current status on HDDs?

[kikkoman]

Re: current status on HDDs?

seagate is currently downgrading all consumer drives to 3yrs warranty (effective from january 3 2009).
their excuse: "95% of returns happen within 2 years anyway". nice way of saying that you're producing crap that fails after less than 2 years.
what a bunch of cheap bastards. no more seagate for me. their RMA process is easy, but i want a good drive, not a good RMA process.

WD still offers 5yrs on a couple of drives (caviar black and above), and hitachi on the 7k1000 and 7k1000b series.
the hitachis are decently priced, so i might try my luck with them. i still remember their deathstar fiasco, but i'm pretty sure they did their homework.

shipping is no problem here. i either buy locally or from alternate who do a good packaging job.

yeah, old drives in the up to 20gb range were extremely reliable. i still have a 5.25" quantum bigfoot 4gb drive... what a beast. it has a small window in the case so you can see the heads working.

[Junk Parts]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Does anyone remember the Fujitzu 10 drives? I had two of these on an AMD K6/2 450Mhz system years ago. They were fast for their day. Mine died one right after the other. Now I find that back during that time they made a pile of messed up drives over at Fujitzu. Oh well...the past is the past.

[Scenic]

Re: current status on HDDs?

well... after the desaster with Fujitsus MPG Series HDDs they went out of business for Desktop HDDs...
but they still made notebook drives for some time after that AFAIR..

i still have a 40GB Fujitsu MPG3409AH drive here as a negative example...
i'm gonna search my microphone and record what this POS does when powered up...

i can't imagine what i would've done or thought if it was a drive with important data on it and all of a sudden it died like this (meaning back in the days when those were new)

i'll post the recording later...

[Scenic]

Re: current status on HDDs?

http://bambooz.pytalhost.net/badcaps...u_MPG_40GB.mp3

[Junk Parts]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Thats what my Fujitzu's sounded like after they had died!

[Per Hansson]

Re: current status on HDDs?

otoh, i know of at least few cases where kicking the hdd(while being on) actually made them work(when they stopped to respond during operation)...but that is more like a curiosity...

You keep on kicking your harddrives, all the best of luck!

who the hell said i was doing it? gosh

So sorry I got the idea you where kicking the drives around, I must not be awake properly

[i4004]

Re: current status on HDDs?

>http://bambooz.pytalhost.net/badcap...su_MPG_40GB.mp3

it goes
klok-klok-klok...

it seems it can't find something its looking for.

lol!

good recording there...

[bgavin]

Re: current status on HDDs?

When WD was having their troubles, I went to Seagate. This was fine for several years, but I noticed an increasing number of Seagate failures. This is confirmed by the substantial number of Newegg negative feedbacks. I look at the percentages, and the Seagates had climbed substantially.

The show stopper for Seagate is their terrible RMA policy. They refuse to cross ship with a credit card. I have to wait weeks for the RMA process to complete, only to get a refurbished drive in return. WD allows for a warranty cross ship, secured by a credit card. It is entirely online, and totally painless.

They expire the warranty also. If you bought a new drive with a 5 year warranty and it died in a month, you get a refurb and no warranty. Screw that.

HP quietly changed their printer warranties from 3 years to 1 for the same reason. Most HP printers I've owned failed less than 3 years, and HP had to make good on the warranty. Now they do not.

[Per Hansson]

Re: current status on HDDs?

I can beat your HDD noise
I read this online long ago;
"We got a new failed component in today at the RMA dept, description read; "no dialtone" when we opened up the package there was a harddrive inside!"

Well, all is well because I found the harddrive for them
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1460808443
(Increase the volume, the recording is kinda low, and yea, it was made by me a few years ago, think it was some 40gig drive, don't remember the make)

[Scenic]

Re: current status on HDDs?

sounds like one of those old WDs with a stuck head (they "glued" themself onto the platters if the drive wasn't used for some time..)
that noise is the spindle motor trying to start up..

[i4004]

Re: current status on HDDs?

>that noise is the spindle motor trying to start up..

yes, it never starts...

[gg1978]

Re: current status on HDDs?

