Another Drive Bites the Dust

[Soopafresh]

The Big Boss brought me an external LaCie Firewire HD. Click-click-click . Lo and behold, when I opened up the chasis - Western Digital. At least the case is nice on them LaCies, obviously the drives they're using aren't exactly the best. Had 2 WDs die at the same time on a raid 5 unit around 6 months ago.

[ROF]

What is model and capacity of this dead drive? What type of internal interface does the case use?

[MOVIEGEEK]

WD sucks,Seagate rules!

[piano632]

I'll bet it has more to due with heat inside that enclosure than the WD hard drives. I have 3 WD hard drives with no problems at all. Anyway, I thought LaCie was using Maxtor drives in their enclosures...guess not.

[Nelson37]

Have seen an unusual number of drive failures in enclosures, both internal and external. Possible causes include heat and connector failure. Probably heat, as fanned enclsures seem significantly less prone to problems.

2 WD's failed and somebody likes Seagate? Gotcha beat. How about 6 out of 6 Seagates failing within a period of two months, while the replacement WD drives functioned perfectly, in the same Raid array?

ALL hard drives will fail. ALL hd manufacturers experience manufacturing defects and poor design. ALL purchase decisions must be made with an evaluation of Recent product performance from that manufacturer, with the recognition that these evaluations will change over time.

You cannot evaluate a manufacturer based on a few experiences, even a few dozen. You need Hundreds if not Thousands, over a long period, in order to have an informed opinion.

[ROF]

When it comes to hard drives there is only one reality:

It will fail eventually.

Some take longer than others to hit that point. Some will seemingly live on forever, yet eventually a drive spinning at 5000+ RPMs will eventually die. There are way to many mechanical parts inside them for this not to occur eventually. There are also alot of precision parts which must maintain accurate locations within the drive. The slightest bumping can screw this up. Then again, like my old trusty Pocket PC, it can take a beating and still keep chugging along. There are too many factors in the manufacturing, shipping, storage, retail shelving, purchasing, consumer handling to accurately measure the life of any hard drive. You could purchase 15 dead western digitals and 20 more that die after less than 2 months of service and yet still have 30 running strong a decade later.

This is not saying you shouldn't check reviews and heed some advice of others, but consideration should be given and the fact that all hard drives eventually fail should also serve as a warning to you.

Back up . . Back up . . and Back up again!

[rallynavvie]

Speaking of revs, two of my four 15krpm 18GB Cheetahs are still running after almost 6 years. The other two were cross-shipped and I was able to rebuild that array within a few days. But then those drives are manufactured to much closer tolerances than most other drives, thus why they cost so damned much (and can reach such high rotational speeds).

Moral of the story is to choose your hard drives by which manufacturer has the best warranty and customer service. I will default to Seagate for that very reason. However I've only had one IDE HDD fail on me in all these years and it was a WD. However in its defense it was one of the first 200GB drives on the market and has lasted for 4 or 5 years. If I can get 4-5 years of constant service from an IDE drive then I'm happy with it.

[Soopafresh]

I bought a dozen of of these and installed them on the critical drives in the server room. They're very quiet, but not completely silent.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835185003

I've been only ordering Seagates these days as well. Same here, rally - I have some Seagate SCSI drives still going after close to a decade !

[Seeker47]

Don't overlook the source of manufacture. The SCSIs were generally built to much higher standards, but even there I found the most reliable to be ones like the Ultrastars that were made in Hungary or Singapore, before IBM sold out to Hitachi.

In IDE, I just have a lot of skepticism about the juxtaposition of precision manufacturing (as opposed to cheapest manufacturing) and "Made in China" . . . so I've tried to find Seagates that were made in Singapore or Thailand. You can find them on the shelves, if you look around. In any case, you get the 5 year warranty with most of the Seagates.

[mzemina]

I've heard that Samsung T133 (300gig) ran cool and was thinking about putting it inside an aluminum enclosure (no fan). Has anyone a recommendation?

Mike

[lordsmurf]

I've never been a fan of Lacie enclosures. I've seen Lacie products die for years now.

WD is a good drive, I doubt it's the problem. More likely, the Lacie was left on too long for too many times (over the weekend, etc, spinning non-stop), not on a surge protector, and simply overheated too many times.

The drive can probably still have data recovered at a lab, if needed.

Aluminum cases with a fan, only turned on when needed, on a UPS surge. Don't take unneeded risks.

People need to learn to turn their stuff off, it's that easy. I've had all sorts of folks come to me lately about odd computer issues. They're all heat related. Turn your shit off when not in use. Of course, they never do, think I'm stupid, and it happens again in 6 months.

As far a RAID use, get drives that are "rated" for it. That puts more wear/tear on drives than normal usage.

[mzemina]

...Aluminum cases with a fan...

Do you have recommendations? It seems the enclosures with a fan are hard to find.

[Seeker47]

...Aluminum cases with a fan...

Do you have recommendations? It seems the enclosures with a fan are hard to find.

Not really. I must have at least 4 different brands at home. (Not there at the moment, so I can't look up the names of the others.) A favorite thus far has been the Coolmax line of enclosures: the 5xx series is the one with the fan. A bit heavier than some, but also more rugged.