PDA

View Full Version : IDE Hard drive Manufacturer Recommendations



skoal
April 9th, 2005, 03:53 AM
What hard drive manufacturers would you recommend (prefer) for IDE hard drives? Why?

I need to buy a new one.

ember
April 9th, 2005, 09:35 AM
What hard drive manufacturers would you recommend (prefer) for IDE hard drives? Why?

I need to buy a new one.
What about Samsung? I own a SP 1614N and like it pretty much

UbuWu
April 9th, 2005, 02:01 PM
If you don't do any special things with your pc, you probably won't notice any difference. I have two maxtor drives and am happy with them :-)

zenwhen
April 9th, 2005, 02:27 PM
I use only Western Digital, and have no real reason for it. They have always worked for me. They are fast, moderately quiet, and pretty inexpensive.

jdong
April 9th, 2005, 03:03 PM
I traditionally am a Western Digital drive owner. They've been quite reliable to me.

I also have a number of Maxtors, too. They perform quite well, too, but I've noticed their performance degrade over the few years I've used them. (Read speed is 2/3 of what it used to be... Is it failing? Either way, I'm using RAID5!)

The most recent I've tried are Seagates. I'm VERY impressed with how silent these drives are. It never fails to amaze me.

TravisNewman
April 9th, 2005, 03:08 PM
Why isn't quantum one of the choices?? I'd use Quantum over ANY of those-- assuming I want to build a computer for someone I despise, and want the drive to fail within a year.

ubuntu_demon
April 9th, 2005, 04:29 PM
I use only Western Digital, and have no real reason for it. They have always worked for me. They are fast, moderately quiet, and pretty inexpensive.
same argument also western digital :)

My last couple of drives are all western digital. A long time ago I used also other brands. One time I had a problem with seagate. I don't trust them anymore.

I have no problems with buying a maxtor if there was a big price difference though.

Jad
April 9th, 2005, 07:30 PM
Eastern Analog all the way!
ops I mean Western digital
its reliable

Dylanby
April 9th, 2005, 07:41 PM
AFAIK Quantum was bought by Maxtor years ago.

I've always liked Western Digital. The only problem I've ever had was one that was DOA (OEM model). Actually I'm going today to buy my first Seagate (300G SATAII w/NCQ 8M 7200RPM) for a fresh install of Hoary.

skoal
April 9th, 2005, 10:25 PM
I have been using Maxtor reliably (and exclusively) for the past 10 years. However, anyone with a 6E0x0L series (20,30,40 GB) drive from Maxtor should think about purchasing a new drive as well. To make a long story short, they have a firmware problem. I got a replacement drive from them and it crashed and burned within just a week. I'm a little tainted by the experience and wrote their support staff about it. That's not to say I dismiss the 10 years of reliable use of their products either.

I'm using a 2 GB Maxtor backup drive right now which is 7 years old and it's still reliable. The 6E030L (30 GB) I had didn't even last a year. Just my unfortunate luck I guess.

Anyway, I trust the opinions of this community over any hardware review site, so the feedback is welcome.

kassetra
April 9th, 2005, 10:36 PM
Why isn't quantum one of the choices?? I'd use Quantum over ANY of those-- assuming I want to build a computer for someone I despise, and want the drive to fail within a year.

HA! Exactly.
Quantum fireballs... *shudder* oh yeah, they go up in flames all right...
IBM deskstars too ... or as I call them, deathstars.

Western Digital
Seagate
Maxtor
...
in that order for me. My WD's have always been the best.

KiwiNZ
April 9th, 2005, 11:16 PM
Maxtors in my humble opinion are pile p** at my place of employment we have had no end of problems to the point we are now proactively replacing every Maxtor HDD before they fail, thatis 7800 units.

At home the only drives that have failed are Maxtor and those hideious IBM beasties.

kassetra
April 9th, 2005, 11:23 PM
Maxtors in my humble opinion are pile p**
At home the only drives that have failed are Maxtor and those hideious IBM beasties.

Wise wise words from our mature mod. :)

I really do like the Western Digitals though... and RMA is not a hassle with them if you do get a bum drive... so that's also a plus. :)

KiwiNZ
April 9th, 2005, 11:33 PM
If you are looking for a quiet HDD for a lounge PC or media PC Samsungs are great they quietest ( is that really a word??? most quiet , least noisy errr you know what I mean) that I have come across.

kadymae
April 10th, 2005, 12:21 AM
When I got my PowerMac back in late 02 it had a Maxtor 60 gig drive in it.

By June of 03 the drive died and since (due to other problems I had burnt a corrupt back up) I lost EVERYTHING.

I hauled the computer to the my local Apple Store and they replaced it with another 60 gig Maxtor.

It failed after 9 months.

I hauled it yet again (keep in mind this is a 53 pound tower that I'm lugging) back to the Apple store and got another Maxtor 60 gig drive. It, too, failed after 9 months.

