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Need some harddrive input
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macgyver655




Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508



PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 5:37 pm    Post subject: Need some harddrive input Reply with quote


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I'm getting ready to order a new PC and I'm wondering the opinions of hd manufactors reliability. My choices are: Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Hitachi. Ive had my own experiences with these various drives but its been a few years since I've been directly involved with them.

I would like negative responses as well to maybe help decide what not to buy. Thanks for any opinions...... Smile
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Zebu Fellenz




Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Posts: 2567



PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm using Seagate drives but have had problems with them in the past. A 250gb drive failed, I got a replacement 300gb through the warrenty and that one failed too.

I believe these were 7200.8 series drives. I have newer ones now and they haven't had any problems, I also have a WD that has been rock solid.
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator



Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah

TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010


PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's another thread on this subject. Opinions were all over the place.

I've had excellent luck with the dozen-plus Seagate Barracudas my Dad and I have owned, while my dad and I have both had several Maxtors fail. One I had even smoked when I powered it up - it blew a hole right through the top of an IC and let every last bit of magic smoke out. Luckily, I didn't have anything valuable on it.

SC
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VideoGrabber




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 933
Location: Michigan


PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mac,

I've used many of all the brands you listed above, except for only a handful of Hitachi. They're all been pretty decent, but on current gen drives I'd put WD at the top, and Seagate at the bottom. Seagate Barracudas have been excellent in the past, but I'm seeing a lot more problems with them. In fact, their new 1.5TB drive is so bad they've had to drop it to $139 just to try to move some units. That should tell you something.

I prefer the WD (ATM) due to their cool/quiet operation (best of the bunch, either 5400 or 7200 rpm), and excellent reliability. The one in my TiVo S3 has been running 24/7 for the last year, without a burp. And I've had 0 problems with the 36 WD drives I've bought so far for media storage (500G, mostly 750G, and now moving to 1TB)... once they passed my incoming burn-in tests.

I did have 2 units fail out-of-the box, but I chalk that up to the pathetic way that Newegg packs them (2 one-lb drives bouncing against each other, with one slip of bubble wrap between them). Since the 2nd dud, I place all my HD orders at Newegg separately, which forces them to spend extra money for shipping, But I get them each in their own box, and no problems since then, so no hassle with RMAs.

One area I have no experience with, so you'll have to query others, is really high-end performance drives, like the Raptors. I just don't have any real use for them. I use 7200 rpm WDs for system drives, and 5400 rpm WDs for media drives.

(I've also got 5 Samsung 750, 2 Hitachi 1T, 1 Maxtor 1T, and 4 Seagate 500G drives with no problems, since I switched over from PATA to SATA. Before that I had mostly Seagate and Maxtor IDE drives... about 20 or so, and 1 Hitachi.)

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VideoGrabber




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 933
Location: Michigan


PostLink    Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 6:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

> I did have 2 units fail out-of-the box... <

BTW, I should probably mention that these failures would NOT have shown up immediately if I had just started using them, as most folks do. In fact, the first would not have revealed itself until I filled ~800G of a 1TB drive. The other showed up in the first 50G.

My personal recommendation, if you care about what you're going to store on a hard drive, is to perform an incoming acceptance test on all new drives first. This means not just running the 1-minute quick test, or exercising it with seeks with something like Sisoft Sandra, or BurnIn Test, or a HD performance tester. The real test is running a full surface WRITE test. Sure, it takes 10 hours for a 1 TB drive, but it's worth it to me to let it run overnight, for the peace of mind. And it has to be a Write test... that one drive that failed at 800G, tested perfect in a full-surface Read test, twice.

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macgyver655




Joined: 22 Aug 2007
Posts: 8508



PostLink    Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 4:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the input guys. Have to do some more thinking.
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Elaine Benes




Joined: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 1416



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 4:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Personally, my experience has been that they're all decent for a certain amount of time...

That being said, I've had some Seagates fail prematurely lately, and I've had more interconnectivity problems with Seagate than any other drive BY FAR. There are some arrangements I use where Seagates have simply refused to work, like my removable tray with an IDE connector with an add in IDE PCI card. Seagates routinely fail to be detected properly, and they are the ONLY drive that acts like this. Also, they sometimes fail to be detected via USB to IDE cable. I'd stop buying Seagates altogether, but with SATA interface, permanently installed, they work perfectly.
For best interconnectivity, WD is tops, they never give me problems, neither via IDE, PATA, SATA, USB, through two or three different converters, they just work.
I've got one Samsung Spinpoint that I use for my DVR drive on my FTA HD receiver, it is ROCK solid in a very demanding application, but generally they are too expensive for me to buy regularly...
VideoGrabber provides some very sage advice about testing new hdd's, btw.
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VideoGrabber




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 933
Location: Michigan


PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

> I've got one Samsung Spinpoint... it is ROCK solid in a very demanding application, but generally they are too expensive for me to buy regularly... <

Currently $80 delivered, at Newegg, SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM. I have 5 of them, and they've worked well for me. _Slightly_ louder than the WD's. Faster sustained transfer rates (due to the 7200 rpm spindle speed), not needed for media record/play functions.

