Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

**stevo1210** · 06-11-2009, 05:37 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Some Seagate 7200.11 drives have firmware issues which make the HDD unrecognizable after a period of time (has happened to me), a firmware update solves the issue providing you aren't too late to do it. The new 7200.12 Seagate drives seem sound and OK from what I know.

Hitachi also makes good HDDs from hwat I've heard. I have 1 Hitachi 60GB ATA drive from 2000 and it's still kicking well after all these years and hours of use. Have you had a look at Hitachi yet?

**PCBONEZ** · 06-11-2009, 06:05 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

I had a client's WD5000AAKS die.
It was in one of those 'My Book' things.

I've been using WD models with 5 year warranties for a couple years now with no problems.
Should also mention that until recently I didn't do drives over 250GB at all.
Still don't except on my wife's media server and I've kept that to 500Gb.
[Who cares if you loose some movies? - Not me.]

I use Toshiba, IBM, or Seagate in Laptops.
No problems there either.
.

**PCBONEZ** · 06-11-2009, 06:06 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Hitachi = IBM = Death Star.
They may be better now but I have no motivation to find out.

**stevo1210** · 06-11-2009, 06:37 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Originally posted by PCBONEZ

Hitachi = IBM = Death Star.

I'm amazed by this, and probably most of you might be as well. I am the owner of an *ahem* deathstar. A 40GB IDE Deathstar to be prcise. It is dated November 2001. Has been used since new until now. It is in my main PC which is switched on for 18 hours a day (multiply that by 365 and then again by 8 years) and it still works. I am amazed.... I've been willing to see how long it takes to become a "death" star.

**kc8adu** · 06-11-2009, 09:26 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

the real deathstars were 60 and 75 gxp series.

**bgavin** · 06-11-2009, 10:02 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

I was using Seagate 7200.x for a long time, until I started seeing a high rate of early death.

I'm now placing WDC Caviar Black drives, which also have a 5 year warranty.

The WD "MyBook" drive is pure shit.
I had to open one to attempt data recovery. Failed.
This device is not intended to be opened for service, because doing so mars the plastic when you muscle it apart.
It is a one-way ticket.

The internal drive was a WD RE3 sata type.
It died with the usual recalibration clicking. I suspect the user dropped it with power up.

**NxB** · 06-11-2009, 11:27 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

I've seen a couple WD5000s fail. My WD drives are all still fine, I've only ever sent one back, ages ago. I've had good luck with HDs, knock on wood. Seagate has also been working fine for me.

**PCBONEZ** · 06-11-2009, 01:51 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

WD5000___ what?
WD5000 just says Western Digital 500Gb.
It's the ___ that tells you what the actual model is.
Different ___ will have different warranty lengths.

The My Book -was- hard to get apart without marking it up but I managed.
Had to know if it was the drive or the USB interface was mucked up so I needed to connect the drive directly to a SATA interface. [Same situation as bgavin I think.]
- It was the drive.
You have to put them back together and make it look like you didn't tamper because WD only warranties the whole unit. The drive by itself isn't warrantied at all and an RMA request won't process through their system. The SN on the box [unit] tells WD what the SN of the drive inside is supposed to be.
-
AS soon as the client knew she'd lost it all she ran out and bought the 750Gb version.
-> No Brain -> Future Pain.
She gave me the dead one and at first I was just going to put a new drive in it but then I found out it had 2 weeks left on the warranty so I RMA'ed it and got a new one free.
- Which I don't trust and is still in the box it came in.
As a receipt inspection I poked a small hole in the factory anti-stat bag so I could connect it and at least make sure it runs and it worked fine.
Then it went right back in the box and I never got around to selling it.
- Anyone want one?

I myself have been looking for a laptop drive at around 80-100Gb+ that pulls <0.5 amps so I can use it on a 'single' USB port without an AC adapter.
Don't care if it's SATA or PATA but want 5400 or 7200 RPM.
Just started looking but if anyone knows of a model the info would be appreciated.

.

**NxB** · 06-11-2009, 03:03 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Various WD5000s, mostly were from USB enclosures. Just remember they were 500g and WD.

**KeriJane** · 06-11-2009, 08:31 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Originally posted by Krankshaft

Man I haven't had so many problems with hard drives in the last 15 years then I've had in the last year.

