I must reitterate my true hatred for Maxtors. I have had 2 die on me in the last 6 months...I have friends that work at a tech support company, and they see more dead Maxtors than any other drive. For reliability, my vote has to go to IBM. I have a 14 giger from 98, and it is still running damn strong...with no probs yet. I've had experience w/Quantum in the past, but I've recently heard that they've been having a few probs. Western Digital is also pretty reliable in my opinion.
<< I must reitterate my true hatred for Maxtors. I have had 2 die on me in the last 6 months...I have friends that work at a tech support company, and they see more dead Maxtors than any other drive. For reliability, my vote has to go to IBM. I have a 14 giger from 98, and it is still running damn strong...with no probs yet. I've had experience w/Quantum in the past, but I've recently heard that they've been having a few probs. Western Digital is also pretty reliable in my opinion. >>
Hmm, many dead Maxtors there, i personally have tested more than 60 000 (as my company has it's own QC on the products we sell) drives throughout the years and the least reliable drives i have tested were WD, Fujitsu, IBM's, Samsung, Maxtor, Seagate and Quantum, in that order.
The WD's have been the worst by far with failure rates up to 10% at times.
Maxtor and Quantums HDD divisions have merged, and all drives sold will be sold under the Maxtor brand name, so Quantum will soon be history as a brand name for HDD's.
Patrick Palm
Am speaking for PC Resources
Matt Stone:
Do you have to tell your little story about that 2 dead Maxtor everywhere you go? Jeez, you sound like all Maxtor know how to make is dead drives. What would you think if some ignorant fool had his 2 IBMs crapped out on him and going around bad rapping them? Get a clue.
Do you have to tell your little story about that 2 dead Maxtor everywhere you go? Jeez, you sound like all Maxtor know how to make is dead drives. What would you think if some ignorant fool had his 2 IBMs crapped out on him and going around bad rapping them? Get a clue.
Nobody has mentioned Seagates... Good. I have had 2 now and havent been impressed (2 returned in 2 weeks). I really like Maxtor from my own experiences and would stick with them in future (unless rave reviews convince me otherwise). I havent had/used an IBM drive
I don't know who makes the "best" hard drives, but in the 5 years I have had PC's, I have had 3 Western Digitals fail, two were replaced under warranty. I have a less than 1 year old Maxtor running great, and a 6 month old Quantum Fireball Lct 10 15 gig running fine. It did puke on me a little when it was running a Celeron overclocked with a 75 Mhz front side bus, but I was able to get windows reinstalled and it seems to be working fine at the default 66 Mhz front side bus. My preference would be for Maxtor and Quantum, based on experience, and I am itching to try an IBM drive. Hmmm, Onvia.com has the IBM 45 gig 7200 rpm Deskstar GXP75 for $149.95 with free shipping, but Egghead.com has the Quantum 30 gig Fireball Plus LM 7200 rpm drive for just $128.99 with a $30 mail in rebate and free shipping. Decisions, decisions.
Hopefully the Christmas bonus will be enough to allow a choice, otherwise I will have to go for the quantum, I guess.
Chuck
Hopefully the Christmas bonus will be enough to allow a choice, otherwise I will have to go for the quantum, I guess.
Chuck
<< Do you have to tell your little story about that 2 dead Maxtor everywhere you go? Jeez, you sound like all Maxtor know how to make is dead drives. What would you think if some ignorant fool had his 2 IBMs crapped out on him and going around bad rapping them? Get a clue. >>
Okay yah...yell at me...sure. If someone had 2 IBMs go dead on him, I would say that he was unlucky...if he had seen about 20 maxtors go dead in the last couple of weeks...well that is a different story. I go to Purdue, and while I live in an apartment, I visit my friends in their dorms all of the time...last week was dead Maxtor week. 1 went down on one of my friends...2 other people came looking for us for help because their maxtors puked, and we found 4 or 5 more people that had dead maxtors in their dorm rooms. I'm not saying don't go with Maxtor...and I'm certainly not saying that other drives don't have problems. This damn subjective question is asked by everyone twice a week...and I answer, the way that I answer it everytime...from my experience. Just for you I will never answer it again...how about that.
Matt,
If you're going to go maxtor bashing, then atleast make up a believeable story. Like peoples drives go crashing on one street corner? What the hell are you talking about. I've had 4 maxtors drives in the past 5 years and not one has and ANY problems with it. No bad sector, no nothing. Unless everybody on your street bought maxtors from the same bad batch, you're just making a fool out of yourself.
I vote maxtor from experience. Seagate been good to me too as my second vote.
If you're going to go maxtor bashing, then atleast make up a believeable story. Like peoples drives go crashing on one street corner? What the hell are you talking about. I've had 4 maxtors drives in the past 5 years and not one has and ANY problems with it. No bad sector, no nothing. Unless everybody on your street bought maxtors from the same bad batch, you're just making a fool out of yourself.
I vote maxtor from experience. Seagate been good to me too as my second vote.
