Maxtor reliability?

  • Thread starter Thread starter @drian
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@drian

I've been reading the newsgroups via Google for a few hours, and Maxtor
seems to get a bad name for reliability. One person after the next made
comments like "bought a Maxtor brand-new and within two months it died".

Are they *that* bad? I only ask because Western Digital, who seem to get a
good name, don't make the size of drives I need, where-as Maxtor does. I
find it hard to believe they are so bad, yet, I don't want to buy a couple
then have it fail then remember all the "evidence" I saw in the newsgroups.
:-)

@drian.
 
I've been reading the newsgroups via Google for a few hours, and Maxtor
seems to get a bad name for reliability. One person after the next made
comments like "bought a Maxtor brand-new and within two months it died".

Are they *that* bad?
Click to expand...

No but with anything mass made, you'll get a few that go wrong.
 
I've been reading the newsgroups via Google for a few hours, and Maxtor
seems to get a bad name for reliability. One person after the next made
comments like "bought a Maxtor brand-new and within two months it died".

Are they *that* bad? I only ask because Western Digital, who seem to get a
good name, don't make the size of drives I need, where-as Maxtor does. I
find it hard to believe they are so bad, yet, I don't want to buy a couple
then have it fail then remember all the "evidence" I saw in the newsgroups.
:-)
Click to expand...

They arent that bad. If you sit around and read the groups youll see
the same thing about all drives.

A while ago as I posted IBMs were god. If you suggested that they were
bad in any way you had an avalanche of posts saying you were a moron.
After their publicized problems suddenly they were like toxic waste.

I intermittently see bashing of Maxtors and WDs and praise for all of
them. Im not saying that the people arent posting the truth though its
hard for some to believe the - " I had 10 XXXXs in a row and they all
blew up after using them a week. Im never going to buy them again !"

You see this intermittently with every brand. Frankly Ive used WDs
Conners Quantums and mostly Maxtors - I have two really old Maxtor
drives and my used ones Ive sold off - or given away , some are
friends and relatives and they are still running with no problems
after years and years of use and I havent had any problems with them.
Ive bought a fair amount over the last few years.

There are some 6-20 gig fairly old Maxtors still running side by side
newer larger ones 60 and 80 gigs in several of my neighbors and
friends PCs no problems.

Of course maybe there was a bad batch we dont know about thats causing
the intermiitent bashing - WD had a recall a while back , I had one of
the drives that was recalled. Of course around that time WDs were
really bashed and there are still some people who say they wouldnt
touch one with a ten foot pole. Or maybe some do have some weird
incompatibity with some setups we dont know about and maybe some users
dont have the ideal environment - really cramped case, poor cooling
with HD crammed on top of another drive.

Ive also was at a store to get a rainchecked HD item and saw a
salesman unpacking the HDs from brown box and he couldnt get them out
so he was turning them upside down and banging on the box. And ever
see the huge piles of HDs and other stuff stacked on the floor? Im
sure some of the boxes have been knocked off the top.
 
I've been reading the newsgroups via Google for a few hours, and Maxtor
seems to get a bad name for reliability. One person after the next made
comments like "bought a Maxtor brand-new and within two months it died".

Are they *that* bad? I only ask because Western Digital, who seem to get a
good name, don't make the size of drives I need, where-as Maxtor does. I
find it hard to believe they are so bad, yet, I don't want to buy a couple
then have it fail then remember all the "evidence" I saw in the newsgroups.
:-)

@drian.
Click to expand...

IMHO, Maxtor's Diamondmax 60 series was less reliable than the
next-gen D740, or later "plus" series. Other than that I haven't
noticed any trends towards Maxtors being any worse than WDs, and I
often hear of people who had their WD 120GB BB drives fail too, so
it's happening in both brands, but at relatively low rates considering
how popular they are.

FWIW, I have over a half-dozen Maxtor D740 and Plus 8 drives here,
none of which have had any problems. Also I have fewer, at least 4 WD
drives, also with no problems, but the WD drives are much louder,
annoyingly so once you're used to quiet drives.


