Poll: second-worst hard drive

[Tea]

OK, you've all voted for your favourite hard drive maker, now what about your most disliked brand of drive. (Not counting Western Digital, I mean.) Which current drives do you really hate/distrust/put in sacks and threaten people with?

 

[blakerwry]

I've had several maxtors fail recently and didnt have a pleasant expereince with one of the RMA's by phone.. did ok with another... They're not my sworne enemy, but I am not fond of them.

 

[RWIndiana]

If I can judge based on a single experience (which I shouldn't), I would vote for Hitachi (which I did). I only ever had one and it sounds like my cordless drill. Other than that it is fine. Just irritating. Oh and it does have several reallocated sectors.
I've had more Maxtors and Seagates than anything else I think, and I've found the Maxtors to be the best in my personal experience. Or I should say the Maxtors have done the best for me *so far*.I have over 30,000 hours on one Maxtor still with not a single error. Of course, I haven't had a Seagate go bad yet either . . . the Maxtor seems faster though.

 

[Tea]

Hmmm ... interesting. I'd expected Seagate to win comfortably, but it seems as if they have some real competition from Maxtor. Early days yet, but I'll watch this poll with interest.

 

[Buck]

When I get ailing Dell systems in my shop and the drive is the culprit, they're usually Seagate ATA drives.

 

[Bozo]

Most of the Dell I've worked on had a Maxtor drive in them. The drive was unusual in that it was only half as thick as a normal 3.5" drive. I presumed it was a 'contract' hard drive made for Dell. It was only 6 months old and failed.
Fortunately, a standard hard drive fit in the slot.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Mercutio]

Oddly I have noticed that as well.

Actually, though, I have some observations on the subject of Maxtor's showing.

Namely, for the longest time I was rabidly pro-Maxtor. Those drives, at least from the 4GB models I started with, up to the time of the Quantum merger, were wonderful.

But the new drives - the 740x, the DM8, the DM9 - were obviously Quantum designs. I don't know what happened to Maxtor's engineers, but I do know that Quantum had a LOUSY reputation with techies for ages and ages (probably all those bigfoot and 4200rpm drives).

And that after going almost four years without seeing a Maxtor drive die, I started needing to do RMAs to Maxtor. The first couple I did were under Maxtor's 2000-era "No quibble" warranty - at that time Maxtor would literally replace a drive for ANY reason.

Then their warranty policy changed, abruptly becoming, guess what? Just like Quantum's had been.

And here we are again: Maxtor's current drives are noted as being generally fast but also generally cheap, and now have a poor reputation with the techies of the world.

I think the company we now call Maxtor is really the company we used to dislike most of all, Quantum. The old Maxtor, the No-Quibble warranty and the solidly reliable but kinda-pokey drives I used to love, seems to be gone.

 

[Mercutio]

Most of the Dell I've worked on had a Maxtor drive in them. The drive was unusual in that it was only half as thick as a normal 3.5" drive. I presumed it was a 'contract' hard drive made for Dell. It was only 6 months old and failed.
Fortunately, a standard hard drive fit in the slot.

Those are single-platter DM8s. They are horribly slow for 7200rpm, single platter drives and are obviously made to go in vomit boxes.

The Dells I see tend to have WD drives in them if they are home machines, and Seagates if they're corporate models.

 

[Buck]

I used to come across Quantums in Compaq systems -- I guess that says it all.

 

[Handruin]

A Compaq Presario I'm working on now has a samsung. It has many other (software) problems, but the hard drive is working good.

 

[ddrueding]

Maxtor for me. I had a great series of drives that would erase themselves if they overheated. A reformat would make them right again, but they were never quiet or fast. I put them at the other end of a 100MBit network connection so I wouldn't notice.

 

[mubs]

A Compaq Presario a friend bought in October had a Samsung as well.

 

[Mercutio]

You let a "friend" buy a Presario?

Are you sure you didn't misspell "person whom I secretly loathe"?

 

[Buck]

You let a "friend" buy a Presario?

Are you sure you didn't misspell "person whom I secretly loathe"?

Friends often buy on impluse without consulting their knowledgable friends.

 

[Mercutio]

Sounds like a good reason to stop socializing with that person. Unless she's hot, or something.

I wouldn't THINK of going off to spend $500+ without asking someone with more knowledge than I have about the products I might purchase with my money. Experts have their opinions for a reason, you know.

 

[mubs]

First, it's not a she, it's a middle-aged he.

Many people I know are incredibly cheap. In a nutshell, they want a Mercedes, but are only willing to pay a Hyundai price. How do you satisfy these people? This deal (Athlon 3000XP, 256MB, 40GB Samsung, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, USB/FW, on-board audio & video) cost $250 after rebates.

This guy runs his home business with this thing now. Before he bought it, he was using a PC his friend gave him when the friend moved. A P2-266, 128MB, Win98.

Mind you, this is for a revenue-generating, profit-making situation. That's how cheap some people can be.

In May 2001, my brother wanted me to build a PC for him, no restrictions, just the best. Carefully chosen components, case quietened down with Dynamat, extra holes drilled for cooling fans, etc. It's still runs like a champ and has had no failures. Only change - did a clean install of Win XP about 2 years ago.

 

[Mercutio]

That person is an idiot.

OK, no. That person is a clueless moron. An argument against free will. A prime target for surgical castration.

See, the thing is, his "profit making home business" isn't going to be able to turn to Compaq to get support. And Mr "not a hot chick" Dickweed will then end up calling you.

And then the problems he has with it will be your fault. Not Compaq's. Just because you touched it one time. And the time you DO end up touching that machine, you feel the entirely justifiable temptation to charge more for your time than the retail cost of the hardware.

Best thing I can say for something like that is break off all contact. I've been there. I dropped the customer who tried to do that to me (I recommend new PCs, they went and bought remaindered Presarios from Radio Shack) like a bad habit.

 

[Tannin]

Most of the Medalists were excellent, Merc. Most of them. There were, in general, slowish but acceptable performers, and returned outstanding (i.e. low) failure rates. Most Medalists, reliability-wise, were in the same sort of ballpark as the better IBM drives of the same period (we are talking 500MB to around 8GB capacities here, mostly 2 up to 6).

IBM, in the same period, were a mixed bag: a few truly outstanding drives (1.08, 1.7, 2.1 and 3.2GB), mostly very-good-but-not-quite-brilliant, and a few not-particularly-good units (the 3.6GB Deskstar vomes to mind).

Which was better? Hard to say. Both model lines were head and shoulders above the other stuff about (Quantum, WD, and so on). In short, you shouldn't bad mouth Medalists.

When you get to the pox-ridden U-Series things, however, bad mouth away at your leisure. It will take a contributor of your talent and vast range of expression to do justice to the quintessential ugliness of the U-Series drives.

 

[Tannin]

Errr ... I seem to be in the wrong thread. I thought I was here.

 

[paugie]

might as well weigh in.
voted seagate down. Have RMA'd more of them than others. (not that I've built a lot but, in the little experience I've had...)