Reliable Hard Drive ??

[lacywest]

One [60 GB] of my Six hard drives took a dump Friday afternoon. I did a recovery and moved the files and folders to another hard drive.

The next day, Saturday Evening, I decided to check the other hard drives and one of my other [another 60 GB] hard drives took a dump ... weird ... two hard drives in 36 hours.

Any ways ... their Maxtors and the two that messed up were over 2 years old. I have had them for quite awhile.

The second one that crashed ... had crashed before a year ago or so ago.

I used Ontrack Easy Recovery to save the data. And then I used Partition Magic to reformat them. I used WinXP Check Disk tool to analyze them and bad clusters were found.

Okay here is my question ... with two hard drives going south ... I am not feeling very secure ... so what Hard Drives can some of you recommend ?

I want to stick to the same size ... 60 GB and the same price range $100.

I did last month ... install a Maxtor USB External "One Touch" 80 GB. So actually I have 7 Maxtor hard drives installed.

Lacywest says ... Thank You ... in advance.

Please keep this topic simple .... I am just interested in knowing what hard drives you've had good luck with that are reliable.

Or should I just run down to Staples and slap another two Maxtor 60 GB in ... and not worry ... for about another 2 years or so.

[Dr. DOS]

WD's or Maxtor's for the ide hd's.

[tekkieman]

Sorry to hear it's Maxtors that are dumping on you. I use them often, and Staples is selling the 60G this week for $40.00

[Capmaster]

Seagate. Any Seagate.

WD and Maxtor are the "bargain" brands you frequently see in the Best Buy sale pages. Seagate drives are superior to them, IMO.

I used to be an IBM HD fan, but now that Hitachi bought the HD manufacturing from them, I'm not a fan anymore. Hitachi has never impressed me much.

I know there are lots of folks who have WD and Maxtor and love them. That's great, but the Seagate is a better drive, although it's a bit more money. Again, this is just my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions ....

I've owned Conner, IBM Deskstar, Seagate Barracuda, Quantum Fireball, and several WD Caviar drives over the years. WD was the only brand that ever failed.It was the "tick-tock of death". And a few friends at work have had similar experiences with Maxtor, and bad sectors overrunning their HDs.

There's a reason they sell them so cheap

[bazooka]

I recommend Western Digital.

I have not had one crash yet.

[tekkieman]

If you go WD, Best Buy has the 80G this week for $40 after
$50 MIR

P.S. - Posting this from my new Fedora2 machine running off the new 60G Maxtor drive (dual boot Fedora2/Win2K) Yea!

[stiltman]

I only use Seagate. I have never had one (IDE) crash yet. When we did upgrade to computers at my last job, I order over 1000+ seagates. To my knowledge, they are still running like clock work (no ticking though) I have only had 1 seagate fail on me (SCSI) and that was about 4 years ago.

Plus, seagate have a reputation for being one of the quietist drive on the market.

[bazooka]

If you go WD, Best Buy has the 80G this week for $40 after
$50 MIR

P.S. - Posting this from my new Fedora2 machine running off the new 60G Maxtor drive (dual boot Fedora2/Win2K) Yea!

Fedora3 is out. Why not upgrade to Fedora3?

[tekkieman]

Fedora2 came with the book. I'm updating all the packages now. Still playing with it.



Now back to our regular topic.....

[smearbrick1]

I have 2 160 gig WD's and 160 Maxtor. I've had several Maxtor hard drives in the past, and all have failed well before the WD's. WD for me or Seagate for me.

[bazooka]

Maxtor is on the low end of hard drives and usually crap out first.

[budz]

I had a only 1 Maxtor hard drive fail which was a 200gb a few weeks back and it was only 3 months old. That was the first one out of all the Maxtor's I own. I still have a lil old 20 gb that's still going strong after 4 years. The good side is I got a replacement for it and it's a 250gb. I have heard both good and bad things about Maxtor and Western Digital. I don't have a Western Digital hard drive just yet but it's being delivered to me via FED EX today I hope!

I think the one thing you need to look at is the warranties on these different brands. OEM SATA hard drives from Maxtor and Western Digital are 3 years, retail drives are 1 year if purchased from Newegg.com. Retailers like Officemax and Officedepot are only 1 year. Seagate is 5 years and Hitachi is 1 year. In my opinion every manufacturer of these hard drives has their pros and cons. I'm trying out the Western Digital Raptor hard drive since reading about it in this forum and on other forum sites. Good luck on deciding which hard drive to purchase.

