i wanna know

[SIRCOOKS]

i wanna know if any of you guys have a 200 or 250 gb hds, reason being i have had alot of them but to my experince they tend to fail, is there something i should constantly do to maintain health, eg, keep the drive working hard, i have a 250gb maxtor 7200 rpm drive, chock full of music, and im just lost for words at trying to keep these thngs going. mind you i do run my computer hard, i leave it on for days at a time just downloading stuff, and encoding movies. its near a window for ventilation and i think it has ample fans and everything else, can anyone plz recomend something to elongate the life of my drive...holla back

[glockjs]

maxtor

[SIRCOOKS]

i dont think its the maxtor drive i have, do you thin kit is, and why, give me some proof so i can also support you becuase ive only ever trusted western digital and maxtor products, i have never had any complaints with my western digital stuff though.....holla back

[glockjs]

some others may disagree but i hold western digital and maxtor in the same regards. even though i own a western digital hdd. to me they are just not up to par. yes they work. but for how long? most that ive owned or come across either die eventualy or just start making gawd awful noises if your going to own a larger hard drive go with seagate...there is a reason they have a 5 year warranty(because they work for that long). thats just my opinion. i trust my samsung more than my western digital.

[SIRCOOKS]

cool, if anyone on this board could alos say the say the same thing i may go and buy a bran new one seagate 250 gb hd

[offline]

I like Maxtor and Segate. I used to like
Western Digital & IBM and used to hate Maxtor

[budz]

i would suggest you use a hard drive cooler for large hds. i use a vantec hd cooler for my maxtor 200 gb sata hd. i've only had 1 maxtor ide 200gb that had begun to fail. i was lucky that i could save the data i had on there before the hd actually died. use the maxtor utility to test the drive out which is what i did. the reason i suspected something was wrong with the drive is it would not DEFRAG at all. i called maxtor and they told me to download their utility and put it on a floppy disc. maxtor told me a error code will appear if the hd is failing and sure enough it did. the replacement drive they sent was a 250gb hd which made me a happy camper.

maxtor and western digital ok. everyone has their own brands and opinions. on another computer forum site i read how a guy has a seagate hd failing. every brand will have their flaws. i still have a old 20gb 7200rpm maxtor hd that runs great..

[offline]

It is not so much that everyone has their own brands
and opinions, it is that over time every HDD manufacturer seems to produce bad batches. If you
get caught you are out of luck. My next door neighbors's
brand new Maxtor just died.

If you need reliability, SCSI drives are always built better
and almost always seem to last the distance.

The motto is back up and back up often

[glockjs]

it just seems that some brands fail more often than others thats all

[ViRaL1]

I'm running a Maxtor 250GB atm and I haven't had any problems with it. I really haven't had any problems with any of my Maxtor drives. I have had 1 WD 200GB go out on me but that was part of a RAID5 array and I probably could have used better cooling and more space. I would recommend that next time you buy a drive if it isn't Seagate, go with OEM. Seagate has 5 years retail or OEM everyone else is offering 1yr retail and 3yrs OEM IIRC. My very first hard drive was a Maxtor 200MB (paid $545 and that was a deal at the time). It never went out on me, I just outgrew it. For every brand you'll get some praise and some horror stories. In the end I'd say stick with what works for you, but also get a good warranty. It won't save your data but you'll save money over buying a new drive again.

[ZAPPER]

Back up you say! What a novel idea! I got two maxtors going on five years old, running 24/7. It's time to back up before my luck runs out! I can't help but wonder though if size matters or if the older ones were built better. I have been thinking on getting a new huge HHD but it seems that the horror stories are about the big ones. Maybe I will break down and get two big ones and ghost for backup. I wish that I didn't read this thread, now I am a nervous wreck. There is no way I can even begin to remember what is on these two old drives.

[SIRCOOKS]

what is it with drives and the size of your case, or are yall combining cooling with that as wel, cause i have 5 drives in what i think is classed as a mid tower, (when i find the pic i will post), but are yall saying that the more space it is the better your drive has a possibility of holding up

[Skoorb]

I always keep my comp on and have only had HDs fail when I've been screwing around with them. However, I would advise you back up to dvd, or get a raid array going.

