What is the deal with noone wanting IBM Drives anymore???

[BAMAVOO]

Heck I have been running the same 2 ibm 75gxp drives raided for 2+years and not a hiccup...

So what is the deal?

 

[Lucky]

Nice rock you got there.

 

[Harvey]

Some of IBM's latest drives have a notice about only being suitable for running for a limited number of hours per day. I know I wouldn't buy a drive with that kind of spec. from the manufacturer. :Q

 

[schmedy]

I too guess I have been lucky, knock on wood, I have 2 about a year old and one less then 6 months old all running strong many hours a day.

 

[N8Magic]

Originally posted by: Harvey
Some of IBM's latest drives have a notice about only being suitable for running for a limited number of hours per day. I know I wouldn't buy a drive with that kind of spec. from the manufacturer. :Q

Very true, and this limits the appeal of their drives to the enthusiast community who frequent the forums here.

Didn't IBM just finish selling their hard drive unit off to Hitachi as well? The possibility of Hitachi not honouring IBM's warranty may also keep people away.

 

[cavemanmoron]

i bought 2 ibm 46.1 gb 7200 rpm hard drives both have had major issues
i returned the one,and the replacment has been OK
the other one is messed up, sometimes it shows as a 46 gb,others as a 30ish
and won't let ME run...
i need to do the IBM hard drive test and rma it,thanks for the reminder!
it has been in a drawer for nearly a year!

 

[Uclagamer_99]

same here, had the ibm gxp 75 for over 2 years and its still going strong!

 

[Red Dawn]

Another victim of the IBM GXP

 

[spanky]

the chance that i will get a dud seems higher then if i were to get a seagate.

 

[PsychoAndy]

Originally posted by: cavemanmoron
i bought 2 ibm 46.1 gb 7200 rpm hard drives both have had major issues
i returned the one,and the replacment has been OK
the other one is messed up, sometimes it shows as a 46 gb,others as a 30ish
and won't let ME run...
i need to do the IBM hard drive test and rma it,thanks for the reminder!
it has been in a drawer for nearly a year!

I think the problem might be ME

 

[Squisher]

I've also been running a 75GXP for a couple of years.

Seems there is an issue with these HDs if they are not given suffient airflow. The drive itself doesn't die, but the circuitry underneath.

Someone posted a means of repairing them by replacing the board on the bottom awhile back(this is only worthwhile if you need the data).

 

[OutHouse]

The only HDD that have failed in my server room are IBM :| Even the replacements have failed :|:| If i know a system comes with IBM drives i will not buy it.

on a side note my Seagate Cheatas 10K and 15K drives have never failed me.

 

[datalink7]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Another victim of the IBM GXP

same here. 40gb's all gone.

Lucky for me I had just backed it all up the week before. It had been like 3 months before that and I would have been PISSSED.

 

[hans007]

basically mostly random fear, and stuff. even if their drives are bat they are not a large amount worse, just place like hardocp made a big deal out of it.



the warranties will be honored, no way IBM would not honor it it'd destroy their name.



the duty cycle thing on the drives is they base the MTBF on a 1/3 day use. it can be used for more than that, just they base all their failure estimates on 8 hours per day. all the other companies do this too they just dont put it on their disclaimer.


its just liek printers, HP quotes a duty cycle of like 1000 pages per month on their printers, but it doesnt mean it wont work for more.

 

[bmd]

Had an 80GB 120GXP going strong for awhile now.

 

[Savij]

I have an IBM (40Gxp i think) in my file server that's been running almost continuously for 1.5+ years now. In fact, it spent Aug. - May of last year living within 3 feet of my 15inch and my roommate's 12 inch subwoofer and never even hiccuped. I finally had to shut the system down after 150+ days of uptime to move out of that dorm. It's still going strong to this day. My desktop system has been running a 60gxp for about a year now and is running ok.

So far, I haven't noticed a single problem with either of my IBM harddrives even though I have gone through 2 WD and one Seagate drive. To be fair, the WD and Seagate drives were all at least 3 years old when they finally joined the big harddrive in the sky.