[iooi]

Just had a 120 W/D go west and now a segate 120 is going too. Funny how it goes like that they run fine for over a year then they start to play up. I also have a couple of maxdors in as well. I think heat bulid up plays a big part in their down fall. 5 Drives in a stack at the front get next to no air flow over them and boy do they get hot....
The w/d and segate have had a lot of hammer in files being written to and deleted as they are the work horse drives in my system.

[JSB]

Run HD Tune and you should be able to see what temps you are running (per drive).

JSB

[iooi]

Mmm 42 deg
2 wont show temps up as they are on a pci card. Dam shame.
Thanks for the link though Most useful.

[makntraks]

Maxtor is on the low end of hard drives and usually crap out first.

????????????????

I beg to differ.... as I'm sure others would as well.
Never had issues with Maxtor. Drives fail for whatever reason and the fact that anytime I did have a Maxtor drive fail, I've had a replacement drive in just a few days......

YMMV,
makntraks

[bazooka]

I was just reporting my experience.

[rallynavvie]

Bah, pretty much any hard drive is as good as another when you're considering same-tech drives. Maxtor, Western Digital, Hitachi/IBM, or Seagate. I haven't used any Hitachi/IBM IDE drives only a couple of their Ultrastar SCSI drives. I've got scores of Maxtor and WD drives, and a few Seagate IDE (but most of my Seagate is SCSI). I've had no drives fail on me at home permanently. I had a power hiccup that knocked out the MBR on a Seagate 80GB I was using as a boot drive, but that was likely going to happen to any drive I had in there. I still have a Performa running a Maxtor 14GB drive that hasn't died. I honestly think they're all pretty much similar, it has more to do with how much you take care of them and other odd flukes that happen during manufacture. I wouldn't hesitate to buy any of the above, I'm more driven by price and warranty if anything.

[glockjs]

ive been happy with samsung, you might wanna give them a look. only had mine for a few months but none the less it's been solid. and most all reviews i come across are positive. dont know if they make a 60gb though

[redwudz]

Just my opinion: I've used a lot of Maxtors over the past 5 years, a few Seagates and other brand drives also. Some of the Maxtors had higher failure rates, depending on the model, series. Some models are built cheaper than others.

None of them failed without giving some warning, either S.M.A.R.T notices or strange noises or corrupt files. I was always able to save most of the data that wasn't backed up to CD or DVD or backup drives. Maxtor was great about replacement drives, also.

Simply using a cooling fan in front of a HD makes a real difference. Buying more expensive/better quality drives would probably help. But I can afford a few Maxtors for the price of a Seagate or two.

I am of the opinion that constant defragging and virus scans will probably wear out a drive earlier than most capturing operations. I limit defrags until needed, virus scans only once a week, depending on internet access.

If there is any advice I would give, it's to back up and never store anything on a HD that you can't afford to lose.

[lacywest]

Sorry to hear it's Maxtors that are dumping on you. I use them often, and Staples is selling the 60G this week for $40.00

Thanks Tekkieman

I did just that ... what the heck.

Only one problem ... after reading your post ... I went to Staples ... 5 minutes down the street. They were sold out except one and after I went to my car .... they were truly sold out.

Total cost $43 bucks. My home town is a small community and they know me. We checked the town next door [a solid 25 minute drive] and they showed 4 in their inventory but when he called them ... they were out too.

I think for that price ... I will get 2 more ... and be done with it. Too much is going on in my life to be worried about hard drive failures.

I have SIGuardian 1.7 installed and it's showing temperatures of 120, 113, 113, 111, 219, 104.

The one showing 219 degrees ... it's the only Maxtor 60GB ATA 100 I have left installed and it's the oldest. Funny thing is it's mounted on adapter rails inside one of the top bays ... plenty of air circulating around it. Over a year ago ... it too took a dump and I revived it ... so it does have some bad clusters on it.

The one with 104 degrees is the 40 GB ... it's my C-Drive.

The other 4 drives are connected like a brick ... I took a AOL tin mailer and cut strips and mounted all four drives with about 1/2 inch gap between them and made legs too for the drive on the bottom. This brick of four 60 GB HDs sit on the bottom of my tower and there is a fan mounted in the front next to them to circulate air.

