Verify Maxtor Rumour?

[baumerz]

Is cutting back on research and development better for the consumer? Remember when all HD warranties went to 1 year? Was that good for the consumer? High drive failure rates....is that good for the consumer? It appears even Dell is having a hard time accepting their drives. Is that good for the consumer?

Better stop and think. This situation is more dynamic than your "simple" explanation.....

 

[baumerz]

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You come here and (apparently?) shill for your employer, on these non-commercial forums, and then accuse me of bias, when I point it out publically? (I don't even work in the storage industry, so how I can be biased in this regard? You on the other hand, unless things have changed, do.)
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If I cared about you pointing it out, I would change my identity.......If you look at the initial post, it says nothing about my employer. (shilling? really... :-/)


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If this was the first time that you did this, I might give it the benefit of the doubt, but it hasn't been, so now I've been convinced. I've also spoken out against it before, so please don't try to play "innocent".
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First time I did what? I am interested in the hard drive business. I have only posted questions and facts. I do this with non HD products also and I have never tried to hide anything. Others have flamed HD companies on this board. Go after them. Or is it wrong for me to post about it because you disagree?

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If you want the AT readership to read Seagate press-releases, please don't post them here verbatim, send them to the site to be distributed as a news item. That's my theory, anyways. If every company that had a new product or development in the tech industry did that, these forums would be unreadable. I'm just trying to head-off any possible spam at the pass, really.
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I have nothing to do with Seagate marketing or press releases. I posted some exciting news about a new product once because I thought other might find it interesting. Obviously you would rather not be informed. Sorry....can you put me on ignore or something?

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If you are going to post something that is FUD or otherwise could negatively affect their stock price here on AT, at least disclose that you work for a competitor, that's all I'm really asking.
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Nothing I have posted has any effect on anyones stock. Give me a break. Like I said read some of the posts that REALLY flame some of the HD companies.

Nuff said

 

[CraigRT]

awesome.... if Maxtor is gone there will be no more garbage hard drives on the market!

I hope either they do go down completely, or are bought out by someone else and improved.

I absolutely hate their drives in the last 3-4 years.... worthless.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: baumerz
Let me give you simple...

Maxtor cuts costs by making low quality drives and dropping the warranty period to one year. Selling these drives at a loss (they have had alot of losing quarters over the last few years) they sell alot of cheap drives to unknowing consumers. Competitors, in order to sell drives, also are forced to compete. They do this by cutting back on research and development and employees AND warranties. HD innovation slows down because of the cuts. Meanwhile (as we have seen in many posts throughout the board) we see consumers start to realize that their Maxtor drives fail more often. But the damage has been done to the competitors AN the consumer. What if the competition to your company sold subpar goods at a loss? You have to think about this to realize that this type of competition is a cancer to the industry.

Dude, Seagate is just as guilty of price reduction pressures as Maxtor. Actually probably MORE SO than Maxtor. Seagate is also known for being especially aggressive when a competitor is weak. They will put price pressure on to try to "help them" out of business.

The last couple quarters Seagate has been dumping into the market more than anybody.

You sound like you're whining about the state of the industry. How long have you worked in the industry? It's pretty much always been this way. Same story different year. Storage is pretty much a commodity at this point. Like it or not.

 

[baumerz]

From all of the posts, it's obvious Maxtor has some problems. Dell appears to agree. Their margins are way below Seagates so I would tend to believe that they are dumping their drives for LESS than it costs to produce them. Thus they are losing their shirt. Samsung buying them would be the best option probably.

Whatever. FACT: drive companies are cutting back on R&D. It's sad.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: baumerz
Let me give you simple...

Maxtor cuts costs by making low quality drives and dropping the warranty period to one year. Selling these drives at a loss (they have had alot of losing quarters over the last few years) they sell alot of cheap drives to unknowing consumers. Competitors, in order to sell drives, also are forced to compete. They do this by cutting back on research and development and employees AND warranties. HD innovation slows down because of the cuts. Meanwhile (as we have seen in many posts throughout the board) we see consumers start to realize that their Maxtor drives fail more often. But the damage has been done to the competitors AN the consumer. What if the competition to your company sold subpar goods at a loss? You have to think about this to realize that this type of competition is a cancer to the industry.

