Which Hard Drive?...

[retroborg]

Hello,

I’m in need for some extra space, so I’m looking forward in obtaining a new Hard Drive. My M/B doesn’t support Serial ATA & I don’t want to buy a SATA converter, so I’ve come down to choosing one of these three IDE HDs:

Western Digital WD3200 Caviar SE – 7200RPM – 8MB Cache – 320GB – 179 Euros

Sea Gate Barracuda Ultra ATA 7200 – 8MB Cache – 250GB – 125 Euros

MAXTOR 300R0 300GB - ATA133 BULK – 7200RPM - 16MB Cache - 300GB – 135 Euros

I’ve used WD & SeaGate HD before & they’re both very reliable, even though SeaGate is supposed to be a bit more silent.
I’ve never used Maxtor before, but with 16MB Cache, 300GB @ 135 Euros, it looks like a better buy.
Is Maxtor silent like the Seagate & is it reliable?

So which one should I get?

Thanks in advance.

[AVIL]

Hi,

IMHO, Seagate is more reliable than MAXTOR. But, alas, is slower (in fact this HD of Seagate is ATA100 instead ATA133). I think Western Digital's one is ATA100 also but i'm not sure, and I think WD is less reliable than Seagate also.

I resolve the same dilemma by buying two ATA133 160 GB Samsung drive (80 euros each approx.) And I'm delighteed with my choice.

Good luck.

[CWR03]

I agree with AVIL, Seagates are more reliable and much quieter than Maxtor or Western Digital. ATA133 is noticeably faster that ATA100.

Despite Western Digital being the "top rated drive," it's the least reliable and by far the noisiest. It's the only one I've ever had that I can actually hear spinning. Maxtor is a good middle ground with noise and reliability.

You may find a package deal from Maxtor that includes a free serial ATA card with a hard drive - it won't benefit you in speed much because the PCI slot is no faster than an ATA100 hard drive, but it would be an advantage in future upgrades.

[disorder]

Personally, I've had the same 80gb WD Caviar for 3 years and it is still running strong, and has had about a 99% up time. Noisy? I cant here my drives now so.... I wouldnt go as far as saying WD is the absolute best, the most reliable or quitest but I wouldnt say that about the other either. As far as I'm concerned Seagate, WD, Maxtor and now Hitachi are all quality drives for reasonable prices.

[Sirber]

No maxtor please!!! The worst drives ever. Breaks in 3-6 months. Best get a WDC.

[disorder]

Keep in mind, Hitachi is offering a 3 yr warranty on some, if not all, of thier drives while Seagate and WD only offer a year.

[CWR03]

Keep in mind, Hitachi is offering a 3 yr warranty on some, if not all, of thier drives while Seagate and WD only offer a year.

Seagate now offers a 5-year warranty.

Western Digital offer 5-years on their Raptor drives, one year on IDE and SATA.

I'd forgotten Hitachi, also a good drive. I've never owned one, but I have a friend with three, and he says they're quiet and reliable.

No maxtor please!!! The worst drives ever. Breaks in 3-6 months. Best get a WDC.
I've had two Maxtors fail, one right out of the box, one a week after installation, otherwise I've had excellent reliability from them. One drive ran for seven years non-stop before a power failure corrupted something and it won't boot (I'm sure all it needs is a format and it would be fine); one has been running in a media PC for five years, writing most of the time, and is still doing well; one was in a restricted space in a PC and had to be fan cooled, and when the fan failed it seized - when it cooled off (and I replaced the fan) it started working again and is still going strong.

[feedback]

I have an External WD Media Center WD1600B012-RNN Hard drive that is noisy as heck.
It' only about 2.5 years old.

I had it connected by firewire once (has firewire and USB2.0) and my DVD burner connected by USB2.0 to my laptop when backing up a couple of movies for the kids when it let out a terrible shriek. I still am not sure what happened but I turned it off for a while and let it cool before using it again.
It still works okay today but I haven't tried using the firewire port on the HD for awhile either...strange.

Regards,:)

[SomeJoe]

I've used Maxtor drives fairly regularly and always found them to be very good drives. (I'm an IT director, so I maintain many PCs and I use Maxtors in virtually all of them). And when one does go bad, Maxtor has a nice RMA policy. I had a 200GB Maxtor drive go bad a few weeks ago -- had been in a system for 2 1/2 years. Ran Powermax on it, got the diagnostic code, filled out the RMA form online, shipped it in, got a new 250GB drive back, no questions asked.

The most important thing I've found with any hard drive as far as reliability is temperature. Any hard drive that is in a hot case with no fan on the drive will eventually fail. I now exclusively use cases that have a 3.5" drive bay with a fan and that has markedly improved drive reliability.

If maximum reliability is paramount (like for a RAID-0 application), Maxtor makes some enterprise-class 1,000,000 hour MTBF drives (the Maxline II, Maxline II+, and Maxline III series). I use these in video editing machines to form their RAID-0 editing drive. Haven't had one go bad yet.

[Sirber]

I better be safe than sorry :) My ex-roommate lost about 8 HDD, mostly 120 and 160GBs. Data loss is evil, even if Maxtor support is good.

[feedback]

I've used Maxtor drives fairly regularly and always found them to be very good drives. (I'm an IT director, so I maintain many PCs and I use Maxtors in virtually all of them). And when one does go bad, Maxtor has a nice RMA policy. I had a 200GB Maxtor drive go bad a few weeks ago -- had been in a system for 2 1/2 years. Ran Powermax on it, got the diagnostic code, filled out the RMA form online, shipped it in, got a new 250GB drive back, no questions asked.

