireball pos , all the hard drives have been pretty good. I would have to vote for WD, since it's only fair that I only own a WD drive.

I would definetly not say that quantum fireballs were bad, bought one 1gb and one 1.2gb soon after they first came out, still work today and I used them in 24/7 for over a year, just replaced them few months ago

 

[SpeedFreak03]

I have 2 WD800JB (80GB 7200RPM special edition 8MB cache ata100), 1 older WD 20GB 7200RPM ATA100, 1 WD 30GB 7200RPM ATA100, and 1 WD 40GB 5400RPM ATA100, all in different computers. As you can see, I favor WD as none have ever died in my 5~ years of using them (i still have acouple of my original WD drives like 6GB ones that work fine). Its funny about seagate that I wanted to swap the 20GB in one of my boxes for an 80GB, so I bought a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB at Best Buy, and I went back 3 TIMES to exhange then finally return - I could not get the drives to work for nothing! So I went over to OfficeMax and bought my second WD80GB! As for Maxtor, the only Maxtor I have owned was an 8GB about 2-3 years ago, and that died (just wouldnt spin up one day). BTW, all of these drives were run 24/7, and the 20GB which is oldest has been going for about 4 years!

EDIT: just wanted to tell where the drives were bought (to avoid bad batches or whatever): 20GB - came in a gateway computer 4 years ago, 30GB bought at CompUSA two years ago, 40GB bought at best buy 1.5 years ago, one 80GB (the oldest one) bought from NewEgg in May 2003, and second 80GB bought last weekend (sep 14 2003). Oh and that dead 8GB maxtor was bought at CompUSA but i cant remember when lol.

 

[Priit]

I would definetly not say that quantum fireballs were bad, bought one 1gb and one 1.2gb soon after they first came out, still work today and I used them in 24/7 for over a year, just replaced them few months ago

I wouldn't say fireballs were good I have/had lots of older machines at work with Quantum hdd's and around 60-70% of those are dead after 3-6 years (I have overview of about 100 machines). All Icl10-series Quantums are dead cause of burnt chip on controller, others mostly die by click-of-death.

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Originally posted by: Priit

I would definetly not say that quantum fireballs were bad, bought one 1gb and one 1.2gb soon after they first came out, still work today and I used them in 24/7 for over a year, just replaced them few months ago

I wouldn't say fireballs were good I have/had lots of older machines at work with Quantum hdd's and around 60-70% of those are dead after 3-6 years (I have overview of about 100 machines). All Icl10-series Quantums are dead cause of burnt chip on controller, others mostly die by click-of-death.

Yeah my Gateway computer (talked about in my above post) came with a 20GB Quantum at first (not the bigfoot, it was a 3.5 drive), which developed bad sectors after 1 month of buying the computer, and I never reformatted or anything! Luckily Gateway was good about RMAing the drive and I got my beloved WD!

 

[Finnkc]

Maxtor ... just because I havent had 1 single problem with any Maxtor Drive .

 

[maluckey]

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 are from hell! I run 2, 80 Gb models at 50 Mhz PCI, and they have given no complaints for almost a year. If they can take this abuse for a year, then they can take anything at stock speeds forever. I also run two Maxtor 40 Gb, 6l040j2 with no issues, though they are for storage only. I killed 2 Western Digital WD600BBRTL in two months. That's not to say that they were bad, just that they can't take as much abuse as the Maxtors. I can only rate what I've run, so that's my view on Maxtor and WD.

 

[Ardan]

I would say Seagate is the most reliable by far. However these are my own experiences, and I also know the Western Digital SE drives are very reliable and we have several long-lasting Maxtor HDs (one I still use for Linux). Obviously any of the three are good, but I would say Seagate. My main reason is because when I had a lightning strike to my house, most of my computer was fried and primarily because of a HUGE EMP from the lightning. The inside of the computer smelled like smoke and also as if a tremendous electrical spark occurred inside the case. I had a western digital drive (non-SE) in there as well as a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 hard drive. The WD drive was totally destroyed, but the Seagate wasn't phased at all...not even slightly damaged and no bad sectors. My dad's hard drive had slight issues and that was an 80Gig Western Digital SE. Obviously from my experience I would say seagate is the most reliable because that is one hell of a drive to go unharmed from THAT! They also exclusively use Seagates where my dad works, Lockheed-Martin (www.lmco.com/minn for reference), and he said they have never had one of their SCSI drives fail in the servers and workstations in several labs that build apps, drivers, and OS files all the time.

I hope I could be of some help .

 

[sunase]

I've bought at least a couple from pretty much all of the above and IBM is the only brand I've used that hasn't died a few times on me yet, and the majority of my drives are from them (employee discount ^^). I was fortunate enough to miss out on the one bad model.

 

[bcterps]

I can only speak from experience, but in the last 9 months I have had 3 WD drives fail on me, 2x1000BB and 1x1600JB. Good thing that my 1000BB had a 3 year warranty on it. Maybe I just have bad luck or something, but I don't overly stress my drives that much, and even if I did stress them, they should hold up.

 

[Torghn]

Originally posted by: sunase
I've bought at least a couple from pretty much all of the above and IBM is the only brand I've used that hasn't died a few times on me yet, and the majority of my drives are from them (employee discount ^^). I was fortunate enough to miss out on the one bad model.

I had several of IBMs bad model and none of them have died on me. The only IBM drive that ever died on me was one of their newer ones. I would probably stick with IBM if there RMA process wasn't such a headace. WD and Maxtor ship the replacement drive first. IBM shpped the replacement drive 2 weeks after I sent mine in.

 

[Torghn]

Bump for the evening guys.