Storage forum: Hard Disk Drives: Is there a clear Leader???

No clear winner. If there was, then we could still find horror stories since underneath it all are these truths.

1. Consumer drives will last about 5 years.

2. Few consumers backup what they can't lose.

3. Consumers rarely understand why they must backup until they lose it all.

4. Some must lose it all multiple times.

5. Not all losses are hard drive failures.

Best of luck,

bob

I have always had good luck with Western Digital 120 Gig. Special Edition Drives, I am running 3 right now... SE drives have 8Meg Cache, and 3 year Warrentee. Regulars have 2 Meg Cache and 1 Year. as far as EIDE drives go anyways... Good Luck.

I have worked in the computer field since mid 1970's. Believe it or not I have Seagate and Maxtor hard drives that are 10 years old. Maxtor used to have the best warranty for their drives, now days it is a toss-up. The best drives in my opinion are either Seagate and Maxtor in first place and Western Digital second. Take your pick. Most other drives only last 2 or 3 years. Yes, by all means - back up your data, regularly,in todays day and age, on DVD-RW or CD-RW.

I have had 2 Seagates die on me, both by bad vectors at first, then gradually getting worse until the final death throes. My favorite is Maxtor, tho I am using a WD 160 and am satisfied so far. Back up is most important no matter which you use.

I had the same experience. Back in around 1998 I used to assemble PCs for several companies and individuals. 8 out every 10 Maxtor HDs I used failed within a year of use, with at least 1 in those 10 failing within hours from installation. Try to explain that to an irrate, not technically oriented customer. Then I switched to Western Digital with excellent results. Not one failure in the next three years that I know of. But, who knows, maybe Maxtor has improved its reliability since then. My experience with them is from six years ago. I am just not risking it.

I was wondering PBrook, if you had intermixed WD and Maxtor to smoke them...that was my experience, so I stick with ALL Maxtor or ALL WD...presently stuck with 4 year old WD using 10G out of 30Gb drive. So you can see I prefer Maxtor over WD. Both work fine.

15 years experiance running a local computer shop that does new systems, repair, local school builds, networks etc. Western digital, IBM, Seagate are the best. Don't even touch Maxtor if you value your data. 6 out of 10 Maxtors I have bought over the years have failed right out of the box. It got to the point where I would not even qoute a Maxtor if a customer requested it. I was doing a build of over 100 machines for a local school district and 87 of them failed right out of the box. I sent all of them back. All were replaced but out of the replacements had a 75% failure rate with Maxtor. After that (1997)I never used a Maxtor again. All of the ones I had out in the field ended up being replaced under warrinty. The only good thing I can say about Maxtor is that there warrinty is good. However this does not help if you loose all of your data.

I haven't used Western Digital before...As for Seagate and Maxtor, I've handled a few of them over the past 8 years, and I guess they're pretty comparable... And an observation, is that the older hard disks do last longer than those you get on the market nowadays...

But I believe the reasons are quite logical... The more recent disks are much much larger than what we used to have, and with the amount of 'work' each disk needs to do, it's highly likely that they'll fail more often... Secondly, the hard disks that we get are assembled in different areas, with differing levels of quality control. If any of the assemblers were to DROP a HD, and then pick it up and continue working on it, what would be the lifespan of that disk? So that's why some batches of HDs fail so much, while others remain problem-free for so long... Maybe you could check with the dealer that you're buying from whether other hard disks in that same 'shipment' have had returns, errors...

As what prev posts have said, don't expect your hard disk to last for too long... Backup consistently and manage your programs+data in such a way that you can restore them in event of a crash...

Every couple years I buy a new Western Digital drive, largest I can afford. Never had one fail. Oldest one I currently have is 8 years, still working (but nothing crucial is on it!). I use an external WD firewire drive as a backup and only backup selected data to DVD (mostly photos). I trust WD drives based on MY experience and it seems others do also.

I have had WD, Maxtor, IBM and Seagate drives all fail. The Maxtor drives seem to be much more prone to failure than any other brand, in my experience. They were the first to lower their warranty period to only 1 year so I think that should tell you something about what they think of their drives. Seagate seems to be better right now. They certainly have stepped up to the table in offering a 5 year warranty on their drives. Others have not followed, yet. I have been buying the Seagate drives recently as a result but backing up your data is vital to loss prevention. Keep at least 2 copies of your most valuable data with one of them stored off site in case of fire or other catastrophe. Keep your back ups current and it doesn't really matter if a drive fails.

I have used both IBM and Western Digital. Both have served well.

Both were over 8 years old and still going. Recently the WD bit the dust after a full 8 years of reliable service.

No matter which you choose, be absolutely sure you have a reliable back-up and use it regularly. I can't stress this enough.

Everyone as touched base about HD fails, backing up. I have put PC's together for some time and have seen most brands with bad HD from time to time. Models that had problems with platters and what ever.

I still prefer WD with the 8 meg cache. Most of them have the 8 meg cashe now. If you are wanting more speed you should jump to the 10,000 rpm's over the 7200. Western Digital has 2, a 36 meg & 74 meg, which the 74 meg was voted HD of the year by Maxium PC, for the second year. Hook these babies up to Raid and you have extreme speed. Also the cost between IDE & the new SATA is pretty close now.

Brad

I have gotten really nice performance results with the Maxtor hard drives. I build in a shop where western digital and maxtor are the two most common choices.
The Maxtors seem to deliver data faster.
This is an issue like religion or the linux vs windows thing; people have strong loyalties and opinions.
My opinion changes based on observation: currently Maxtor is the best choice.
IMHO.
Good luck with your build!

DISCLAIMER: I work for a hard disk drive company. As a result, I'll give a general opinion, but will not make any recommendations for or against any manufacturer.

1) Keep in mind what capacity, size ( form factor ) and interface of hard drive you are considering. Many manufacturers have, for example, a 3 1/2" parallel-ATA drive of at least 40 GB capacity: however, very few have 1" drives, as an extreme example. Obviously, the more entries into a particular segment of the market, the more competition will force prices down for that segment.

2) Like everything else in the world, first revisions of a disk drive may not have the quality and yields that later versions may have. Manufacturers of disk drivers, automotives, and pretty much everything else usually learn how to improve their processes during revisions of a product launch. I personally avoid first-year releases of a new car, as they tend to have more problem spots than 2nd- or 3rd- year models. Similarly, it wouldn't surprise me if newly-announced hard disk drives have a higher incidence rate than products that have been rolling off the production line for months.

3) Enterprise ( business-class ) drives have a high premium on price, but typically use higher-quality components ( and have more stringent testing ) than personal-storage products. I've never been willing (personally) to pay the premium for the extra reliability, but if money is no object you may want to consider them.

4) Consider the benefits and disadvantages of rotational speed. As you increase RPMs, you increase the speed of the disk drive (generally), but also increase power requirements, and create excess heat.

5) Consider the drive's warranty and company's history and current situation. If the company is in financial trouble, it may or may not be around to honor the warranty if problems occur several years down the road. As a result, check out the company before assuming that a "five-year warranty" is better ( or worse ) than a lesser warranty.

6) As others have said, backups are essential.

As a hobbyist I prefer Western Digital. At the moment I am running 3 WD drives in my computer. Two are 37 gig Raptors 10,000 rpms in Raid0. The other is an 80 gig 7200 rpm 8 meg cache that I use for archiving. My computer runs 24/7 and is only off during power outages. This is probably what helps them last a long time. Note I said "off". I reboot when updates require it. My case is well venilated and also pretty quiet. I do regular defrags and have no swap files (3 gig PC3200 DDR400 Dual Channel RAM) so less churning.