Check out what this guy is doing to keep his CPU cool.

http://www.bosamar.com/KT4V/Photos_16.html

Thank you ... for the help.

Currently ... my CPU is 41 ... chassis is 37 ... celsius

Fahrenheit ... CPU 105 .... Chassis ... 98

It's a XP 2500 w/barton core ... o/c to 2000 mhz

As I'm typing this ...

[tekkieman]

No prob. I just wish those had the 8M buffer instead of the 2M. The 80G WD's at BB ($40 after $50MIR) have the 8M buffer.

I also live in a really small town in CA, and Staples is the only place to shop for this type of item here. I just happened to be in a larger town shopping on Sunday and there was a Staples there as well. They had 0 left after I left the store as well.

[bazooka]

No prob. I just wish those had the 8M buffer instead of the 2M. The 80G WD's at BB ($40 after $50MIR) have the 8M buffer.

I also live in a really small town in CA, and Staples is the only place to shop for this type of item here. I just happened to be in a larger town shopping on Sunday and there was a Staples there as well. They had 0 left after I left the store as well.

Too bad there is not a Fry's where you live.

Sorry, Threadjack over.

[lacywest]

Well I called Staples just now ... their 800 number and placed 2 of them on back order ... so the sweet sounding female told me they will call me in the next 5 days .... to give me an update.

They used my home phone number and found me in their data base so they know I'm real.

But the sale ends the 20th ... so hopefully this will happen quickly and I will get them at the sale price of 40 bucks a piece.

Cheers .... guys and hope you all have a Merry Thanks Giving.

Sincerely ... Mach10 ... aka Gary and at another website ... Mach1069

[tekkieman]

No prob. I just wish those had the 8M buffer instead of the 2M. The 80G WD's at BB ($40 after $50MIR) have the 8M buffer.

I also live in a really small town in CA, and Staples is the only place to shop for this type of item here. I just happened to be in a larger town shopping on Sunday and there was a Staples there as well. They had 0 left after I left the store as well.

Too bad there is not a Fry's where you live.

Sorry, Threadjack over.

No prob. There is a Fry's in Sacramento, but it's an hours drive. A friend of mine at work lives in Rio Linda, and it's only about 30 minutes for him. The problem is that if you don't get the Sacramento newspaper, you never know what they have on sale for the week. Luckily, Staples usually has what I need, and they have pretty good sales about every three weeks. For stuff Staples doesn't have, or is too high priced, I just go to Newegg.

[ViRaL1]

Depending on what other stores are in your area, you can usually get most electronics / computer stores to price match. I picked up 4 of these a few weeks back. Although at the time CompUSA had them for $30 and I just had Staples price match since I don't have a CompUSA close. No complaints.

No prob. There is a Fry's in Sacramento, but it's an hours drive. A friend of mine at work lives in Rio Linda, and it's only about 30 minutes for him. The problem is that if you don't get the Sacramento newspaper, you never know what they have on sale for the week.

You can usually find links online to the Fry's Ads at Techbargains.com when they come out.

[lacywest]

Depending on what other stores are in your area, you can usually get most electronics / computer stores to price match. I picked up 4 of these a few weeks back. Although at the time CompUSA had them for $30 and I just had Staples price match since I don't have a CompUSA close. No complaints.

No prob. There is a Fry's in Sacramento, but it's an hours drive. A friend of mine at work lives in Rio Linda, and it's only about 30 minutes for him. The problem is that if you don't get the Sacramento newspaper, you never know what they have on sale for the week.

You can usually find links online to the Fry's Ads at Techbargains.com when they come out.

I'm considering going to Fresno and getting one of these ... any comments ??

CompUSA has another sale going on ...