I remember the MPG series from Fujitsu, had one 40G come in, failed to be recognized by BIOS.. They still make Laptop and SCSI/SAS drives though, and those are quite awesome.. I"ve got a 36G Fuji MAS and a 36G Fuji MAX series SCSI drive, they used to be in my gaming box when i had a full ATX chassis.. Now since my main box is MicroATX, i don't have room for them anymore.. So they're in a dual Opteron box i use for VM's.. VM's love fast disk storage..

[Gianni]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Listening at Scenic registration made me think to the old HD (oct '97) I use as load or to test old PC: it is a 830MB Conner and it makes a lot of strange sounds when it is working... do you think it makes noise because there is Win ME installed?
I attach here a picture showing it from 3 side.

I have not great experience like most of you but I wrote what I saw till now:

1) I have saw a lot of PC with dead Quantum Fireball ranging from 4GB ~ 13GB
The first Quantum was on my sister PC back in '86 IIRC. It died suddenly and nothing could be recovered.

2) I had 2 Samsung: 20GB and 40GB. I have used them for 6 years and they never gave me problems. I gave them to my brother and he is still using them.

3) I have seen a good number of Maxtor damaged or dead when I helped a friend who has a small PC shop. Probably I saw them because they were the most sold because cheaper respect to other brands.

The last one I replaced was on my PC, it was a 40GB PATA slim that gave me some problems, it was my system HD. I bought a WD 80GB and I replaced the Maxtor and till now my OS works without problem at all.
By the way, the 40GB was very hot when it was working, I think it was more than 60°C.

Now probably it is time for SS HD, but we have to wait becasue they are still expensive. I don't know if they will be more reliable than mechanical HD.
Ok no objects moving/running, but judging on the failure rate I have with pen drives, I am not so hopeful.

Ciao
Gianni

P.S.: I was wrong, the last one was probably killed by PSU.

[Scenic]

Re: current status on HDDs?

those conner HDDs were usually OK...

not fast, but quite reliable...

and every single conner HDD makes strange noises.. thats just normal for them

had a lot of Conner CFS420 and CFS540 HDDs here back in the days..

i still own 2 of them...
those are my test and PSU dummy load HDDs...
they don't seem to care how hard you abuse them (they survived several noname and deer gutless ripple-wonders...)

[PCBONEZ]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Lets see,,,, as I recall....
Conner bought by Quantum..
Quantum bought by Maxtor..
Maxtor bought by Seagate..

[gg1978]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Actually i think Seagate bought Connor back around '95 or '96..

I remember some 1.xG HDD's by Seagate that looked like remarked Connors.. First cmputer my dad bought was a 486/33 with 4M of ram, had a 170M Connor HDD in it.. Probably still works, if i could dig it up..

[gg1978]

Re: current status on HDDs?

I did see an old Quantum HDD that had one of the heads quite literally bonded to the platter, as it ripped the head right off its suspension.. Then the wickedly sharp spring loaded part scratched the hell out of that platter... I've seen a few other head crashes, but that was by far the worst..

[gg1978]

Re: current status on HDDs?

As for the first hard drive that i ever bought brand new, it was a Seagate Medalist Pro ST36451A, when UDMA/33 had just come out.. Bought it from Tigerdirect, as i recall, it was either $239 or $249 for the 6.4G HDD.. Still works too..

[acstech]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Heh, first one I bought was a 400MB Connor for my old 486 machine.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: current status on HDDs?

Actually i think Seagate bought Connor back around '95 or '96..

I remember some 1.xG HDD's by Seagate that looked like remarked Connors..

That's probably right. I remember the characteristic vacu-formed like shape.
I still have a 420MB (I think it is) one of those that works last I checked.

First cmputer my dad bought was a 486/33 with 4M of ram, had a 170M Connor HDD in it.. Probably still works, if i could dig it up..

I still have the drive from the first (and only) store-bought brand new PC I ever bought. Was a 486/66 Packard Hell. (typo intended) The drive is a 540MB Maxtor. Still use it when I want DOS for something. Works perfectly.

.