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View Full Version : Dodgy Hard Disk anyone?



Original Brownster
November 26th, 2004, 08:06 PM
Hi all,

I am getting real cheesed off with poor quality disks, as I have had 2 in the last 2 years fail on me.
I dont like to skimp when it comes to disk quality so the first was an IBM deskstar, read a load of reviews, best thing since sliced bread they said so I buy one. Just over one year and dead as a dodo - just out of warranty too. I go back and google to see if anyone else had suffered and sure enough IBM changed to badged Hitachi disks.
Sooo now I bought the best I thought I could get - Western Digital Caviar SE 7200rpm 8mb cache, top of the range, 3 year warranty. They got to be good right? Wrong - I bought 2 of them and 1 is currently on it's way back to there center in Germany to be replaced, it's good to know I backed up all my data only a day before and I should get a replacement under warranty but come on disk manufacturers, I want to buy a GOOD DISK, PLEASE !!!

Anyone else had a hard disk fail real early or am I just real unlucky?

:-?

zenwhen
November 26th, 2004, 08:48 PM
There is no hardware manufacturer anywhere that has never had a single part fail.

With that said, I have never had a drive fail. I have several drives from Seagate, Western Digital, and Maxtor. I suppose I am lucky.

If I were to have to recommend a brand though, I would recommend Seagate. Their drives are as fast as any and are very quiet.

Original Brownster
November 27th, 2004, 01:18 PM
There is no hardware manufacturer anywhere that has never had a single part fail.
With that said, I have never had a drive fail. I have several drives from Seagate, Western Digital, and Maxtor. I suppose I am lucky.

I think you are lucky! I do still have a 6gb fugitsu disk that's 5+ years old and is still going (you wait now I have said that, it'll croak)

It's just annoying when you want to buy a disk with a good life span and dont mind paying a bit extra for it and it still blows up after just a year .

What would have been good would if it had blown about 2 months ago as I had the disks in a raid 1 configuration (software raid) and it would have been cool to see it cope with it.

TravisNewman
November 27th, 2004, 10:28 PM
What ever you do, don't get a Quantum. In my experience, those are the WORST. Actually, I've never had one or known anyone who had one that didn't at least start dragging after a year, if not completely die. I had one in a compaq that I bought (my first PC actually) and in the span of 2 years, I had 2 of them die on me.

Gibbz
November 28th, 2004, 04:55 AM
Seagate drives last for years!, Never had one fail on me yet :)

jdong
November 28th, 2004, 05:13 AM
Hmm, generalizations:

1. Seagate (barracudas) -- Awesome, rock-solid drives with GREAT performance. Also extremely quiet while maintaining speedy seeks.

2. Maxtors -- Not good till the last drop... After about 2 years of usage, performance starts dropping, drive becomes louder and louder. With more age, they tend to get bad clusters or areas of bad blocks...

3. Western Digitals -- Also quite reliable. They make a distinctive discrete, deep grind when seeking (I notice all sorts of sounds -- I could tell you what version of Windows is booting and what stage bootup it's in just by listening to hard drive noises! LOL). Rarely have problems with these (My server has a 10-year-old 8.4GB drive that's still performing fine), but when they fail, they FAIL completely, unlike Maxtors.

zdenik
December 26th, 2006, 02:07 PM
JA!!!! I have a really sad experience with ubuntu and hdds... one year ago, I have a Seagate 7200.7, a little Barracuda... then I install ubuntu on it and it becomes to fail, one day work and few hours after, don't. It was sounding like a hardware failure... then I replace it with warranty, fortunately... last week, I want to install again ubuntu (on the new disk) and when the instalation goes about 50% a "hard disk failure" message shows in the screen! Then I reset my pc, and the hdd begins to sound like a old car motor... then, the pc never start again...

I've had two new hard disk Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, have installed ubuntu and both have failed physically... WTF? ](*,)

insane_alien
December 26th, 2006, 02:51 PM
i've only had two HDD failures. both on my (now destroyed) thinkpad. one was probably just a random failure then i gt a bigger drive(i was saving up to get one anyway so that was lucky) but it failed due to extreme circumstances along with the rest of the laptop. electronics really don't like EMP's

Stew2
December 26th, 2006, 03:03 PM
i've only had two HDD failures. both on my (now destroyed) thinkpad. one was probably just a random failure then i gt a bigger drive(i was saving up to get one anyway so that was lucky) but it failed due to extreme circumstances along with the rest of the laptop. electronics really don't like EMP's

:D Have to be more careful with those coil guns! :D

Regards,
Stew2

pichalsi
December 26th, 2006, 03:43 PM
Ive got 20GB maxtor on my 5 years old PC and it works like a charm... and is quiet, too.

Stew2
December 26th, 2006, 04:27 PM
I've used various brands over the years (Maxtor, Western Digital etc.) and although some makes are much noisier than others I have never had a failure. (Crosses fingers and touches wood :))

Regards,
Stew2

kevinf311
December 26th, 2006, 05:32 PM
My Maxtor has been whirring away nicely for the last 3 years.

I did have a altercation with a Hitachi SATA drive that ended up in a high-speed collision with my bass amp. I later fixed the drive with hot glue and a paper clip :-D It was my extra storage drive until we moved and it became unglued, it will be again when I find my hot glue gun.

My roommates laptop did the whole "Hard Drive Not Found" thing about a year back. He sent it in, got it back, and it broke right away (different issue). He ended up buying a different laptop.