New SATA II hard drive...16Mb cache

Luck o' the draw I guess. I've had a couple of dozen WD drives myself and used maybe a few few hundred in PCs' I've built. But then I've only used their premium drives if that makes a difference. Only ever had a few fail and two of those were likely due to poor power.

For me, Seagate sucks like the proverbials with with over 25% of them failing in the first few months...
 
I've been reading SR and here for a few years now and have some very non-scientific observations:
It all depends on who you talk to and when.
A few years ago Maxtor couldn't give their drives away. Now you hardly hear anything about them either way. If nodoby is complaining, they must be doing alright. Remember the Maxtor/Promise fiasco? I've found a lot of Maxtors in OEM boxes that ran for years.

IBM was the cream of the crop, until the 75 GXP. But at that time everybody forgot about all their other drives. IBM was 'out' because of one model. (I bought 2-75GXPs when they first came out, and they are both running still. The one I thought was dying turned out to be a bad cable.)
Seagate could do no wrong with their hard drives. Now they are only so-so? The IDE division is dragging down the SCSI division?? Three years ago I bought 26 Cheetahs, and I had to RMA 4 of them within 2 years.

Western Digital was riding high after IBM fell. But WD and IBM were using 'shared technology' --go figure. Now, nobody wants them ?? Out of the ~ 200 of them I bought, I've had to RMA 5. That's better numbers than the Seagate SCSI drives.

I figure it this way: you only hear about the problems someone had with a particular brand. You never hear about the millions that are in service for years and years.
When you buy a hard drive it's the luck of the draw. Maybe you'll get one that was made on a Friday afternoon or a Monday after a holiday. It dies in a couple of hours and now every hard drive that was ever made by that company is a piece of s**t. Or you get one that was made on a Wdenesday, and it last for years. Who knows?

Anymore I select a drive on it's intended use, price and warranty. Seagate is on top of my list now because of their warranty and the price I get from our vender.

But it's still a crap shoot :o

Bozo :mrgrn:
 
"Seagate is on top of my list now because of their warranty and the price I get from our vender.

But it's still a crap shoot."

I really think you nailed it on this one. I go after Seagate scsi, and, refurbished drives. I figure a scsi drive that's been checked by the maker is a pretty good bet, and, the drives are the same, or less, and MUCH faster, then ATA drives, but, again if I'm willing to be patient, and some of it is luck. Catch someone dropping 36k SCSI 15.3 Cheetahs, and you might find those "refurbs" you bought aren't, but new drives, being dropped for a new model. Booting from two of those, currently.

I love the SCA box, thanks Splash. It's soooo easy to change drives, and array arrangements. Two screws to move a drive from an array, into another position.

Now, what am I going to do with all the 68 pin drives I have laying around...???

s
 
The only time I've ever had problems with Seagate hard drives was back in the early 1990s (1989 ~ 1993) when the best drives they had were the ones that they inherited from the CDC (Control Data Corporation) hard drive manufacturing operations takeover -- this would be the Imprimis model lineup. Fast forward to the late 1990s to present: I definitely cannot complain one bit about Seagate's enterprise drives.

I once witnessed a horrific Western Digi model mass failure over a few months time. These were all a particular 6 GB IDE model. The year was 1997 or '98. All were replaced by similar cheap-o Maxtors which worked fine until the computers were replaced about 3 years later. Over the past 5 or so years, I've known other people (locally) that had hard drive failures -- probably 10 people. When I asked about the manufacturer / model, invariably it was just about 100% Western Digi.

As for 75GXP: I know of 6 computer systems with 2-each 75GXP hard drives (1-each 30 GB boot/apps, 1-each 60 GB data). These are all STILL in use with the original IBM 75GXP Deskstar hard drives. Most run 24/7. Only one drive failure has ever happened (happened in December 2004) so far, and that was a 60 GB data drive which was replaced by an unused spare 60 GB IBM 60 GXP.

Maxtor: I used to have some *serious* problems with their SCSI hard drives back in the late 1980s and early 1990s -- so bad in fact, that I'm surprised they ever survived. I also know from word-of-mouth that they continued to make crap hard drive throughout most of the '90s, but they definitely turned it around in 1999/2000.
 
Computer Generated Baby said:
I once witnessed a horrific Western Digi model mass failure over a few months time. These were all a particular 6 GB IDE model. The year was 1997 or '98.
Click to expand...

Yeah, those were bad. I think those were the 256KB cache drives. They had problems with stiction, high concentrations of particulates, and platter lubricant issues. Plus, that was their first series with MR heads, and they werent' very successfull with that technology. Ironically, they were ISO9001 certified to ensure quality. :D
 
Considering some of the abuse some of my drives have suffered, with power blackouts etc. and the length of service, and only one DOA, I have no complaints with Segate at all.

They have supported their products very well, also.

s
 
Computer Generated Baby said:
Maxtor: I used to have some *serious* problems with their SCSI hard drives back in the late 1980s and early 1990s -- so bad in fact, that I'm surprised they ever survived. I also know from word-of-mouth that they continued to make crap hard drive throughout most of the '90s, but they definitely turned it around in 1999/2000.
Click to expand...

Thanks to Quantum, perhaps?
 
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