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Elaine Benes




Joined: 25 Apr 2006
Posts: 1416



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 6:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

VideoGrabber wrote:

Currently $80 delivered, at Newegg, [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152100]


....in the USA maybe...
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VideoGrabber




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 933
Location: Michigan


PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the US and Canada (USD)... I didn't check China. Unfortunately, that was apparently near the end of a 2-day sale price, and they're back at $100 now. May as well get the 1TB WD at that price. Sorry (Newegg doesn't say WHEN their pricing will change).
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WanMan




Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10273



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 10:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I using Western Digital, Maxtor, and Seagate. Maxtor is owned by Seagate. All have been a 'knock on wood', and today I am ordering four (4) 1TB Seagate OEM drives from NewEgg (c-note/each).
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greg_mitch




Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5321



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 2:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Only bad drives for me ever have been Maxtor. I had three 160gb drives fail.

I like Seagates and Samsungs.
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WanMan




Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10273



PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 1:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've got something like +20 hard drives in use right now. All are Western Digital, Seagate, and Maxtor. The brand that has failed the most ... isn't Maxtor.
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Chuchuf




Joined: 11 Mar 2006
Posts: 548



PostLink    Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 1:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The key to success (IMO) for getting HD's to last a long time (they will eventually fail) is to have air blowing over them. Surprisingly it doesn't have to be a lot of air, just some flow to cool them.
Whenever I build a PC these days, I always put a fan in front of the HD's for this reason. I am also into super quiet PC's so I have a bit of a conflict usually. I use quiet slow turning fans and try and tie them into say aux1 or aux2 fans in the MB and then set up the bios so that if the MB gets higher than normal, the HD fan starts to spin faster.
I just built a new overclocked E7300 duo core computer for myself. It has 4 fans and you can barely hear it. But the drives stay nice and cool
BTW it's a dual boot system, with Vista as well as the MacOSX retail version. I like the MAC Leopard OSX so much that I rarely go into the Vista side (with all it's "blotware", virus's, attacks, etc).

Terry
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VideoGrabber




Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 933
Location: Michigan


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 07, 2008 5:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Elaine,

> ....in the USA maybe... <

Re: the Samsung 750 GB Spinpoint F1 drives... I noticed they're on sale again at Newegg. Even cheaper than before. $75 USD ($94.50 CAD). Shipping is extra this time though. Maybe it'll work out for you.

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WanMan




Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10273



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

WanMan wrote:
I've got something like +20 hard drives in use right now. All are Western Digital, Seagate, and Maxtor. The brand that has failed the most ... isn't Maxtor.


And to reiterate my point ... the four (4) Seagate 1TB drives I ordered on 12/03/08 arrived, were tested, and one was DOA. Need to RMA the drive, but it goes to show you cannot depend on any manufacturer (almost sounds like a car discussion).

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overclkr




Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 4227



PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I buy nothing but Western Digital Raid Edition drives for my PC's.

http://westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=503

Cliff
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator



Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah

TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010


PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wan, looks like your 1-in-4 experience might be almost typical. Take a look at the user ratings on newegg for the 1TB drive mechanisms. Many of them are around 65% 5 eggs : 10-18% 1 egg, with hardly any in-between. 10-18% 1 egg - that's terrible! Either people love them and they're perfect or between 1-in-5 and 1-in-10 have trouble.

Looks like WD rate the best, but still at 7-8% 1 egg, with Seagate being the worst with a couple at 17-18% 1 egg. From at least a very unscientific casual glance, it seems Seagate's quality has slid a little, WD's are best of breed, and the Hitachi and Samsungs are somewhere in the middle.

I wonder if they're really pushing physical engineering limits with the 1TB mechanisms while simultaneously the industry pricing pressure is really forcing quality down on these things!?!?

SC
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AnalogRocks
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Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for this thread I just bought a WD for my old/new gaming box. I was going to get a segate too.
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stgdz




Joined: 07 Dec 2008
Posts: 107



PostLink    Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 4:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use a notebook drive, after review the silentpc noise reviews I decided to go with a western digital scorpio drive.

I can't believe how quiet it is.
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