120GB Ultra Series, 7200RPM, Internal E-IDE Hard Drive

Manufacturer: Maxtor

Mfg Part #: L01P120

Product Number: 298702

Was: $114.99

Selling for >>> $69.99

SAVE $45 after: $45.00 instant rebate(s)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NewEgg is saying .... $104.00

Maxtor Ultra Series Kit 120GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model L01P120, Retail

Model# L01P120
Item # N82E16822144315

Specifications:
Capacity: 120 GB
Average Seek Time: 9.3 ms
Buffer: 8 MB
Rotational Speed: 7,200 RPM
Interface: IDE ULTRA ATA133
Features: Ideal for high-end gaming and digital video, Ultra quiet operation with FDB motor
Manufacturer Warranty: 1 year
Packaging: Retail (see pics for details)

Reviews >>

For those who are having problems with the noise of the Hard Drive. Please go to Maxtors web site and download the AMSET utility. It works. I purchased this Hard Drive and it was so loud I was ready... See complete review>
For those who are having problems with the noise of the Hard Drive. Please go to Maxtors web site and download the AMSET utility. It works. I purchased this Hard Drive and it was so loud I was ready to return it. I downloaded the software from maxtor to an A: diskette and ran it. You have options to choose if you want quiet, fast or the Acoustic management turned off.I chose quiet and the Hard Drive is extremely quiet and still runs at warp speed. Maxtor rocks!!!


N/A,9/3/2003 8:50:12 PM

Oops, Originally posted this under the 2MB cache HDD by mistake ...
Well, I've had this HDD for over a year and NO problems. It is a little noisier than some HDDs that I've had in the past - bu... See complete review>

Oops, Originally posted this under the 2MB cache HDD by mistake ...
Well, I've had this HDD for over a year and NO problems. It is a little noisier than some HDDs that I've had in the past - but not annoyingly so. I went through 3 Western Digital HDDs in a year and a half and will NEVER buy anything but Maxtor again! I have had about 10 Maxtor HDDs and have NEVER had one go bad on me! The software worked flawlessly for me and partitioned it and cloned a Maxtor 60GB HDD to it with no problems!


N/A,9/2/2003 7:11:30 PM
OK drive. I didn't get it here but got it for about $60 with rebates.
It's noisy when working but quiet when not. Gets decently hot, I recommend hard drive cooling. DO NOT USE THE INCLUDED SOFTWARE... See complete review>
OK drive. I didn't get it here but got it for about $60 with rebates.
It's noisy when working but quiet when not. Gets decently hot, I recommend hard drive cooling. DO NOT USE THE INCLUDED SOFTWARE! the cloning software corrupted some elements transferred to this drive and im going to try norton ghost to do it tomorrow. the included software also requires that it partitions the drive and not you manually. when it partitions, it puts something in 68mb and wastes it. otherwise it seems good


N/A,7/29/2003 9:31:34 AM
I bought this hard drive for a few reasons. It's very large (in capacity), the 7200 RPM spindle speed, the 8mb cache, and the ata 133. They've all met my expectations too. But on the box it specifi... See complete review>
I bought this hard drive for a few reasons. It's very large (in capacity), the 7200 RPM spindle speed, the 8mb cache, and the ata 133. They've all met my expectations too. But on the box it specifically says "Ultra Quiet FDB Motor". When I hooked this thing up it was pretty loud when its reading or writing. So I was dissapointed, but one day I hooked an older hard drive up as just a backup drive. WOW. That thing was so loud when it was just spinning and not even reading or writing and I took it out of my computer. The maxtor is VERY quiet when idle and when it's working, it lets you know its hard at work...


DarkRaven,7/12/2003 1:23:31 PM
Very fast, very big!
Great hard drive, the Maxtor partition software is very quick, much better than FDISK.

[tekkieman]

$70 for a 120...I'd do it!

[lacywest]

$70 for a 120...I'd do it!

I checked CompUSA in Fresno [a solid 40 minute drive] and webpage says their in stock.


120GB Ultra Series, 7200RPM, Internal E-IDE Hard Drive
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Availability:
Product availability at stores around zip 93230 (Hanford, CA)
Store Information
Distance ... 42 Miles
Availability ... In-Stock
Fresno Superstore
Fresno, CA 93720 (559) 440-0233

Yep ... I think I will live dangerously ... and go get one tomorrow.

[gmatov]

If you belong to Sam's Club, they have a 160 WD for 79.95 +tax out the door, or a 250 gig for 129.95, out the door, + tax.

It's all well and good to not trust all your rips or data to one huge drive, but remember, the more drives you have the greater the chance of failure of one of them. They ARE mechanical deviceI would assume that Costco, the Anti Sam's wqould price match or beat.

I, personally am getting rather tired of "rebates", as the time period is shrinking. The last thing I bought, a wireless net card, was 6 days after purchase. Blew 20 bucks there.

Cheers,

George