You are directly accusing Maxtor of "dumping" goods here in the US - selling HDs below cost, specifically to harm their competitors? What proof do you have of that? That's a fairly serious accusation.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Concillian
You sound like you're whining about the state of the industry. How long have you worked in the industry? It's pretty much always been this way. Same story different year. Storage is pretty much a commodity at this point. Like it or not.

Exactly. The current low prices/margins are also due to relatively high levels of production, and relatively low demand right now.

 

[Pariah]

baumerz, you are clearly blindly biased, and for reasons that are obvious to only some of us because you refuse to disclose your employer in your signature which is pretty customary on reputable message boards like this one. Far be it from me to request people getting banned, but it should definitely be a rule of this board that anyone recommending products for the company they work for or badmouthing a competitor without clearly stating your employer which you frequently do both of should be tossed from these boards as that is an obvious violation of decent ethics on these boards and can certainly also be considered spamming.

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: baumerz
Let me give you simple...

Maxtor cuts costs by making low quality drives and dropping the warranty period to one year. Selling these drives at a loss (they have had alot of losing quarters over the last few years) they sell alot of cheap drives to unknowing consumers. Competitors, in order to sell drives, also are forced to compete. They do this by cutting back on research and development and employees AND warranties. HD innovation slows down because of the cuts. Meanwhile (as we have seen in many posts throughout the board) we see consumers start to realize that their Maxtor drives fail more often. But the damage has been done to the competitors AN the consumer. What if the competition to your company sold subpar goods at a loss? You have to think about this to realize that this type of competition is a cancer to the industry.

You are directly accusing Maxtor of "dumping" goods here in the US - selling HDs below cost, specifically to harm their competitors? What proof do you have of that? That's a fairly serious accusation.

Ironic that he would accuse Maxtor of "dumping" when in fact it was his own company that was accused of it in one of the articles he actually linked to above:

"Earlier this year, one drive maker, generally identified as Seagate, started pushing too much product into the distribution channel, forcing the competition to follow suit. "

http://www.thestreet.com/tech/...snyder/10187175_2.html

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

Originally posted by: BaumerX
According to the informed sources, Maxtor (NYSE: MXO) had failed to qualify it's drive (desktop) for Dell, which had impacted it's financial performance greatly. The company is contracting had announced a layoff of ~500 people earlier in July (see, for example, this article): http://www.bizjournals.com/san...004/06/28/daily44.html.

I smell at least a little competitor-instigated name-smearing here. Not that it doesn't happen all the time. At the end of the day, shiat happens and it's up to the user to ensure that his/her data is backed up one way or another.

 

[Teuton]

I think BaumerX just had a question about some factual news articles. He isn't promoting anything that I see. Anyhow I think it's interesting on how the whole HD thing will pan out.

 

[Ketchup]

Originally posted by: baumerz
drive companies are cutting back on R&D. It's sad.

Any company that is in a fiercly competitive market will cut costs wherever they can to stay competitive. This is nothing new. So far this is the only thing you have gotten right. If you want to accuse a company of dumping, let's see the proof.

 

[baumerz]

Saying "I would tend to believe" because of the reasons stated in the post is not making a statement of fact. Please go back and read the context. I did not say that they were dumping.

Tell you what. From now on I will only post to put up nice comments about Maxtor. Anything else I'll keep to myself.

 

[Ketchup]

Originally posted by: baumerz
Selling these drives at a loss (they have had alot of losing quarters over the last few years) they sell alot of cheap drives to unknowing consumers. Competitors, in order to sell drives, also are forced to compete.


Please go back and read the context. I did not say that they were dumping.

I did, and you did. You just said they were dumping without using the word dumping.

 

[Teuton]

I did some research online and alot of articles appear to confirm Maxtor has problems. I have a couple of em and they have been good to me. What's up with them?

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: baumerz
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You come here and (apparently?) shill for your employer, on these non-commercial forums, and then accuse me of bias, when I point it out publically? (I don't even work in the storage industry, so how I can be biased in this regard? You on the other hand, unless things have changed, do.)
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If I cared about you pointing it out, I would change my identity.......If you look at the initial post, it says nothing about my employer. (shilling? really... :-/)
<snip>

Oh for crying out loud learn to use the Quote button.

 

[hdavis01]

Built a few machines with Maxtor drives with no issues, though WD's are my favorite. I feel that maybe what ever drive manufaturer Dell went with has it in for Mator..