The drive in question was a Western Digital WD5000AAKS purchased late 07. This computer wasn't even on 24/7 I put it in sleep mode during times of non use.

So I'm going to need to get a new drive tomorrow and I don't feel comfortable getting another WD.

Any comments on a reliable drive maker? Maybe Seagate?

I haven't had this many HDD problems in such a short time span since the quantum bigfoots

.

Hi Krankshaft....

ALL of the major brands are "Good". Well, mostly. Except for a few isolated mistakes like the infamous Deathstar and Seagate's 7200.11 fiasco. If company made nothing but garbage, it would be out of business in a hurry.

If you're having a recent rash of Hard Drive failures, it's probably not the Hard Drive's fault. Why?

Because Hard Drives have little or no capacitors or inductors and hence little protection from power supply trouble. Often, only the Hard Drive will fail because the Motherboard has a lot of protection in the way of Caps and Inductors and the Optical Drive is usually not being used or it may sustain unnoticed damage.

Maybe it's time to get an Oscilloscope and see what your Power Supply is feeding those Hard Drives. At least open up the PSU and look around for.... BadCaps!

What I have found is that a failed Hard Drive often ends up as a symptom of bulging caps in the PSU. I repaired one a few month ago. The Fuhjyyu caps in the Antec PSU blew and took out the Hitachi secondary Hard Drive. Fortunately, the Samsung primary Hard Drive survived. (both on the same SATA power harness)

You could infer that maybe Samsung holds up to Ripple abuse better from this incident I suppose, but it's better to reduce the Ripple than buy tougher Hard Drives.

Good Luck,
Keri

PS. I've had great luck with WD, Hitachi, and Samsung. The only Hitachi failure was the Fuhjyyu victim. I've seen some really high-hour WDs fail (got a flakeyone right now, running since 2001) or seize due to rough handling when running.
Seagate and Maxtors seem to be hotter and more trouble prone to me but they can't be that bad.

My Advice? Get a WD Caviar Black. It's really fast and has those tough features like bearings at top and bottom, heads that never touch the platter (even when off) and wow, does it run cool.

**bgavin** · 06-11-2009, 09:06 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

I'm very impressed with Caviar Black, specifically the 640gb model. I'm placing them like crazy in client installations.

The WD MyBook is sure a joke... glad PCB.. was able to open better than I did. I cheated... checked to make sure it was out of warranty first, the opened with enough force as required. Shitty, shitty design. One-way ticket, for sure.

The RE3 went tick, tick, tick and off to Recalibration Purgatory when connected to my recovery machine. Oh well.. < klunk .. sound of P.O.S. hitting the bin >
I wouldn't own a MyBook on a bet. I hate toss-out gear.

**acstech** · 06-11-2009, 09:37 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Keri, I've had quite a few Samsung failures lately. Mostly the 200 and 250GB drives, both OEM and Spinpoint P series. It usually happens after about a year. It will show up under "system" in the event viewer as a disk error 11. Eventually the machine won't run normally anymore and I get called. Usually a chkdsk /f from the test computer fixes it long enough that I can clone it to a different drive.

I'm rapidly beginning to think that there's no safe bet when it comes to hard drives any more.

Edit: Lately I've been using WD, for what it's worth.

**KeriJane** · 06-11-2009, 09:39 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Hi bgavin

If you hate throw-away stuff, then you'll love LaCie external drives.

LaCie external drives like the Quadra D2 and 2 Big Triple (I have both) are American made (or at least assembled) Tanks.

The Quadra D2 has four interfaces- USB2, Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and eSATA. The housing is a very solid feeling aluminum one and the power brick and cables (all four are included) are all very high quality.

The 2 Big Triple has a triple interface, USB2, FW 400 and FW800. The cooling fan is temperature controlled so it only comes on when needed, and only as fast as needed. Again, the power brick and all cables are included and high quality. Also the solid aluminum is just that. Solid.

The only downside? LaCie's choice of drive vendors. Both of mine came with noisy and hot running Seagate 7200.10's .

Replacing the Seagates with larger WD GreenPower and Samsung EcoPower drives reduced noise and brought the temperatures way down.

Where can you find these USA drives that are totally opposite the cheesy plastic MyBooks? In the Apple department!
You can often get them on sale when newer, bigger ones come out. Just reformat them to your favorite Windows format and Presto!