I wasnt trying to yell at you or criticize your experience. My point was you cannot judge the entirety of a company base on the experience of 2 drives. It doesnt matter if your entire dorm has Maxtor problems, it still represents nearly nothing about Maxtor as a whole. If you call the person who has 2 IBMs died on him "unlucky", I may as well say you're just "unlucky" with Maxtors. I wouldnt be surprised if that 2 Maxtors you have and the other Maxtors from the dorm are pre-1998 made drives, Maxtor had some bad times during that period but their reliability is way up in the recent years. Have you even tried their RMA service? I guarrantee it's better than IBM's.
<< Okay yah...yell at me...sure. If someone had 2 IBMs go dead on him, I would say that he was unlucky...if he had seen about 20 maxtors go dead in the last couple of weeks...well that is a different story. I go to Purdue, and while I live in an apartment, I visit my friends in their dorms all of the time...last week was dead Maxtor week. 1 went down on one of my friends...2 other people came looking for us for help because their maxtors puked, and we found 4 or 5 more people that had dead maxtors in their dorm rooms. I'm not saying don't go with Maxtor...and I'm certainly not saying that other drives don't have problems. This damn subjective question is asked by everyone twice a week...and I answer, the way that I answer it everytime...from my experience. Just for you I will never answer it again...how about that >>
Hehe, that was a funny story... What, you weren't joking? Well, then maybe you should check that dorm, it might be radioactive.
Eight disks in one place, in one week, and all Maxtors, and only Maxtors... yeah, right...
Patrick Palm
Am speaking for PC Resources
Just got a Maxtor Diamond MAX 45. LOVE it. I was a diehard WD fan till a couple years ago they had some bad 4gb and 5gb drives.
i'd say IBM. the maxtor ones have their own compatibility issues (IE with the promise raid setup). Besides the IBMs are quieter since they use glass platters . Seagate and quantum are good too. Seagate's aren't the fastest but they are reliable. Apple almost exclusively uses quantum and a lot of the big names do since they are very reliable drives. Maxtor i've heard fails the most, but it is cheaper (in saying fails the most, this is relative as most drives dont fail that much, but maxtors from my experience were the most likely to lose it at high PCI bus speeds, and during power outages/surges).
<<i'd say IBM. the maxtor ones have their own compatibility issues (IE with the promise raid setup).>>
You mean with Abit's CrapPoint setup? Maxtors have no problems with Promise FasTrack.
<<Besides the IBMs are quieter since they use glass platters.>>
I bet you a dollar you havent heard the DiamondMax Plus 40.
<<Maxtor i've heard fails the most, but it is cheaper (in saying fails the most, this is relative as most drives dont fail that much, but maxtors from my experience were the most likely to lose it at high PCI bus speeds, and during power outages/surges).>>
Take into account that they've sold more units than any other brand, you can expect higher number of failures but the percentage still remains the same. Also take into account that they're more widely available in stores like CompUSA and Fry's Electronics, any average Joe and Jane can get their hands on a Maxtor drive and they can easily screw it up. Its not fair to say they fail more because people are not experienced enough to handle them.
And the PCI bus speeds? You must be talking about Maxtors from pre-1997/98 period. New Maxtors handle funny bus speeds with ease.
You mean with Abit's CrapPoint setup? Maxtors have no problems with Promise FasTrack.
<<Besides the IBMs are quieter since they use glass platters.>>
I bet you a dollar you havent heard the DiamondMax Plus 40.
<<Maxtor i've heard fails the most, but it is cheaper (in saying fails the most, this is relative as most drives dont fail that much, but maxtors from my experience were the most likely to lose it at high PCI bus speeds, and during power outages/surges).>>
Take into account that they've sold more units than any other brand, you can expect higher number of failures but the percentage still remains the same. Also take into account that they're more widely available in stores like CompUSA and Fry's Electronics, any average Joe and Jane can get their hands on a Maxtor drive and they can easily screw it up. Its not fair to say they fail more because people are not experienced enough to handle them.
And the PCI bus speeds? You must be talking about Maxtors from pre-1997/98 period. New Maxtors handle funny bus speeds with ease.
The first HD that I ever experienced dieing was a Maxtor. A friend had a 1.6gb and it died. He had it replaced and the replacement died soon therafter. The replacement to that died maybe a year or 2 after that. This I believe was in Maxtor's 'bad' period. This experience had led me to have a less than flowery opinion of Maxtor but I'm sure it's not applicable any more. There was also a period when Seagate was very bad. This was when 540Mb drives were the norm. They seem to have realy jacked up since they took over / bought out Conner, who made really good drives in their time.
I haven't had personal bad experience with WD drives. I have a 4Gb WD Caviar, which isn't even DMA33 but it's the most robust drive I have ever had. I got it in '96 and it's still going strong. It is *quite* slow though - low single digit Mb/s transfer speeds. I use it now as a 'transport drive' to take large files around with me. It get's plugged into many different computers fairly frequently and it's unphased.
My next HD was a 6.5Gb Seagate. It's still running fine - though it is very finicky. Don't attempt to run it at DMA33 without having the other drive on the cable also running at DMA33 - else it's very unhappy. It also corrupted data when I fiddled with FSB's like 75 and 83MHz.
