Worst HDD line!

[KvHagedorn]

The Okay:

1) Seagate IDE

I would have to differentiate the Barracuda ATA from the U Series here. Barracudas are probably in the good category and U series are probably just okay.

Xbox uses U series drives.

[Guru]

Originally posted by Gurm
I demand a non-Quantum Maxtor choice, as they are hands-down the worst (WORST) drives ever produced.

- Gurm

Again how many 100 HDs do you use every year!

[DentyCracker]

Of the over a hundred maxtors I've installed or used on a daily basis since 1996, one failed after it was hit by a falling keyboard (mine). I sent it back, got it repaired and it has been working perfectly since its return (yes they fixed it and put a sticker on it, the s/n remains the same). I can't say the same about Western Digital drives. I stay the hell away from them wherever possible. Even recently I've had a couple go bad at work (I told them not to buy the POSes). Quantum, hmm, I'll say it anyway. My experience with the fireball series is that they're not exactly reliable as I've had a 4GB and its replacement both go bad upon very limited usage. I used to be a big buyer of IBM IDE drives until two in succession went bad. I don't know if it is the hotter climate that causes my experience to be different but I try to get Maxtor drives when I can. Oh, their LXT213SY SCSI 200 MB drive was a POS in 1992, and I was wary of them after that but they have come through for me. The old WD Caviar 1.6 and 3.2 GB lines were nightmare drives. I remember being in Med school and visiting the computer place where I used to work and seing many WD and fujitsu drives marked bad to be sent back to Tech Data for warranty replacement, along with very few if any Maxtors. I asked how come so many had gone bad, if it were that they mainly sold WD drives. The guy said no, they sold mostly Maxtor drives but the WDs seemed to fail more often.

[Dr Mordrid]

Same here. I've been running over 98% Maxtors since old 8.4 gig 2160's and have had excellent results, as in NO failures.

In that time I've sent back several Seagates, one Fujitsu and a couple of Conners (YECH!!).

I'm still crossing my fingers on the IBM 75GXP's in the main systenms RAID. So far, so good...but they were early models so maybe I'll be lucky.

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

I think Seagate's IDE problems came from their purchase of Conner some time back. For awhile a cheap Seagate was really a Conner

[Dr Mordrid]

Even before that Seagate was crappola.

I can remember back in my Amiga days having Seagate drives that suffered from the "stiction" problem.

This is where they over-lubricated the damn things and the oil layer would spread across the disk and its surface tension would grab the r/w head and tear it up.

I thought this was a one-time thing until it happened again a few years later. No more Seagates here after that.....

Dr. Mordrid

[Gurm]

I used to go through a few dozen drives a week. The Maxtors that have forever biased me (although that's starting to be relaxed now that they're really Quantums) were in the 10-20GB range. Too damn many CLICKSNAP-CLICKSNAP-CLICK S N A P! Hmm, why doesn't this run any more?

- Gurm

[Dr Mordrid]

Hmmmm.....

I have a s***load of Maxtor 20g ATA100 Plus40's here and no problems at all. I use them a LOT for system, content (audio & video boilerplate stuff) and removable backup drives.

Come to think of it; the one 20g WD I tried ate itself in two weeks.

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

Why are these hard drive threads always the same? One guy swears by brand X because they have never given him any problems.

"Oh, no! says the next guy.. I've had 5 of those die on me just last Thursday! Brand Y is the one you want to get. I've built 100,000 computers with brand Y and the only one with a hard drive problem had fallen out of the back of my car and been run over by a train. At that juncture a slight clicking noise was heard on powerup."

"Quite the contrary, says poster 3, brand Y emitted a high pitched wail and got so hot it melted my case!" But brand Z.. now there's a paragon of reliability..

Can it be a conspiracy? No hard drive manufacturer wants a reputation as the shittiest one of the bunch.. so what do they all do? Well, they research the forums to see what posters build systems, and Gurm gets sent all the iffy Maxtors, Mordrid gets the crappy Seagates, Denty gets all the POS Western Digitals, and so forth..

[xortam]

"Why are these hard drive threads always the same?"

These threads are always the same because the same folks are vocal about it each time it comes up. I wonder how many problems are due to some level of abuse.

[Greebe]

I've had Conner, Fujitsu, Imprimis, Seagate and WD's die on me... also an IBM reciently, but that's another story (physical damage, not a manufacture defect).

Vote?... I can't. It has always depended on the batch of drives at the time. ie WD had a defect... many friends had these think it was back in '92 or 3 and most died after a few months. The Conner... same thing..., Fujitsu... same thing..., Imprimis & Seagate... old age

I still have my Maxtor MXT-540A 6300rpm IDE (made exclusively for IBM) from back in '93 and it's runing fine... tho always a hottie

[The PIT]

Whats happening to IBM court case????

[ccoltas]

I have to say, statistically, I can't say anything about any hard disk. I once had a WD Caviar 3.1 GB go bad and it was warranteed lickity split. Had the WD ever since with no probs. IBM Deskstar (not one of the lethal models!) has worked fine for two years with lots of use. Just bought a 60GB Maxtor which we all know is really Quantum now anyways....I expect it will be fine.

[Taz]

Originally posted by SteveC
Apart from an old 50mb one, I've yet to come across a Quantum drive that's lasted over 2 years.

I've a nice collection from 210Mb to 27Gb all working fine


It's basically as Greebe says, all drive manufacturers go through a bad patch at one time or the other.

Compared to the old MFM and RLL drives modern hard discs are incredibly reliable

[Dogbert]

I have +/- the same idea as DentyCracker only I dealt with smaller numbers.

IBM scsi HDD died on me once and was replaced in a week or so, I currently also have a 20 gig IBM IDE that clicks a lot but it's been clicking for almost a year now for better or worse. The problem is that the noise drives me insane.

Quanum seems to be the best I've seen including the Bigfoot (of which I heard many bad things). No failures yet.

My next computer will propably be equipped with Maxtors, very low price and so far good reputation here.

My vote went against the data exterminators - WD (Caviar).