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend

Originally posted by: baumerz
Quote
============================
You come here and (apparently?) shill for your employer, on these non-commercial forums, and then accuse me of bias, when I point it out publically? (I don't even work in the storage industry, so how I can be biased in this regard? You on the other hand, unless things have changed, do.)
============================
If I cared about you pointing it out, I would change my identity.......If you look at the initial post, it says nothing about my employer. (shilling? really... :-/)
<snip>

Oh for crying out loud learn to use the Quote button.

:thumbsup: or use [, q, ] blah blah [, /q, ] (remove the comma's and extra spaces)

 

[drednox]

wow, that is weird. maxtor drives have always worked great for me, they have nice specs and were easiest to install as well.

the only HD i have ever had die on me was an IBM, it was fast as hell for its time, but i guess it paid in lack of durability for that performance.

 

[Subhuman25]

Originally posted by: drednox
wow, that is weird. maxtor drives have always worked great for me, they have nice specs and were easiest to install as well.

the only HD i have ever had die on me was an IBM, it was fast as hell for its time, but i guess it paid in lack of durability for that performance.

Like Teauton stated above,if you do some research you'll find Maxtor falls in the "most failed" crowd of HD's.They are notoriously failure prone.Much like the IBM "DeathStar" series were notorious for failure.
Except Maxtor has a much longer history of it than say the IBM's ever lived.
Like I said,I've used Maxtor's several times over the years in various builds,giving them the benefit of the doubt and counting on my past experience with them as a single unlucky event,but over and over I've been disappointed with recurring failures.
Reasons for my choice to go with Maxtor were often a review article or "guide" recommendation such as here on AnandTech.And we all know how either of those can fail you tremendously.Or can you say that everything AnandTech recommends in it's guides are the best and have never failed or disappointed you?
Sure,you may be one of the lucky ones and not experience a problem ... yet,but that doesn't paint an overall picture.The proof is in the many posts,threads,articles of the many Maxtor users you can find all over the web.And the picture ain't pretty.
On the other hand Seagate &amp; Western Digital have built an extremely good reputation in the HD dept. as evidenced.
Also I believe they both have sold more over the years than Maxtor,wich thins out any problems listed anywhere even more so.Perfect they aren't,but far far more relliable.Maybe not always the top performer,but a lot of times HD comparisons are splitting hairs when it comes to performance anyways.So who really cares.A HD's main function is to store data.And that means reliability is your #1 concern.And Maxtor doesn't afford one much assurance of reliability.It's as simple as that.

 

[Ketchup]

Originally posted by: Subhuman25

Originally posted by: drednox
wow, that is weird. maxtor drives have always worked great for me, they have nice specs and were easiest to install as well.

the only HD i have ever had die on me was an IBM, it was fast as hell for its time, but i guess it paid in lack of durability for that performance.

Like Teauton stated above,if you do some research you'll find Maxtor falls in the "most failed" crowd of HD's.They are notoriously failure prone.

Let's see some proof.

 

[Apotherix]

I've got a comp running an old maxtor - its been going for like 7 years...

 

[Tom]

"It appears even Dell is having a hard time accepting their drives. "

Is there any source for this "rumor" other than you ?

 

[Subhuman25]

Originally posted by: ketchup79

Originally posted by: Subhuman25

Originally posted by: drednox
wow, that is weird. maxtor drives have always worked great for me, they have nice specs and were easiest to install as well.

the only HD i have ever had die on me was an IBM, it was fast as hell for its time, but i guess it paid in lack of durability for that performance.

Like Teauton stated above,if you do some research you'll find Maxtor falls in the "most failed" crowd of HD's.They are notoriously failure prone.

Let's see some proof.

You seem to have a hard time grasping the concept of "if you do some reasearch" if I may quote myself

Maxtor SUCKS!

 

[Pariah]

So what competing company do you work for Subhuman25? Or is that just another handle for baumer? Storage Review has a reliability survey that contains over 30,000 entries from over 13,000 participants, and the results do not show Maxtor worse than anyone but Seagate. Hitachi/IBM is definitely worse and WD is at best even, with smaller companies, Fujitsu and Samsung behind Maxtor as well. As far as I know, that's the largest publically posted sampling of drive failure rates. Now why don't you provide a larger sampling that provides evidence to back up your claims?