Despite the fact that the computer still has Apple Care, I haven't bothered lugging it in. It's not worth the time and effort.

But wait, there's more. Where I work we have "Goatway" computers. Got them mid 2003. And within 6-9 months there was an incredible failure rate of harddrives. Several of my colleages lost a lot of vital data. (In my 15 person department, there were 5 hard drive failures.)

As one of the IT people was cracking the case to swap out a dead drive, I noticed ... a Maxtor 60 gig drive.

I've never spent a penny on a Maxtor Hard Drive and based on my personal experience, I never will.

The only Western Digital I've had go bad on me is the 20 gigger that I dropped onto the floor.

kadymae
April 10th, 2005, 12:25 AM
Maxtors in my humble opinion are pile p** at my place of employment we have had no end of problems to the point we are now proactively replacing every Maxtor HDD before they fail, thatis 7800 units.

At home the only drives that have failed are Maxtor and those hideious IBM beasties.

Meep! And I thought we had it bad where I work! (300 units with "Maxturds" in them.)

Buffalo Soldier
April 10th, 2005, 01:04 AM
Using Samsung SV2042H (20 Gb) on my PC and another Samsung (40 Gb) on parent's PC. I have experienced Western Digital, Quantum, Maxtor and Seagate failing on me. But no problem so far with Samsung.

Ubunted
April 10th, 2005, 01:12 AM
This is kinda scary. I was going to buy myself a Maxtor 80GB hard drive a while ago, but they didn't have any at the parts store I go to so I got a Western Digital. I've been kicking myself recently because the one I wanted was ATA133 and the one I got was ATA100 (lousy salesman, "Basically the same thing" my ass), but now I'm glad I have the WD.

I still wish it was ATA133 though.

morethannoise
April 10th, 2005, 01:33 AM
I've had success and failure with all of the above listed. I have had three Maxtor drives fail on me in the past, yet a 120gig Maxtor I'm using now is working well. I have a Western Digital still going strong since 1997, yet I just recently had one fail after only six months use. I used to like IBM drives until the problem they had a few years ago with their 75gig drives that they wouldn't aknowledge even though the failure rate was much higher than industry standards. I suppose this doesn't help you much, but in my opinion it's like buying a car. You can get a lemon no matter what the brand.

skoal
April 10th, 2005, 04:47 AM
[...] in my opinion it's like buying a car. You can get a lemon no matter what the brand.

Yes, sir. That's a good point. However, there are hardware manufacturers out there which have better MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) rates than others. With respect to Maxtor, I used to have a business selling/configuring machines and used Maxtor drives without any problems. What disturbs me is the (seeming) lack of support on their part to replace my drive with one that lasts more than just a week. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has had to return a drive from one of these manufacturers, and their experiences.

I think it might be time for me to try a WD or Seagate. I had a Samsung in the past and agree with how silent they are. That silence can be unnerving at times though. When I had my samsung, sometimes I tapped the side of my case with a fist to recquaint myself with 'familiar' noises, much like an attentive mother burping her baby after a good feeding. fsck errors would normally spit back at me on VC/1, but I felt reassured afterwards that my Samsung was still 'breathing'.

skoal
April 13th, 2005, 12:04 AM
Just in case you Maxtor owners have a similiar problem as mine, you might feel reassured to know that Maxtor provided me top notch support today.

My original 30 gig drive failed, got a replacement, and that one failed within a week. I notified their support staff and talked to a Tech Supervisor today on their 800 line. They are sending me a brand new replcacement 40 gig (w/ different drive model at their total expense, incl. shipping).

That's service. That's whats important to me, even over drive performance or reliability. Grade A+ company all around.

mark
April 13th, 2005, 01:59 AM
I've had very good service from my Western Digital WD1200JB (120GB ATA) as my primary (hda) drive. Somewhat surprisingly (in view of this thread), I've also had very good service from my seconday (hdb) drive - a Maxtor 6Y120L0 (also 120GB ATA). It's a little noisier than the WD, but, hey - I picked it up for $20.00 at a thrift shop!

Personally, I'd feel pretty comfortable going with WD or Seagate.

23meg
April 13th, 2005, 02:26 AM
i've had nightmare experiences with IBM; i sent them back two Deskstar drives that failed after 6 months of use and they were replaced but i never used the replacement drives. i think they launched a callback for that line of faulty drives later on.

i've had only good experiences with maxtor's d740x model, and i'd trust just about anything made by western digital.

poofyhairguy
April 13th, 2005, 03:57 AM
A bigger question for me is what PCI SATA card to get. I have a 120 gig SATA drive sitting here (western digital for the record) that I would love to use, but I don't want to buy a card only to find out Ubuntu doesn't work with it.

The wiki gives no clues, but if I find one (an successfully invest in it) that part will be added!!!!

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/HardwareSupport

Edit: I do not mean to hijack thread. sorry.