Best Hard Drive?

[Cyberian v2.0]

Hi,

I would like to know which is the best brand for HDs.

I don't care how long the warrantee is. If the HD should fail, my data is lost. The warrantee does not get my data back. Also, the trouble and money of shipping the HD + the 2-5 months of waiting for the return is not worth it; better off buying a new one.

Of the main three, Maxtor, WD, and Seagate, which is the best?

Please let me know your experience. Someone with 8 Maxtors and 2 Seagates obviously would have a higher chance of having the Maxtors breaking down. And if possible, please state the years that you had the HDs or how long it took for it to break down.

[SLICK RICK]

I have 2 maxtor hard drives. 1 internal and 1 external. Both are about 2 years old, no problems with either.

I also have 2 x 200GB WD's. Purchased at the same time (about a year ago)
1 died within 2 weeks after purchasing. WD replaced it and I have not had any problems with either one ever since.

[redwudz]

I have had Maxtors die, mainly because I use them the most, and exchange was not a major problem. Of, course depends where you live. You get a RMA and give them a credit card number, but they don't bill you. They will ship out a replacement drive within a day. When you get the drive, you stick your old drive in the box and ship it back. When they receive the old drive, they cancel any charges. I have received the replacement in as little as three days.

Any drive can fail. Backing up data is the way to go. Then drive failure is not a major catastrophe. I have had a couple of the Maxtors for over 5 years with no problems. Other Maxtors have died within a month or two. Different models and are probably built in several locations.

[rallynavvie]

They're pretty much all the same. I'd give the edge to Seagate since I use their SCSI hard drives but that doesn't necessarily mean their IDE drives are any better.

If data security is in issue you should be looking at getting two identical and running RAID 1 with them. Chances of having the second one fail while you're waiting for the other to come back from RMA isn't very likely. Or you can do what I do and back up important data to a large storage drive in a swap tray or external enclosure.

[bazooka]

I use Western digital drives, and they are very dependable. Going on five years

[SIRCOOKS]

whatever u do dont buy the big 200 or 250 gb wd or maxtor drives, seagates warranty are really good now, 5 yrs in most cases..

[Corey]

My computer has got a 80GB MAXTOR in for 3 years with no problems

Last year at a Boxing Day sale I got a 250GB Western Digital and in the last year have had no problems with this.

[stiltman]

seagate

[Capmaster]

seagate

[stiltman]

copycat

[gmatov]

Interesting that Seagate only instituted the 5 yr warranty when they started building them in China, as in where all our manufacturing is going.

I didn't know that till I bought a 200 a few weeks ago, now with 140 + gigs of corrupted files on it, not a HDD prob, though. OS.

I have had WD and Seagate and Max fail on me in the past, none gave me any hassle over replacement, as well as usually getting a larger replacement, since they no longer made that size.

I'm starting to feel that an External is less susceptible to data corruption than an IDE device. I have 3 and never lost anything from them, whereas the machine they are attached to have lost entire partitions to corruption.

Cheers,

George

[Goober57]

I wrote this in the other hard drive thread.....
Same answer applies for this thread!!!

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.

[Cyberian v2.0]

whatever u do dont buy the big 200 or 250 gb wd or maxtor drives, seagates warranty are really good now, 5 yrs in most cases.

Why is wrong with the 200 GB? I am planning to get one to store the rest of my 300 GB of value files.

If data security is in issue you should be looking at getting two identical and running RAID 1 with them. Chances of having the second one fail while you're waiting for the other to come back from RMA isn't very likely. Or you can do what I do and back up important data to a large storage drive in a swap tray or external enclosure.

HHDs are not cheap. That makes it not a very affordable desposible media. Therefore, I will not be getting 2 HHDs. Just 1 reliable one.

[ZAPPER]

Cyberian
Keep in mind that most of our replies are opinions and personal expeirences. For mathmatical statistics you would have to search for a site that is reporting the lab controled results of a test until destroyed type test. And then you are only getting an average. Any unit can fail at any time. I have two Maxtor 40s running 24/7 for four or more years. Granted I don't completely dump and refill them very often. Backup is the key to saving your data. Yes it may seem expenesive. But you must weigh in the cost of lost data and time if something goes bad (and in time all will fail). A warranty will not get your data back is correct. But to pin all of your hope on one long lived drive is not rational thinking. If it is important, back it up! Even two elcheapo drives could give you better odds at keeping your data than one drive will. I tend to hear or notice more of the large drives failing in these post and around town than the smaller drives. I don't know if this a mathmatical truth or just my preception. But to be safe I would say Two 100GB drives are better than one 200GB drive.

[budz]

i did have a maxtor 200 gb fail in 3 months but got a replacement 250gb hd.....no hassles whatsoever from maxtor....i still have a old maxtor that's about 4-5 years old still going strong....bottom line is buy what you can afford whether it's a maxtor, wd or seagate.....this thread of what's the best hard drive has been posted on here in the last month with the same people giving their opinions and experiences.....

just buy one already because their are lots of hard drives on sale today at COMPUSA, BEST BUY, OFFICE DEPOT, OFFICE MAX & CIRCUIT CITY.

[stiltman]

my oldest working HDD is a 450mb quantum
Pretty much useless, but I can't seem to throw it away

[ZAPPER]

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1132833&highlight=#1132833

[Cyberian v2.0]

But to pin all of your hope on one long lived drive is not rational thinking.

Just 5 years is enough until I decide to upgrade again.

But to be safe I would say Two 100GB drives are better than one 200GB drive.

I personally would prefer multiple 100 GB HDDs too. But these HHDs would be traveling with me in a plane. Carrying 7 HDDs in my suitcase is not fun. I am planning to keep 2 big HHDs. For now, I am just getting the first 1.

[gmatov]

As Budz says, old ain't bad. I just put a 7 year old JLS 3 Gig drive into one of my machines I'm have having a shit fit re-installing Win98 and 2k onto.

120, 160, and an 80 in that machine, so f'd up I can't get halfway into re-install, because it crashes.

Machine is up and running with the 3 gig, am able to install recovery prog, save what I want, format, hopefully all will be well after that.

JLT? Not sure of that. Have to pull it to look, but the drive Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore Computer put on the market when Commodore went belly up.

Ain't no bad drives, just you might get a "bad drive".

Why was it my new 200 gig Seagate that went all to hell and lost 140 gigs of video files, not the 160 Max's (3 of them) 160 WD (1 of them)120 Max's (2 of them) 100 Max's(2 of them) 80 Max's (2 of them), and a 60 Samsung.?

What, 1.3 TB, and just the Seagate lost its data. 1 of 12 drives. That one walked, go figure.

Cheers,

George