IDE hard drive poll

[Mercutio]

I am highly annoyed at Seagate's showing in this poll.

Seagate, manufacturer of such pustules as the U-series, Medalist and modern "Barracuda" drives, deserves absolutely no credit for its work. The biggest drive manufacturer cannot and does not manufacture any IDE hard disks that are even remotely appealing for non-vomit-box uses.
When the nicest thing you can say about a Seagate IDE drive is that it's "almost as quiet as a Samsung", I think that any gain related to Seagate's storied SCSI drives simply must be negated.

 

[LunarMist]

The biggest drive manufacturer cannot and does not manufacture any IDE hard disks that are even remotely appealing for non-vomit-box uses.

I'm not sure what you don't like about the 7200.8, but 800GB in two 3.5" bays for a total of less than $500 was very appealing to me. I don't have a vomit box. I use a regular 10-bay tower.

 

[RWIndiana]

Hey hey hey there're two votes for WD now. Who is my fellow criminal?

 

[i]

Ok, I have a related question.

Is there a store anywhere that has enough collective brain-power to figure out how to safely ship hard drives to their customers?

It's 2005. What is wrong with these people? I just ordered a 120Gb Samsung HDD from N€w€gg. It arrived in a large box with a few other items thrown in. Inside: a loose mass of packaging peanuts (just enough to ensure that all the items inside the box had the ability to shift around). The hard drive itself was inside a standard, flimsy, transparent plastic "clam-shell" type container. It was then wrapped up in a 23 inch (58cm) long by 12 inch (30cm) wide sheet of "large bubble" bubble-wrap. Out of the 162 total complete bubbles (I'm excluding the bubbles around the edge that were cut through to form the sheet) by the time the package reached me, 38 bubbles had been deflated. So right there, their meager immediate packaging was reduced by 23%.

Worse yet, they just wrapped the bubble wrap around one axis of the drive, and as luck would have it, the drive had shifted around in the box and had been slamming into one side of the box against one of the two unprotected ends of the drive. The clamshell had popped open, and really, it was just the tiny, hard plastic edge of the clamshell that was the only thing providing any absorption from shock coming from that direction. It was right against the side of the box. All the stupid packaging peanuts (what the heck is up with the obsession so many retail places have with useless packaging peanuts?) had shifted away.

Do they just not give a crap what condition drives are when they get to their customers? I mean, it's not their data that's going to be stored on them. And for failures that occur in the longer term, they probably direct the customer to the manufacturer, so if it dies shortly, it's not even their problem then, right?

It's enough to make me wish I could start my own HDD-only online store. The $9 keyboard they sent me had roughly triple the amount of packaging the hard disk had!

 

[LunarMist]

NewEgg is renowned for terrible OEM hard drive packaging. I once received a drive with one side right against the box. they did not even use bubble wrap. I only order retail drives from NewEgg. Zipzoomfly hard drive packaging is very good.

 

[mubs]

A few OEM SCSI drives I bought for somebody a few years back from Hyper Microsystems were packaged superbly.

 

[i]

A few OEM SCSI drives I bought for somebody a few years back from Hyper Microsystems were packaged superbly.

Yes, I used to trust Hypermicro. Their customer service seemed to fall through the floor a few years back though. Haven't risked them since.

Thanks for the comment about Zipzoomfly, Lunar. I would have chosen a retail option, except Newegg only offers OEM Samsung drives. I'll try Zipzoomfly for my next HDD purchase.

 

[i]

Oh, and that $9 keyboard? They shipped me the wrong one. *sigh*

 

[paugie]

I like Maxtors. They have not failed me yet. But then again, I tend to dispose of my Hard Drives when they are 2 years old.
But my customers (precious few) seem to have nursed their Maxtors well. So there.
But maybe the above is because I was partial to Quantum, it being the brand of my 1st ever Hard Disk Drive.
Oh, and here in the Philippines they usually sell only Seagates, Maxtors in quantity. Sometimes WDs Hitachis and Samsungs show up on the shelves for limited periods.

 

[sechs]

Who *else* voted for Western Digital? Admit your sins.

 

[Mercutio]

Maybe Mickey stopped by?

 

[CityK]

New Samsung P120 family is out (or on their website at least). Two platters still, so 250 all she be.

 

[LunarMist]

So Samsung has now matched the drive capacity other brands had 2 years ago? Yawn.

 

[Tea]

It would actually be more interesting if the other manufacturers were able to match the reliability that Samsung had five years ago.

I can live with Samsung's conservative engineering. Can you live with the other guy's RA rates?

 

[mubs]

Where do you see the P120, CityK? Their USA Web site still shows the P80 as the top of the line.

 

[The JoJo]

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/

Hmmm, I'd like to have seen a 300GB+ drive....

 

[mubs]

Thanks, JoJo. Hopefully their US website will show them soon, which would be a good sign.

 

[Handruin]

Any idea what that curved piece is above the platters in the new SATA spinpoint?

 

[Buck]

Reduce turbulence?

 

[Dïscfärm]

Any idea what that curved piece is above the platters in the new SATA spinpoint?

Yes, it's part of the cutaway illustration. The curved part is the top of the hard drive casing.

 

[Dïscfärm]

Yes, it's part of the cutaway illustration. The curved part is the top of the hard drive casing.

After zooming in, I can see that the mystery piece is screwed down to the hard drive's spindle base -- NOT part of a cutaway illustration.

I'm also wondering if this qualifies as one of those "Separated At Birth?" examples...