Then I got a WD 9.1Gb 7200RPM. The fastest IDE drive I'd ever seen at the time. It's still very good, though 2 of the 4 people I know who also got one of those drives had it die on then in under a year.
But now... < drum roll > I have an IBM 30Gb 75GXP. MY GOD! What an increadible drive! I've only had it for almost 2 months, so I don't know how reliable it is yet, but it is blazingly fast!
There have been numerous posts on some forums of people having these drives fail on them - some even had 3 of them fail as they got replacements... Some of these people had ASUS K7M m/b's (like I do) and they were thinking that maybe the K7M and the 75GXP weren't happy together. So far I haven't had any problems with it though (except the initial requirement that I use an IBM utility to set the drive to run in ATA66 mode instead of ATA100 so that Win98 wouldn't freeze on bootup - it's some problem with the BIOS and the VIA IDE drivers).
So now I'm a 75GXP advocate, totally. All other (IDE) drives are just mediocre.
I haven't had personal bad experience with WD drives. I have a 4Gb WD Caviar, which isn't even DMA33 but it's the most robust drive I have ever had. I got it in '96 and it's still going strong. It is *quite* slow though - low single digit Mb/s transfer speeds. I use it now as a 'transport drive' to take large files around with me. It get's plugged into many different computers fairly frequently and it's unphased.
My next HD was a 6.5Gb Seagate. It's still running fine - though it is very finicky. Don't attempt to run it at DMA33 without having the other drive on the cable also running at DMA33 - else it's very unhappy. It also corrupted data when I fiddled with FSB's like 75 and 83MHz.
Then I got a WD 9.1Gb 7200RPM. The fastest IDE drive I'd ever seen at the time. It's still very good, though 2 of the 4 people I know who also got one of those drives had it die on then in under a year.
But now... < drum roll > I have an IBM 30Gb 75GXP. MY GOD! What an increadible drive! I've only had it for almost 2 months, so I don't know how reliable it is yet, but it is blazingly fast!
There have been numerous posts on some forums of people having these drives fail on them - some even had 3 of them fail as they got replacements... Some of these people had ASUS K7M m/b's (like I do) and they were thinking that maybe the K7M and the 75GXP weren't happy together. So far I haven't had any problems with it though (except the initial requirement that I use an IBM utility to set the drive to run in ATA66 mode instead of ATA100 so that Win98 wouldn't freeze on bootup - it's some problem with the BIOS and the VIA IDE drivers).
So now I'm a 75GXP advocate, totally. All other (IDE) drives are just mediocre.
IMO IBM drives are the most reliable, and WD's and Seagates the least reliable.
This is from my time as a support tech at a company that sold loads of IBM's, WD's, Seagates and Fujitsu's.
For the Seagates this only applies to their IDE line though, their SCSI line is more than excellent.
The Fujitsu's fell somewhere inbetween BTW, but why should anyone bother with one, their IDE drives are IMO really crappy performers across the board, their high end SCSI HD's is another matter though(using a 10k RPM SCA Fujitsu right now, very nice drive).
This is from my time as a support tech at a company that sold loads of IBM's, WD's, Seagates and Fujitsu's.
For the Seagates this only applies to their IDE line though, their SCSI line is more than excellent.
The Fujitsu's fell somewhere inbetween BTW, but why should anyone bother with one, their IDE drives are IMO really crappy performers across the board, their high end SCSI HD's is another matter though(using a 10k RPM SCA Fujitsu right now, very nice drive
).Just in case you don't know, Microsoft has an update at the Windows Update page that addresses the problem with the large buffer Hard drives and a fast computer(933MHz and up, thats what MS says)
I used to use WD and those HDs where failing, So I started to use Maxtor for a couple of years until the past year where I had 4 maxtor HDs fail.
Now all I use is IBM 75GXP's, they are great, fast!!
my 2 cents
I used to use WD and those HDs where failing, So I started to use Maxtor for a couple of years until the past year where I had 4 maxtor HDs fail.
Now all I use is IBM 75GXP's, they are great, fast!!
my 2 cents
Dulanic
Diamond Member
- Oct 27, 2000
- 9,965
- 590
- 136
Maxtor are EXTRMELLY quiet with their acoustic managment.... and you can turn it off to get more performance (something alot of reviewers are forgetting to do!) and I didnt notice any difference in noise level. And word of mouth about reliability means crap.... alot of people say WD suck..... Ive had a total of 6 WD drive some for 5 years and not one went dead or had even one bad sector. But that doesnt mean WD doesnt have alot of dead drives. Maxtor has been making great HDs lately there is no doubting that and their reliability has gotten better, and their RMA policy is THE best.
Looks Like IBM Drives Are The Overall Winner. Maxtor Second. I Have Had Several IBM Hard Drives In The Past. I Have A IBM 27GB Now, And A GXP 15GB That I'm Sending Back To Get A Replacement. I'm Also Sending Several WD Drives Back For RMA. Overall I Like IBM, And I Guess I'm Going To Stay With Them. I Have A 10GB IBM In My Wife's PC That Has Been Running Solid For A Couple Years Now. And I Just Replaced A WD In My Sister's PC With A Seagate.
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