who makes most reliable HD's ?

[StealthPants]

I was thinking of getting a WD Caviar SE 120GB HD but ive heard people complain about their reliability. Is Maxtor or Seagate any better ?

Ideally id like 120GB with 8mb Cache (i dont care if its SATA or not at present although will get SATA if its not that much more expensive)


Any Recommendation ?

 

[EeyoreX]

IMO whichever drive is the least expensive, is the most reliable. I've had dozens if drives from both WD and Maxtor. Fewer Seagates and a couple IBM/Hitachi. I've only had one drive go bad on me. Basically, I think it's mainly luck. Outside of entire product line problems (think IBM "Deathstar" drives) all hard drives are pretty reliable, except some people seem to have bad luck in some cases.

\Dan

 

[jonn]

Had a Maxtor 60 gig, 2 meg, lasted about 6 months and totally dies instantly. Got a rma, they sent a new 80 gig diamond Max 9 2 meg. It lasted about 2 hours, yes thats right, 2 hours and started clicking and died. Another rma and they sent another diamond max 9, this time a 80 gig with 8 meg cache. So far its been operating a week with no trouble. BUT..........
I also have a maxtor 15 gig 5400 in this computer that is about 4 years old, never one problem.
daughter has a 5 ? gig in hers, its older than my 15 and 90 out of 100 shutdowns are never shut down properly, and it is still chugging along, take this for what its worth...But i feel the older ones were made better, or else a run of bad components now.

 

[NEVERwinter]

weird... in my experience, seagate & maxtor are reliable. I had some problems with WD's on my woring place couple of years ago.

 

[keebeen]

i've got a 120gb Maxtor w/ 8mb cache and also an 80gb WD w/ 8mb cache in my current system. No problems with either of them.

in one of my p3-800's, i have a maxtor 20gb and a maxtor 8gb. in my other p3-800, i have a maxtor 30gb. all still going strong.

i've used Maxtor ever since i had my 486 and never had one die on me. i've also built many systems for people using maxtor hard drives and never had any of them die. although i did have one problem with one of the maxtor drives where it suddenly became REALLY loud after just a few months use... i thought it was the psu fan, but it was actually the hard drive...

like eyeorex said, i think it really is just luck... all hard drive manufacturers will have some defective drives.

 

[jonn]

Yes i aggree, but i read a few threads here just the other day that people are having bad luck as i am with Maxtor too..

 

[hytek369]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX
IMO whichever drive is the least expensive, is the most reliable. I've had dozens if drives from both WD and Maxtor. Fewer Seagates and a couple IBM/Hitachi. I've only had one drive go bad on me. Basically, I think it's mainly luck. Outside of entire product line problems (think IBM "Deathstar" drives) all hard drives are pretty reliable, except some people seem to have bad luck in some cases.

\Dan

true, luck is the answer. every drive has a failure rate. this is just part of statistical process control. 1 out of a 1,000 will be bad. you can easily get that 1 bad apple.

 

[Fraggster]

had two maxtors die in a row on me

 

[John]

See if you can find a nice IBM 45GB 75GXP....they're very reliable.

 

[Sheriff]

Go with the best warranty (3-5yrs) and a Major Maker because they back the HD's. Just make sure you backup your data.

 

[Pretty Cool]

Well, my IBM 45GB 75GXP has been running fine for 3 years now. Also on my computer is a Quantum and a Western Digital.

 

[Davegod75]

www.storagereview.com

 

[Abhi]

For me... Seagates...

 

[beaver]

It's really depending on their conditions when new.
Yes, they are all brand new in sealed manufacturer retail package.
A while ago (a couple of years ago) There were some threads discussing issues that Maxtor HDD (40GB and 60GB at that time) by Staples on-line shipping was easy to die comparing to those of Staples B&M.
It?s concluded that a HDD by on-line shipping got much higher chance to die earlier because of more transportation or damage in transportation. If possible, pick-up B&M (at that time, pick-up at Staples B&M allowed).

So, if all manufacturer offer one-year warranty on their HDD. The HDD getting more transportation is more vulnerable.

 

[gsaldivar]

Let the brand-wars begin......!

 

[jonn]

Ihave always had Maxtor drives, only had one go bad in last 10 years and it was a old 500 meg i scrounged from a old computer, untill now when one dies at 6 months, one at 2 hours use. Sure it may be the shippers, who knows. But i still think quality is way down from what it used to be, they just seem to be getting too fragile... Or else quality isnt really down, and just the new technology/size drives are just more fragile than the older ones.Either way,
it looks like for as many problems as there is, something needs changed.

 

[QuantumFlux]

If reliability is your number one concern, you should look into getting a SCSI drive.

 

[busmaster11]

Originally posted by: QuantumFlux
If reliability is your number one concern, you should look into getting a SCSI drive.

I don't think so. 10k+ rpm lends itself to higher fail rates, and otherwise the build quality of ATA/SATA drives vs SCSI is similiar, IMO. If you want reliability, I'd go for a RAID 1 setup using IDE or SATA.

If you want to have a good idea of where the concensus lies with ppl's opinions on hdds, you need a poll.

 

[Buzzman151]

Originally posted by: busmaster11

Originally posted by: QuantumFlux
If reliability is your number one concern, you should look into getting a SCSI drive.

I don't think so. 10k+ rpm lends itself to higher fail rates, and otherwise the build quality of ATA/SATA drives vs SCSI is similiar, IMO. If you want reliability, I'd go for a RAID 1 setup using IDE or SATA.

If you want to have a good idea of where the concensus lies with ppl's opinions on hdds, you need a poll.

SCSI drives are the most reliable drives that you can buy. Most of them have a 5 year waranty for a reason. It would not make good business sense at all to give the least reliable drive in your product line-up the best warantee.

 

[busmaster11]

Originally posted by: Buzzman151

Originally posted by: busmaster11

Originally posted by: QuantumFlux
If reliability is your number one concern, you should look into getting a SCSI drive.

I don't think so. 10k+ rpm lends itself to higher fail rates, and otherwise the build quality of ATA/SATA drives vs SCSI is similiar, IMO. If you want reliability, I'd go for a RAID 1 setup using IDE or SATA.

If you want to have a good idea of where the concensus lies with ppl's opinions on hdds, you need a poll.

SCSI drives are the most reliable drives that you can buy. Most of them have a 5 year waranty for a reason. It would not make good business sense at all to give the least reliable drive in your product line-up the best warantee.

I take my comments back. You're probably right. Still, this guy doesn't need SCSI. It's much more expensive for relatively little return comapred to something like RAID 1 SATA.

 

[Fraggster]

scsi makes me fell warm and fcsi

 

[NobleSavage]

Hi guys, this is the first time I'm writting but I wanted to contribute to this thread. I would have to agree with the other guys, that it's mainly luck. I got a new system which had on it a new Hitachi drive(which is IBM actually), a 120GB september 2003 model and died on me within a week! I replaced it with a WD, which I had before and they seem to work great. I have it for almost 2 months now and no problems. The only negative is that it is really REALLY loud compared to the Hitachi. I've had in the past WD, IBM and a used SCSI IBM...no problems with any of those. But those were the days where we had 20GB HD and not 200GB