Are maxtor drive known to fail???

[DDC]

I got the Maxtor 6Y080P0
from the diamond max 9 series and it does strange noise when booting
it sound like a couple of "click" and it goes off after 1 or 2 secs.

I ask the question because i know someone that has the same drive but
it is a Maxtor 6Y080L0 the 2 mb cache version and he's drive just fail
on him... symptom are missing file and folder. And most of all it
doesn't pass the maxtor test...


So are maxtor drive known to fail??? And what drive should i use for
best safety and protection vs data speed transfer? Are WD good at it

And is a WD Caviar RE a good choice???

 

[Lon Leader]

All drive manufacturers drives fail. All models of drives fail. It's
only a question of percentages. I've been playing with PC's since
1978, though I guess I got my first hard drive about 1982 - it was 20
megabytes. In all that time I have only had 3 drive failures
personally, and only the first one really broke my heart. Since then I
have always had some method of backup in place. At first only for
really important files. Now I backup whole partitions to another drive
and burn really important files to DVD.

My advice - get a second (or third) harddrive and either Drive Image
or Ghost to back up your entire drive. And burn those irreplaceable
files/photos/letters to DVD occasionally.

For info on drive reliability go to www.StorageReview.com - although
you will have to give them some info on your drive in order to be able
to access their reliability pages.

 

[bowgus]

My experience ... if it's gonna fail, it'll most likely fail shortly after
purchase ... as seems happens with motherboards and so on. The solution ...
that 1-yr retailer replacement policy (why I always buy local storefront),
and that 3-yr vendor replacement warranty. I have returned one WD and one
Maxtor ... granted, that was a few years ago now. The last return was the
Maxtor (at about the 3 yrs use mark). I was told when you receive the new
one, just put the failed one in the shipping packaging and send it in ...
you can't beat that.

 

[Peter van der Goes]

I got the Maxtor 6Y080P0
from the diamond max 9 series and it does strange noise when booting
it sound like a couple of "click" and it goes off after 1 or 2 secs.

I ask the question because i know someone that has the same drive but
it is a Maxtor 6Y080L0 the 2 mb cache version and he's drive just fail
on him... symptom are missing file and folder. And most of all it
doesn't pass the maxtor test...


So are maxtor drive known to fail??? And what drive should i use for
best safety and protection vs data speed transfer? Are WD good at it

And is a WD Caviar RE a good choice???

Interesting that this should come up.
I have one of the Maxtor drives you mention. It is the replacement for a
replacement of the original drive I purchased at Best Buy some time ago. The
first drive crashed and burned (figuratively, not literally). The first
replacement, employed as a boot drive, kept corrupting the OS (no, it was
not other hardware. Once the Maxtor was replaced with a Seagate, on the
*same* hardware, all problems disappeared.). The third is doing duty as a
data-only drive storing non-critical data like DVD images, etc.
The experience I had caused me to switch to Seagate drives, which have been
super reliable for me.
You got another response that all drives fail. Absolutely true, sooner or
later.

 

[Custom Computers]

About 3 years ago I ordered a dozen 80 gig Western Digital drives. Out
of that dozen 9 were bad right out of the box. Now Western Digital
replaced the 9 and out of those only 1 has failed. They said it was a
flaw in that batch run. Haven't had any problems with there drives
since then.

I've never had a Maxtor fail, never had a Seagate fail. Have also had 1
IBM fail. But that IBM drive lasted 6 years before failing.

 

[Egil Solberg]

I got the Maxtor 6Y080P0
from the diamond max 9 series and it does strange noise when booting
it sound like a couple of "click" and it goes off after 1 or 2 secs.

I ask the question because i know someone that has the same drive but
it is a Maxtor 6Y080L0 the 2 mb cache version and he's drive just fail
on him... symptom are missing file and folder. And most of all it
doesn't pass the maxtor test...


So are maxtor drive known to fail??? And what drive should i use for
best safety and protection vs data speed transfer? Are WD good at it

And is a WD Caviar RE a good choice???

