reliable hard drive makes

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andy

its been a while since i bought a hard drive and am looking to pick up a
200 Gb+ IDE drive, what makes do people reccomend ?, are the maxtor
diamond 9 still any good ?.

any help appreciated.
 
andy said:
its been a while since i bought a hard drive and am looking to pick up a
200 Gb+ IDE drive, what makes do people reccomend ?, are the maxtor
diamond 9 still any good ?.

any help appreciated.
Click to expand...

yes
 
Very terse.
Maxtor just go and go and go and go. They're great. I'm still touchy
about seagate hdds..
The new range of Hitachi High Capacity ones seem to be performing well
in reviews.
 
andy said:
its been a while since i bought a hard drive and am looking to pick
up a 200 Gb+ IDE drive, what makes do people reccomend ?, are the
maxtor diamond 9 still any good ?.

any help appreciated.
Click to expand...

I have seen many hard drive failures within the department I work in.
Invariably the oldest ones that fail are Western Digitals. The newer
ones that fail are Seagates, IBMs, Maxtors. I think the 20% more you
might pay for a WD is worth it.

Have you considered SATA rather than IDE? It would free up an IDE
connection for another device.
 
The big 3 have all had their failings, including Maxtor. Seagate currently
has the longest warranty of 5 years. A few years ago Maxtor dropped theirs
to 1 year and then upped it again when Seagate entered the market. Funny
though, as Maxtor has now be purchased by Seagate.
 
Seagate entered the market

Sorry, what I really meant to say was when Seagate started promoting their 5
year warranty. Seagate had been in the market for years.
 
Jan Alter said:
Sorry, what I really meant to say was when Seagate started promoting their
5 year warranty. Seagate had been in the market for years.
Click to expand...

wait a minute!! I know maxtor used to be terrible. And now people are
saying they're ok. Is that since they'be been purchased by seagate?! are
they basically seagate drives? i.e. good but run a bit hot!
 
james hanley, 3/14/2006, 9:33:53 AM,
wait a minute!! I know maxtor used to be terrible. And now people
are saying they're ok. Is that since they'be been purchased by
seagate?! are they basically seagate drives? i.e. good but run a bit
hot!
Click to expand...

Seagate was purchased by Maxtor.
 
wait a minute!! I know maxtor used to be terrible.
Click to expand...

Then you jumped to conclusions. They weren't ever terrible,
no HDD manufacturer would've stayed in business this long
had they been terrible. They did have models from time to
time with certain issues, but so have the others.

And now people are
saying they're ok. Is that since they'be been purchased by seagate?! are
they basically seagate drives? i.e. good but run a bit hot!
Click to expand...

No they are not basically seagate drives, and it has nothing
to do with anyone purchasing anyone. People just get on
silly tangents and bash drives. What I suspect happens the
most is that whatever parts are cheapest, get bought by
certain types of customers who give the the less care though
inexperience. A couple years ago Maxtor had the most
ongoing rebates so they were among those sold in highest
volume to cheapskates. More recently Seagate and WD had
more aggressive rebate programs and to a limited extent,
Hitachi. Give it a year and we'll see if those makes have
slightly higher failure reports having aged a little.
 
Then you jumped to conclusions. They weren't ever terrible,
no HDD manufacturer would've stayed in business this long
had they been terrible. They did have models from time to
time with certain issues, but so have the others.
Click to expand...


Seagate was a terrible drive back in the mid 1980s. It went bankrupt
too.


--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO
 
Seagate was a terrible drive back in the mid 1980s. It went bankrupt
too.
Click to expand...


One important thing to note is that it is typically specific
design failures, individual components that change from
model to model or at least often enough that whatever
experience someone had with any given make 3 years ago, it
should have no bearing on what they'd buy today. Even two
distinctly different models from the same make may have
different (or no) particular weaknesses.
 
One important thing to note is that it is typically specific
design failures, individual components that change from
model to model or at least often enough that whatever
experience someone had with any given make 3 years ago, it
should have no bearing on what they'd buy today. Even two
distinctly different models from the same make may have
different (or no) particular weaknesses.
Click to expand...

While I agree with your assessment in general, I would point out that
there are some companies that never put out a flawed product. So it is
possible to design hardware that does not have flaws. When I know a
company puts out products with flaws, I tend to gravitate to those who
do not put out flawed products.


--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO
 
While I agree with your assessment in general, I would point out that
there are some companies that never put out a flawed product.
Click to expand...

Maybe, or maybe they just take the old addage, "that's not a
flaw, it's a feature" or "a design limitation", as-in specs
that are changed to fit what the hardware actually can do.

It's extremely rare though, consumer grade devices like hard
drives don't fit into this category.

So it is
possible to design hardware that does not have flaws. When I know a
company puts out products with flaws, I tend to gravitate to those who
do not put out flawed products.
Click to expand...


Then you're not running any hard drives. Western Digital
was your favorite IIRC, and they most certainly do have
flaws just like the others.
 
Western Digital
was your favorite IIRC, and they most certainly do have
flaws just like the others.
Click to expand...

Name one of significance not caused by user abuse like overheating.



--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO
 
Name one of significance not caused by user abuse like overheating.
Click to expand...


There were a ton of 4GB, but I'll grant you that was a while
back. More recently I had a WD 120GB and 80GB fail, which
weren't abused and were kept quite cool compared to the
average drive (were in a full tower server with 3 x 92mm
front fans). I have a shedload of drives though, it wasn't
unusual but nevertheless, they failed just as others do from
time to time.

There's an article here whose writer doesn't think a lot of
them either,
http://www.pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/storage/hd_reliability_report.html

Not that they're trash though, not at all but taking a look
at larger samples such as the database at Storagereview.com,
they're all over the chart, some down around 15%, 40%, etc,
which has to be seen in context but even so, it paints a
similar picture as several other manufacturer's models which
it wouldn't seem to if they did actually have a
significantly better reliability.
 
There were a ton of 4GB, but I'll grant you that was a while
back. More recently I had a WD 120GB and 80GB fail, which
weren't abused and were kept quite cool compared to the
average drive (were in a full tower server with 3 x 92mm
front fans). I have a shedload of drives though, it wasn't
unusual but nevertheless, they failed just as others do from
time to time.

There's an article here whose writer doesn't think a lot of
them either,
http://www.pcbuyersguide.com/hardware/storage/hd_reliability_report.html

Not that they're trash though, not at all but taking a look
at larger samples such as the database at Storagereview.com,
they're all over the chart, some down around 15%, 40%, etc,
which has to be seen in context but even so, it paints a
similar picture as several other manufacturer's models which
it wouldn't seem to if they did actually have a
significantly better reliability.
Click to expand...

I suppose I have been fortunate to get good recommendations from the
tech people at Directron. They know what is good and what is bad at
the moment you want to buy. If WD was having a problem with a
particular model, they would not recommend it because they don't want
to fool with all the returns.

In fact if a product gives them any real problems, they will drop it
before letting customers get bit by it. The old Mitsui CD-RW drives
were dropped by some wholesalers for that reason several years ago.

So the moral of this story is to check with a reliable vendor before
buying because they know what is really going on.




--

"To achieve One World Government it is necessary to remove
from the minds of men their individualism their loyalty to
family traditions and national identification."
--Brock Chisholm, Director of UN WHO
 
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