I need a new HD now...what should I get?

[Sasq]

A little off topic, here we are complaining about the noise of our HD's - do we all remember how noisy they were 10+ years ago. my first HDD was a miniscribe 3650 (40MB hdd that you could force to 60MB if you used RLL and not MFM)

it used to sit in a seperate box outside my PC for other reasons, but at start up it did sound like a 747 engine and it use to vibrate all over the desk at start up as well

How about your first hdd's ?

Dan

[Wombat]

WD has a lot of people on both sides. I, for one, have had plenty of WD failures. We're full of anecdotes here, Net. The weird thing is, they don't apply so much anymore.


Maxtor: Quantum tech now. Hell, my friend bought a new Maxtor the other day, and the drive <B>only</B> said Quantum on it. A Quantum in a Maxtor box. Best Buy wouldn't believe him when he needed to return it.

WD: Mixed history, but now they swap tech. with IBM so much, it's hard to tell what's what.

IBM: Wow, even IBM isn't IBM anymore. The 75gxp and 60gxp lines have had severe, painful quality issues. Nobody knows why, and IBM can't answer. Unfortunately, IBM made the severe PR disaster of (at least temporarily) halting cross-ships. I won't buy one if I have no chance whatsoever of trying to recover my data to another drive.



Seagate: The only drives I've had fail are my Seagate and my WD. Oddly enough, my Maxtor is still clicking away, and it's 7 years old. So much for the weight of anecdotes.

[Dr Mordrid]

I have over 30 Maxtors, going all the way back to the 8.4 gig 2160's. Most are in RAID0 arrays, some are set up as removable boot drives for normal and betatesting use, but all of 'em are still humming away nicely.

And yes, the new Maxtors are Quantum designs in drag.

I've returned several Seagates and one Fujitsu drive in that time. Never again.

I also have four *early* 60g IBM 75GXP's in a 240 gig RAID0 array (Fasttrak TX4) that are working fine, but I sure listen close every time I fire that system up. I would not buy an IBM now.

As for WD: what's the difference between them and IBM's? Haven't they been using IBM designs for ~2 years?

That said I have ONE WD that is set up as a removable beta drive. So far, so good but I've only had it for ~6 months.

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

As EIDE hard disk technology continues to advance, with capacities spiralling and performance ever increasing, the traditional advantages offered by SCSI disks are fast being eroded. No longer are they significantly faster or larger in capacity, and EIDE disks are cheaper.

Why does this sound like the same simple-minded drivel spewed out by my local paper? Maybe the average moron likes reading this crap because it makes him feel mentally superior.. who knows?

Anyhow, these are not the reasons for buying a SCSI drive. You buy SCSI because they are built like tanks compared to the cheap crap people are complaining about in this thread. I don't know if you could drop my drives from an airplane or drag them behind a humvee and still have them work, but they certainly tolerate a lot of abuse. The other reason for buying SCSI is (or used to be) that it takes very little of your CPU's attention to run it (same reason people prefer hardware modems). The only problem I have EVER had from a SCSI drive was a single bad sector (when I unwisely sandwiched two drives together and the heat couldn't escape). The only ATA drive I own is a Seagate Barracuda. I have used these in computers I have built for people as well, and haven't had any problems with them so far.

[CHHAS]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
As for WD: what's the difference between them and IBM's? Haven't they been using IBM designs for ~2 years?
Dr. Mordrid

They used to use IBM tech, but the similarities in harddrive models stopped some time ago, so it would appear they're either buying tech somewhere else or making it themselves.

[PeTe]

Just ordered the Maxtor 80G ATA133 drive, ill pick it up later today after a exam. Going to do a fresh install of XP, this old one is upgrade from W2k ( actually i havent got problems with it, only the HD-performance issue a while back after *ucking around the drivers+ide disk setup ).

This was the cheepest of the 3 ( Seagate and WD )... eventhou i have 2 IBM's ill skip it for now..

PeTe

Ps. I'll do a test, now using the VIA 4-1 ide drivers.. i'll format the new hd ( partition 79+1G) and run some benches with the last partition before i install XP again+ then some bech runs with XP's original ide drivers after the freshly installed XP.

[Lawlaw]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I went out and bought a Maxtor D740 40G. Just installed W2K and here are my findings:

It looks exactly like a Quantum drive on the outside. Even the jumper settings are 100% Quantum (remember that CS, PK, DS). Gone are the vent holes on top of the drive.

The drive is made in Japan. So I guess it's made in the same plant as the old Quantums. The older Maxtors I've seen are all from Singapore or Malaysia.

The drive is very quiet...at least compare to my Quantum LM 30G.

The only bad thing is I find it slower than the LM. I haven't try the noise management thing from Maxtor so it might improve if I disable it.

[Dr Mordrid]

The Maxtor ATA100 & ATA133 Maxtor drives, including the;

DiamondMax Plus 40
DiamondMax 60
DiamondMax VL
D540
D740

come with Write Verification turned on for the first 10 power-up cycles. This effectively halves the disks throughput until the 10th cycle at which time WV is turned off and full performance ensues.

You can turn WV off or on manually using the WVSET.EXE package on Maxtors downloads page. The core is a DOS program, SETWRTVR.EXE, that has several command line switch options documented here;

Maxtor WVSET tool

Dr. Mordrid

[PeTe]

Hmm. My Maxtor D740X ATA133 drive that write verify was disabled by default.

PeTe

[The PIT]

I've had iffy power connectors on my IBM drive before an dhad to reseat the little buggers.

[Dr Mordrid]

PeTe;

Since Maxtor states that these drives are "normally" shipped with WV turned on can we assume you have an "abnormal" drive?

Dr. Mordrid