[Capmaster]

some others may disagree but i hold western digital and maxtor in the same regards. even though i own a western digital hdd. to me they are just not up to par. yes they work. but for how long? most that ive owned or come across either die eventualy or just start making gawd awful noises if your going to own a larger hard drive go with seagate...there is a reason they have a 5 year warranty(because they work for that long). thats just my opinion. i trust my samsung more than my western digital.

glock is wise

[SIRCOOKS]

whaty good is a raid array gonna do me, what areb the benefits of a raid array, and what are the downfaults, can someone send me a url chock full of info on the term and configuration

[SLICK RICK]

I have had 2 WD 200GB hard drives running for over a year now. I have not had any problems with either one. And they are still really quite.

[Capmaster]

whaty good is a raid array gonna do me, what areb the benefits of a raid array, and what are the downfaults, can someone send me a url chock full of info on the term and configuration

You probably don't need or want one then.

Stick with a single, fast drive then

[SIRCOOKS]

i guess i got two real s@#$$% drives then...any other suggestions, shoueli switch my case and add more fans for cooling, i am down here in the bahamas guys...holla back

[Skoorb]

I've not set one up myself, but a raid array is a combination of drives and it can increase reliability of data. If you lose one of the drives you're ok, bceause the rest have enough information to rebuild the lost data. It would involve multiple drives in your machine, and is expensive. Not many home users have them set up, but the geekiest of them do.

[HillJack]

From my own experience:

Maxtor is unreliable (I learned this many years ago and will never go back).

Western Digital's are nice when they're new, but after a year or so, they become very noisey, regardless of model/size - I've replaced 6 of them to date for noise reasons.

Seagate's are quiet and fast AND their new 200GB model has a 5 year warranty. I've had my 80GB Barracuda IV for a couple years and it's still the quietest drive ever. I just replaced my last WD 80GB (for noise reasons) with a Seagate 200GB Barracuda V in my server and it too is very quiet.

As for RAID... Try this link.

[glockjs]

I've not set one up myself, but a raid array is a combination of drives and it can increase reliability of data.

eh, i thought raid was the exact opposite. more data loss and easier to fry a drive.....but i could be wrong


@SIRCOOKS...5 drives you say. i would say cooling might be your biggest prob no matter what brand you go with. get fans, and some more fans

[Skoorb]

I've not set one up myself, but a raid array is a combination of drives and it can increase reliability of data.

eh, i thought raid was the exact opposite. more data loss and easier to fry a drive.....but i could be wrong


@SIRCOOKS...5 drives you say. i would say cooling might be your biggest prob no matter what brand you go with. get fans, and some more fans

I was just reading up on it. There are various raid arrays. You're describing a Raid 0, which is faster, but no data redundancy,and one lost drive hoses all the date, but there are other types, for redundancy. Those would be used by production servers, where a bad HD is a large problem.

[SIRCOOKS]

what program can i use that can access the drive's onboard controller and set the drive to "quiet mode"- this slows the drive down but can prolong the drive's lifespan

[offline]

Sircooks,

Maxtor has a utility called AMSET that can toggle between FAST and QUIET. You can run it under a dos boot disk. I don't have a direct link but you should
be able to d/l a copy from their website

[SIRCOOKS]

how would i run it form a dos boot disk, would they give me the instructions, would i then have to boot the computer ion dos mode for this.....holla back

[JSB]

RAID 5 is redundant .... Untill you loose 2 HD's in one night ... happen to my buddy who is the network admin at a school system.

Oh ya the tape backup failed.... He has to tell some very angy school teachers that they lost a few days of data. Not a fun day for him ... So I try not to bring up RAID setups with him.

JSB

[Skoorb]

RAID 5 is redundant .... Untill you loose 2 HD's in one night ... happen to my buddy who is the network admin at a school system.

Oh ya the tape backup failed.... He has to tell some very angy school teachers that they lost a few days of data. Not a fun day for him ... So I try not to bring up RAID setups with him.

JSB

If he lost two HDs in one night AND the tape backup failed, there's something wrong with your friend....unless he administers dozens of machines the odds of that are simply so negligible as to not be realistic!

[offline]

Here you go Sircooks. Just click on this link

http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200

[SIRCOOKS]

THANKS

[JSB]

If he lost two HDs in one night AND the tape backup failed, there's something wrong with your friend....unless he administers dozens of machines the odds of that are simply so negligible as to not be realistic!

IBM DeathStars....

The tape backup has parts on order... things happen.

JSB


PS He is a network admin for an entire school system... hundreds of PC's.