Which drive is more reliable; Quantum or IBM?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe Samangitak
  • Start date Start date
J

Joe Samangitak

I have a choice between two drives, I can only choose ONE:

The IBM Deskstar 22GXP (13GB)
or the Quantum Fireball LM15 (15GB)

Question is, which is more reliable? I like the idea of the extra 2GB,
but the Quantum is the noisiest drive I've ever heard, making
crunching sounds like its going to die any minute. The IBM on the
other hand, occasionally makes a shuddering series of clicky sounds
that makes you think it just trashed your data (but its otherwise okay
and not noisy).

I can live with the noises, but if one drive has a better rep for
reliability, I'll probably lean towards that one.
 
Joe said:
I can live with the noises, but if one drive has a better rep for
reliability, I'll probably lean towards that one.
Click to expand...

Bear in mind they're both old drives and asking either to be "reliable"
isn't really on.

The very least I'd do before committing data to either is to download
Tomsrtbt from www.toms.net, make the boot floppy, boot it, login, and
run "badblocks -swv /dev/hda" on each drive. Warning: this assumes the
drive is connected as primary master, and is data destructive.

All that said, I'd go with the 22GXP as this predates the trouble-prone
75GXP series. I had a 20gb 22GXP which served me very well until I
upgraded to a bigger unit and sold it on.
 
Joe said:
I have a choice between two drives, I can only choose ONE:

The IBM Deskstar 22GXP (13GB)
or the Quantum Fireball LM15 (15GB)

Question is, which is more reliable? I like the idea of the extra 2GB,
but the Quantum is the noisiest drive I've ever heard, making
crunching sounds like its going to die any minute. The IBM on the
other hand, occasionally makes a shuddering series of clicky sounds
that makes you think it just trashed your data (but its otherwise okay
and not noisy).

I can live with the noises, but if one drive has a better rep for
reliability, I'll probably lean towards that one.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a choice between a rock and a hard place.

Surely you can do better.
 
That sounds like a choice between a rock and a hard place.

Surely you can do better.
Click to expand...


IMO; if there is no hard-case that one or the other is crap, it
doesn't make any difference which one you buy because you need to plan
your backup as if your disk is going to die RIGHT NOW, anyway.
 
Back
Top