Dave
 
kony said:
...but the WD drives are much louder,
annoyingly so once you're used to quiet drives.
Click to expand...

Is that because the WD drives don't use fluid-bearings? I'm unsure, but I
remember reading that Maxtor and Seagate are the only ones to use
fluid-bearings, but I'm not sure on the significance of doing so. I assumed
it was for noise suppression.

@drian.
 
[email protected] said:
They arent that bad. If you sit around and read the groups youll see
the same thing about all drives.
Click to expand...

Well, after reading more than 400 messages, I seemed to see more bad
feedback on Maxtors than say, WD's. I didn't see much feedback on Seagates
though. But then again, the instances I saw could be one-off's.
A while ago as I posted IBMs were god. If you suggested that they were
bad in any way you had an avalanche of posts saying you were a moron.
After their publicized problems suddenly they were like toxic waste.
Click to expand...

It's ashame, as I usually associate IBM products as quality. I have a few
IBM products and they are very well made. I had SCSI drives a couple of
years ago, and while good quality, the transfer rate was slow and the drive
was hot, as compared to a Maxtor.
I intermittently see bashing of Maxtors and WDs and praise for all of
them. Im not saying that the people arent posting the truth though its
hard for some to believe the - " I had 10 XXXXs in a row and they all
blew up after using them a week. Im never going to buy them again !"
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree. There must be another factor involved, like bad cooling,
overclocked motherboard, something to induce the failures.
touch one with a ten foot pole. Or maybe some do have some weird
incompatibity with some setups we dont know about and maybe some users
dont have the ideal environment - really cramped case, poor cooling
with HD crammed on top of another drive.
Click to expand...

Yes. I would have both IDE drives mounted vertically on a rack, with a
120mm fan blowing air across them. Very effective. Good thing is, that
design came with the case. It wasn't something I needed to "rig".
Ive also was at a store to get a rainchecked HD item and saw a
salesman unpacking the HDs from brown box and he couldnt get them out
so he was turning them upside down and banging on the box. And ever
see the huge piles of HDs and other stuff stacked on the floor? Im
sure some of the boxes have been knocked off the top.
Click to expand...

Wow. That's true. You don't know how the drives are treated before they
are shipping out to customers. It's amazing some store staff's complete
ignorance with regard to delicate electronics.

@drian.
 
Is that because the WD drives don't use fluid-bearings? I'm unsure, but I
remember reading that Maxtor and Seagate are the only ones to use
fluid-bearings, but I'm not sure on the significance of doing so. I assumed
it was for noise suppression.

@drian.
Click to expand...

Yes, and yes.


Dave
 
@drian said:
I've been reading the newsgroups via Google for a few hours, and Maxtor
seems to get a bad name for reliability. One person after the next made
comments like "bought a Maxtor brand-new and within two months it died".

Are they *that* bad? I only ask because Western Digital, who seem to get a
good name, don't make the size of drives I need, where-as Maxtor does. I
find it hard to believe they are so bad, yet, I don't want to buy a couple
then have it fail then remember all the "evidence" I saw in the newsgroups.
:-)

@drian.
Click to expand...

Maxtor gets more complaints because they sell more drives.

Keep the drive very cool, buy a quality PSU, only use windows defrag, check
the drive only using the manufactures utilities, and make sure your computer
is on a dedicated circuit.

end of 99 percent of the problems with hard drives.

Lane
 
"@drian" bowed out:
Thanks all for your comments. Much appreciated.
Click to expand...


Hey, no! There's more! *My* Maxtor (a 17GB 5400
rpm wonder) has gone for 4 1/2 years with no problems.
It runs for about 10 hours per day inside my PII Dell
desktop. Dell does a good job of case design, in my
opinion, and it's kept cool by good airflow. Cooling
probably has a lot to do with HD longevity.


*TimDaniels*
 
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