Have Fun,
Keri

**momaka** · 06-11-2009, 11:01 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Originally posted by stevo1210

I'm amazed by this, and probably most of you might be as well. I am the owner of an *ahem* deathstar. A 40GB IDE Deathstar to be prcise. It is dated November 2001. Has been used since new until now. It is in my main PC which is switched on for 18 hours a day (multiply that by 365 and then again by 8 years) and it still works. I am amazed.... I've been willing to see how long it takes to become a "death" star.

I have 2 IBM Deaskstars as well, a DTLA 305030 and DTLA 307020 (aka 40GV and 75GXP). The first one came with an older HP Pavilion computer with a Lite-ON PSU (all caps by Rubycon and Panasonic). As of now, it has 20 bad sectors (had 19 when I got it a month ago), 19 Pending Sectors, and 30 in the Reallocated Event Count (none of those are good). That's only with 22k hours of on time, and 2600 cycle counts. How much life it still has I don't know, but I'm still using it.
The other Deskstar I haven't ran in more than a year, but I remember it used to beep-restart (that shutdown noise) every once in a while, so it probably has some bad sectors too.
My sister has a Travelstar in her laptop with ~15 bad sectors and 100k hours of on time. Still runs good as well.
I guess these hard drives handle bad sectors pretty well. The fact that they are there, though, means that the drives are going bad. That's why, I'd strongly recommend you use HDTune or Disk Checkup or some other software to read the SMART data. It will give you a clear idea of how your drive is doing.

As for new drives, I haven't really had any (most of my computers are junk), but I heard the new Deskstars are much better. Actually my mom had a Lenovo T40-something laptop with a Hitachi HD. Lasted a good 5 years with medium abuse before her workplace changed the laptops.

**zandrax** · 06-12-2009, 05:52 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

No good name here, momaka: every brand cycles good drives with bad units.
Seagate is having some trouble with 7200.11's firmware and .12's disappointing performance; Hitachi failed with the 7K500 series, now I hear few complaints about the 7K1000s; WD Green Power drives, mainly the 500 GB AAKS and AACS ones, fail with clicking noise (recalibration issue); Samsung F1 owners faced silent data corruption, etc.

Get the drive you can afford (a WD Caviar Black or an Hitachi 7K1000) and backup your data on different media (e.g. external hard disk and DVDs, tapes if you can afford the unit): backup is your insurance against hard disk failures.

Zandrax

**zandrax** · 06-12-2009, 06:41 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Edit: double post.

**Scenic** · 06-12-2009, 08:18 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Originally posted by Krankshaft

I haven't had this many HDD problems in such a short time span since the quantum bigfoots

.

*ahem*

still going strong. all of them.
middle one is one of the last ones ever made... 20GB

IMHO they should bring out drives like this again..

you know... fast 3.5" drives as system/software/blah drives and HUUUGE but not so fast 5.25" drives for storage..

if they can squeeze 2TB (or what limit they are at now) onto a 3.5" drive, imagine what size 5.25" drives would be..

4TB? 6? 8? omg..

**bgavin** · 06-12-2009, 11:45 AM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Originally posted by KeriJane

Hi bgavin, If you hate throw-away stuff, then you'll love LaCie external drives.

LaCie external drives like the Quadra D2 and 2 Big Triple (I have both) are American made (or at least assembled) Tanks.

Hey...

I've been using Venus external USB chassis with great success. These take an IDE (only) drive, two screws to pop out the internal chassis. The neat thing on Venus boxes is the laterally adjustable Molex power connector. This lets you accomodate any IDE drive, as they all have different spacing.

I have to service a very wide range of machines, so USB is the interface of choice. I hope Venus releases external boxes for SATA drives, with a USB interface. I'm finding IDE drives much harder to buy on Newegg.

**pentium** · 06-12-2009, 04:38 PM

Re: Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

I'll add on to this as well with my own dilema.

I have never really shopped for hard drives (mostly found them) and I'm looking for two 1tb hard drives.
I found these. Not only are they really cheap but it's local.

Massive link is massive

I didn't really know Hitachi was still in the hard drive business. I was planning to go for Seagates but at that price this is tempting but how reliable are 1tb Hitachi drives?
I would prefer not to get drives to store all my data, only for them to die a year or so later.

Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

Hard Drive Brand Recommendation

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