New HDD Needed - Which manufacturer?

[egomeister]

Looking at new HDD's approx 250-300gb - does anyone have any tips on which manufacturers/models to look at or avoid?

Drive will be a standard IDE, possibly used in conjunction with a netgear NAS.

[GregE240]

Have just bought an external Western Dig 250GB and its silent.

Recommended.

[Plotloss]

Never had any issue with IBM Hitachi.

[pdV6]

I've never had a WD Caviar fail on me.
Have had a few IBM/Hitachis die on me.
Currently got a couple of Seagate Barracudas on the go - no problems so far but only had them for a year or so.

[docevi1]

everyone has different opinions and there are always bad apples in the bunch.

For example, 4 or 5 years ago I swore by Maxtor but their reputation has disappeared recently after a number of bad failures. IBM came up with the Deskstar (or something similar) where the head reader would regularly fail...

I have a Seagate baracuda at the minute and it's fine, but then it is 2 years old so things may have changed...

[zumbruk]

docevi1 said:

everyone has different opinions and there are always bad apples in the bunch. For example, 4 or 5 years ago I swore by Maxtor but their reputation has disappeared recently after a number of bad failures. IBM came up with the Deskstar (or something similar) where the head reader would regularly fail...

Hence it's nickname of "Deathstar".

[Plotloss]

zumbruk said:

docevi1 said: everyone has different opinions and there are always bad apples in the bunch. For example, 4 or 5 years ago I swore by Maxtor but their reputation has disappeared recently after a number of bad failures. IBM came up with the Deskstar (or something similar) where the head reader would regularly fail... Hence it's nickname of "Deathstar".

I've now got 13 of them and have never had so much as an ActiveSMART warning though.

Its curious, I suppose the volumes that all disks are shipped in means that some of any brand will fail.

Mind you, that said, Maxtor do seem to be almost universally disliked.

[Podie]

Maxstor? :shudder:

[victormeldrew]

Fujitsu. Generally regarded as THE most reliable HDD available.

[aldi]

I'd go for either a Maxtor MaxLineIII (5 year warranty) or a Seagate 7200.9 (3 year) personally, the seagate is quieter but the maxtor has the longer warranty and a '1 million hour' MTBF. I'd stay away from the Maxtor DiamondMax 10's, i've seen quite a few dead ones recently!

[rsvmilly]

zumbruk said:

docevi1 said: everyone has different opinions and there are always bad apples in the bunch. For example, 4 or 5 years ago I swore by Maxtor but their reputation has disappeared recently after a number of bad failures. IBM came up with the Deskstar (or something similar) where the head reader would regularly fail... Hence it's nickname of "Deathstar".

I had a 60 and a 40 die on me within a month.

I prefer the WD drives as they are fast amd quiet

[squirrelz]

I've only had 2 IBM/Hitachi drives, and they've both had to be replaced due to failure. Got mainly seagates and samsungs now. I did once kill a seagate cheetah 10k rpm SCSI drive when I dropped a screwdriver onto the controller board while it was powered on. £500 worth of HD turned to scrap in an instant :-(

[mr_yogi]

like docevi1 said they can all fail and everyone has there horror stories

I've got 3 maxtors (2 are 2 yrs old and 1 is 1 yr old) which are fine (touch wood), a couple of Deskstars (about 6 years old) also going strong the only problem was a 10Gb Quantum fireball which failed last year after 7 years of service

As I remember where I worked in 1998 we had a strong dislike of WD Caviars

[polus]

My experiences with hard disks over the last 6 years.

- IBM/Hitachi - Wouldnt touch with a barge pole. Had 4, all died within 6 months.
- Maxtors - had 3 (15GB and 2x 60GB). 2 failed and the bearings were going in the 3rd so I got rid.
- Seagate - had/have 3 (120GB x 3 and 400GB x 1) been hammered for 2 1/2 years (400GB - 6 months) and one failed, sent back and received one that works
- WD - had two, they refuse to die! great disks but they started of silent then I had to sell them due to the ever increaseing noise.

In summery Id recommend Seagate. The 400GB is fairly quiet and runs 24/7 in my server... If your going to rape your disks like I do (intensive usage and have them on 24/7), make sure the warrenty is 3 or 5 years. I would also look on storagereview.com's reliability database.

>> Edited by polus on Monday 22 May 19:02

[paulie-mafia]

I've got a couple of the Porsche-designed Lacie drives - 80Gb and 160Gb. One of them has been on pretty much 24/7 for the past 2 years and it's still going stong.

[viper_larry]

Samsung Spinpoint P120 - 250Gb HDD, just won the PC Pro 'Labs Winner' award.

OK, so this is a SATA drive, but I've got 2 IDE versions in my old PC and never had a problem. In fact, I was so pleased with the quietness of them, I upgraded the Sky+ box with one and again no issues.

Great value, fast and very quiet.

[pjskel]

SAMSUNG!
Alternatively WD Caviar

Fujitsu don't make 3.5" any more (in a hell of a long time actually)
Maxstor - cheap for a reason
Seagate - never used, but haven't heard much positive about them in a very long time
Hitachi (since taking over from IBM) - seem decent enough. Neither outstanding on noise nor reliability - just okay

>> Edited by pjskel on Monday 22 May 23:57

[warmfuzzies]

Maxtor, no failures yet
Seagate, no failures yet
WD caviar, 7 years old, still running
IBM deskstars, 6 all failed inside 15 months, never again.

Kevin

[polus]

warmfuzzies said:

IBM deskstars, 6 all failed inside 15 months, never again. Kevin

They didnt nickname them 'IBM deathstars' for no reason

[victormeldrew]

pjskel said:

SAMSUNG! ... Fujitsu don't make 3.5" any more (in a hell of a long time actually) ...

Someone ought to tell 'em - Fujitsu