How reliable Hitachi/Maxtor HDDs?

[piano632]

Since I am in need of a big hard drive soon and Fry's has both Hitachi and Maxtor 250GB on sale for $110 at this time, are either of these drives reliable for the long term? I have heard some bad things about both these hard drives and I have never used either brand, so comments appreciated.

I have 6 HDDs (3 WD's, 2 Seagate's, 1 Quantum) and none have crashed yet. But I hear Maxtor's run hot and make a lot of noise. Hitachi's make sort of a metallic "meow" sound occassionally (caused by head parking, I think) and a bad reputation for dying. Are these assessments still valid or have they improved lately. I plan to but the HDD in an aluminum external case (no fan) so I want one that doesn't get too hot, but most of all it has to be reliable since I probably will have no other backups.

[Soopafresh]

It would be silly of you to not back up your data, regardless of the drive you end up choosing. Any drive can go kaput.

[BJ_M]

maxtor makers different grades of HD's ... some are better than others .. quantum = maxtor (btw)

[piano632]

Well, if Quantum drives = Maxtor then Maxtor must be pretty good since my Quantum is now 4 years old and still going. Of course it's only 15GB and pretty slow compared to newer drives. And yes, it does make more noise than my other drives, but it's not that bad.

[Capmaster]

I would save up a little longer and get a Seagate

[stiltman]

I would save up a little longer and get a Seagate

agreed

[piano632]

Anyone hear anything about when Seagate is going to put out their 16MB cache drives?

[Capmaster]

Anyone hear anything about when Seagate is going to put out their 16MB cache drives?

Already available:
http://www.basoncomputer.com/ST173404FC_O/item.aspx

[piano632]

I meant ATA drives with 16mb cache.

[zzyzzx]

My personal experience tells me that Maxtor is excellent and Western Digital is crap. I can not comment on Hitachi.

[Soopafresh]

I've had both Maxtors and WDs die on me. The Seagates have been pretty good, same with the IBM/Hitachis.

[Capmaster]

I meant ATA drives with 16mb cache.

Oops. I use SCSI at work and ATA at home so I look at all the new drives ...chances are I can use it somewhere

I don't think they have the standard 16 yet. Several of their drives you can special order with 16. I think that includes ATA. Their website isn't the easiest to navitage

[bazooka]

I have a hitachi drive that is going strong after a year and a half.

[piano632]

Perhaps against my better judgement, I just ordered a Maxtor 300GB Ultra16 drive (PATA w/16MB cache) from Office Depot for $149.99 - free shipping & no rebates attached. (If anyone else needs one, get them soon before everyone finds out.)

Since I need a drive this week and there are no sales on large Seagate drives, I will take a chance on the Maxtor. The Ultra Series drives are supposedly the same as the DiamondMax 9 or 10. Hopefully I made a good choice. Guess I will soon find out.

[Goober57]

I've only been using Maxtors for many years with no problems......yet!
They are just the cheaper drives, nothing fancy. They run all
day and sometimes 24/7. (using some of them for video security)

It's like comparing Ford and Chevy. They both have their
share of problems. That's why I drive a Dodge!

It would be interesting to see a list of hard drives that
don't exist anymore. I can only think of Micropolis at this time.
___________________

[BJ_M]

well ibm and quantum -- as they were bought out .... there are some others but i cant think of them either --

there are also some china made no name drives ive seen around around super cheap ... often found in elcheapo walmart type pc's .... (as an example) ..

also as i mentioned there are different grades of maxtor drives and they are even made in different factories .. more details are on their web site ..

that deal you got on the 300GB sounds very good ..

[808smokey]

I have 3 maxtor drives, A 120g, 80g and a 40g. All 3 are 7,200rpm 8mb cache. The 40g is 4 years old and still works fine. The other two are 1 year and 1 month. No probs with any of them. I've used others, seagate and WD and they work just as well but I always seem to buy what's on sale and it's usually Maxtor. Just my .02¢