-ss

 

[Savij]

<edit> How the heck did I manage to double post and not know it? </edit>

 

[ultimatebob]

That's easy. A few Anandtech members got some bad 75 GXP's, and they publically complained about it on the forums. Complaining is really an understatement, as it was more like an all out rant fest. For the past year now, certain loudmouth people on these forums have been screaming and whining about IBM drives every time a subject about hard drives or IBM comes up.

Of course, 90% of everyone who has an IBM hard drive has had no problems with it. The other 10%, however, have done their best to give everyone else the impression that all IBM drives are bad. Of course, it isn't the case, but perception seems to lead over reality around here.

 

[Red Dawn]

ultimateboob

Of course, 90% of everyone who has an IBM hard drive has had no problems with it. The other 10%, however, have done their best to give everyone else the impression that all IBM drives are bad.

Well Bucky, a 10% failure rate is way to high to be confident in a product, especially one that store important data.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
ultimateboob

Of course, 90% of everyone who has an IBM hard drive has had no problems with it. The other 10%, however, have done their best to give everyone else the impression that all IBM drives are bad.

Well Bucky, a 10% failure rate is way to high to be confident in a product, especially one that store important data.

its probably not even 10%. lots of oems i.e. dell use them and its gotta be way lower than 10%, probably 1 or 2%

 

[Red Dawn]

its probably not even 10%. lots of oems i.e. dell use them and its gotta be way lower than 10%

I guess it's only 10% at AT.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

It might be a good product but it has a bad reputation. People hate Ford because they hear from their friends about what a POS it is or they're just domestic haters and nothing else. That's similar to how some people feel about IBM and such - just b/c person X and Y say it sucks, suddenly he too jumps on the IBM SUCKS bandwagon.

I myself have never bought an IBM GXP HD and I never will just because of the rumors I've heard about it. I've used Maxtors on the 2 computers I have now and don't have problems with either

 

[tk149]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob
That's easy. A few Anandtech members got some bad 75 GXP's, and they publically complained about it on the forums. Complaining is really an understatement, as it was more like an all out rant fest. For the past year now, certain loudmouth people on these forums have been screaming and whining about IBM drives every time a subject about hard drives or IBM comes up.

Of course, 90% of everyone who has an IBM hard drive has had no problems with it. The other 10%, however, have done their best to give everyone else the impression that all IBM drives are bad. Of course, it isn't the case, but perception seems to lead over reality around here.

Where's your proof that 90% had no problems? Oh, you don't really have any, do you? Even if you did, a 10% failure rate is still pretty durn high. I doubt any other hard drive manufacturer would consider that acceptable.

MORE than "a few Anandtech members" got bad GXP's (which you would know if had the slightest clue). One need only look up "IBM Deathstar" on the web to see that lots of people got bad drives. Enough people got bad drives that the IBM 75GXP and possibly its successor the 60GXP got tagged with the nickname "Deathstar". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any other computer component in history has gotten a nickname because it failed so often. I don't think even the Iomega ZIP drives with their infamous "click of death" inspired a nickname (just the description "click of death").

My friend's IBM 75GXP died. She is now part of the class-action lawsuit against IBM, because IBM refuses to acknowledge that there was any kind of problem with the Deathstars. Consequently, I won't buy IBM hard drives, because the company has demonstrated an unwillingness to admit they screwed their customers. And I feel really bad, because I'm the one who recommended to my friend that she buy the IBM drive. If IBM had owned up to their mistake, and recalled all the bad drives, then I'd feel differently, but they haven't and I don't.

If your IBM Deathstar still works, bully for you. Consider yourself lucky, and feel sorry for the unlucky ones.

 

[BAMAVOO]

Well now the next question..What is the DRIVE to get now? The 8meg cache bad boy?

 

[thomsbrain]

When I built my computer a little more than 2 years ago, I was torn between the 75GXP and the Maxtor 7200 RPM drives that had just come out. Finally, feeling cheap, I decided on the Maxtors. My Maxtor has been on 24 hours a day nearly every day for two years, seen heavy duty as a video, audio, and imaging workstation, 6 operating systems, 4000 miles of travel in my car, etc etc, and never so much as burped. Meanwhile, the IBM drive I beat myself up for not buying has turned out to be problematic for lots of people, especially "power" users such as myself. Thank god I was such a cheap ass.