The most important thing I've found with any hard drive as far as reliability is temperature. Any hard drive that is in a hot case with no fan on the drive will eventually fail. I now exclusively use cases that have a 3.5" drive bay with a fan and that has markedly improved drive reliability.

If maximum reliability is paramount (like for a RAID-0 application), Maxtor makes some enterprise-class 1,000,000 hour MTBF drives (the Maxline II, Maxline II+, and Maxline III series). I use these in video editing machines to form their RAID-0 editing drive. Haven't had one go bad yet.

I think Hard Drives should be judged on Hours of Use like hours of use on an airplane engine. In other words, there is no comparison to a HD that runs 24/7 for 2.5 years to one that runs...say 12 hours a day 7 days a week for 2.5 years. The latter HD has run half as long.

It is really hard to tell about the quality of a HD when people have different time demands on them.

Regards,:)

[CWR03]

It is really hard to tell about the quality of a HD when people have different time demands on them.
There is also the demand of writing which would be difficult to gauge. I'm sure that plays the biggest part in hard drive life. Most of mine that have failed started making a clunking noise and were unrecoverable at that point. It's of little use if the motor that spins the disks is rated to a million hours if the read/write arm motor won't hold up.

I've yet to have a Seagate fail, and I usually use them as the primary drive. It's the only drive I have that I can't hear reading or writing, which may have something to do with their reliability (maybe a dampening or soft start/stop to the arm's motor?).

[GrofLuigi]

I think Hard Drives should be judged on Hours of Use like hours of use on an airplane engine. In other words, there is no comparison to a HD that runs 24/7 for 2.5 years to one that runs...say 12 hours a day 7 days a week for 2.5 years. The latter HD has run half as long.

It is really hard to tell about the quality of a HD when people have different time demands on them.

Regards,:)

If they were actual drives, I bet the second one would die first. :p

Switching ON/OFF is tough on ALL electrical circuits (have you seen a lightbulb die when working? I haven't.) Transitional currents can be as much as 10 times higher than normal ones.

GL

[feedback]

If they were actual drives, I bet the second one would die first. :p

Switching ON/OFF is tough on ALL electrical circuits (have you seen a lightbulb die when working? I haven't.) Transitional currents can be as much as 10 times higher than normal ones.

GL
Yes, I am famliar with transient currents.

During my experience many years ago in Recording Studios it was the practice to leave the mixing console, Roland effects processors, limiters, compressors blah, blah, etc. on all the time as that was the thinking of that time.
We had line conditioners that would react in picoseconds to (I) current fluctuation or (E) voltage spikes, in addition to isolation transformers etc. to protect the equipment.
Although the equipment was used all the time it was not used 24/7.

I am of the camp that if a piece of equipment is not being used it should be turned off. Eventhough, it was cold enough inside to just about hang meat, I still am of the mind it should be turned off.
So, Just like yours, this is my opinion.

Regards,:)

[theReal]

I'd go for the one with the longest warranty!
Anything below a 3-year warranty is suspicious...

[CWR03]

I'd go for the one with the longest warranty!
Anything below a 3-year warranty is suspicious...
Ever buy auto parts from Auto Zone? They were among the first to offer a lifetime warranty for their remanufactured parts, and at the same time they offered the lowest price. I had used them many times, and the failure rate is extremely high. I decided in the end that I'd rather pay 50% more for a new part that would last as long as the original (let's use my water pump for an example: 9 years, 250,000 miles) instead of one that might last one or two years. Changing water pumps is a pain in the ass, as is losing data because of a failed drive.

Maxtor only has a 1-year warranty, but they've always lasted well for me. When they do fail, there's usually warning (bad sectors found during scandisk). Western Digitals (with a 1-year warranty) tend to crater suddenly. I've never had a Seagate fail, and it has the longest warranty at five years.

[Pookie]

I just had 2 drives die on an 1.75TB Raid5 unit. Click click click... Air conditioned room, dual power supplies, 2x 3000VA UPS units.
FOURTEEN Months of 24/7 use as a file server.

I'll give you a hint: The first name is not "Northern", "Southern", Nor "Eastern".
It is a name a movie genre...

[CWR03]

I just had 2 drives die on an 1.75TB Raid5 unit. Click click click...
That's been my experience as well when they suddenly crap out. The one I have that still works contains no data of any real value to me, because I don't trust it.

[theReal]

I've never had a Seagate fail, and it has the longest warranty at five years.
That's exactly why the last drive I bought was a Seagate 200GB 7200rpm with a 5 year warranty :)

[disorder]

Raid arrays tend to have a high failure(comparable) rate no matter what drives are being used becuase thier focus is on performance and fault tolorance. It dosnt matter how reliable one drive is because the array will always keep it backed up and the likely hood that all the drives no matter who makes them will all die at the same time.

[CWR03]

Raid arrays tend to have a high failure(comparable) rate no matter what drives are being used becuase thier focus is on performance and fault tolorance. It dosnt matter how reliable one drive is because the array will always keep it backed up and the likely hood that all the drives no matter who makes them will all die at the same time.
Only when using a mirror array will you have protection from a drive failure. A striped array will cause all data from both drives to be lost if one of the two fails.