Personally I prefer to use Maxtor and I buy them over and over again. Now on
my 5. drive. No errors so far. The first drive has been spinning for 5
years, well not so much the last years as it has been relegated to a less
used PC. The 60GB D740X has been relegated as well, and serves as my local
backup drive. 2x DM9 (1,5 and 2 years old) and 1x DM 10 (10months old) run
just fine every day in my primary rig. My IBM 75GXP had a failure 2 years
ago, and therefore is relegated to serve in a less used PC after writing
zeroes to the drive. The only drive I've had that totally crapped out on me
was a Seagate Cuda ATA IV. Died instantaeously.
And yes, my 3,2 GB JTS Champion from 97 run just fine today.

For my current Maxtors I have a fan blowing fresh air on them ,they run at
24, 29 and 35 deg C. Never over 40 deg C. The D740X has survived harsher
environment upto 55 deg just fine in awkvard position, but is now horizontal
and cooler. Nothing bad to say about Maxtor so far, but it can change, and I
know that my drives will eventually crap out.

 

[DDC]

Personally I prefer to use Maxtor and I buy them over and over again. Now on
my 5. drive. No errors so far. The first drive has been spinning for 5
years, well not so much the last years as it has been relegated to a less
used PC. The 60GB D740X has been relegated as well, and serves as my local
backup drive. 2x DM9 (1,5 and 2 years old) and 1x DM 10 (10months old) run
just fine every day in my primary rig. My IBM 75GXP had a failure 2 years
ago, and therefore is relegated to serve in a less used PC after writing
zeroes to the drive. The only drive I've had that totally crapped out on me
was a Seagate Cuda ATA IV. Died instantaeously.
And yes, my 3,2 GB JTS Champion from 97 run just fine today.

For my current Maxtors I have a fan blowing fresh air on them ,they run at
24, 29 and 35 deg C. Never over 40 deg C. The D740X has survived harsher
environment upto 55 deg just fine in awkvard position, but is now horizontal
and cooler. Nothing bad to say about Maxtor so far, but it can change, and I
know that my drives will eventually crap out.

Yes other drive faild to but imoh 1 year or 1.5 year is a bit short in
time. My old western digital 40gig is older than 5 year at least, soa
good choice would be a WD for my next bought. I've read that WD caviar
series can run at 60mb/s in data transfer also that RE stand for raid
edition and intensive use. So when the drive will die my next purchase
wil be WD they are a bit expensive but it worth the price if it pass 2
year or 5 With the waranty. naaa!


Ty all.

 

[Venom]

About 3 years ago I ordered a dozen 80 gig Western Digital drives. Out
of that dozen 9 were bad right out of the box. Now Western Digital
replaced the 9 and out of those only 1 has failed. They said it was a
flaw in that batch run. Haven't had any problems with there drives
since then.

I've never had a Maxtor fail, never had a Seagate fail. Have also had 1
IBM fail. But that IBM drive lasted 6 years before failing.

I will only use Seagate now but then I like to be able to go back and find
my data exactly where I left it.

 

[Roger Hamlett]

I will only use Seagate now but then I like to be able to go back and
find
my data exactly where I left it.

All manufacturers, have had at times 'rogue' models. IBM, had the
Deskstar. Seagate, the first budget Medalist models, etc. etc.. Also
sometimes individual 'batches', can have abnormal failure rates.
WD, do seem to have had a 'batch' problem a little while ago with the
Caviar units. Most of these seem to fail 'early', being faulty either 'out
of the box', or failing in the first few weeks. Dell, were shipping these
drives in some of their units, and when the engineer came to replace them,
he fitted Samsung, or Hitachi replacements, and when quizzed about this,
said they had been seeing a high failure rate on the Caviar drives. I too
have seen quite a few of these drives fail recently in other machines.
A few years ago, the prices of IDE drives dropped so low, that the
manufacturers started to cut warranty lengths, as a way of reducing
overheads. This trend reversed, as buyers started to switch to supppliers
who still had the confidence to give a longer warranty.
Currently, Seagate, and Maxtor, give a 5 year warranty on their higher
performance IDE models, while Hitachi, Samsung, and WD, give a 3 year
warranty on their equivalent models. Of these, the highest failure rate,
does seem to be on the WD units at present...
At present, I'd choose Maxtor, or Seagate, if given the choice.

Best Wishes

 

[Bill]

I got the Maxtor 6Y080P0
from the diamond max 9 series and it does strange noise when booting
it sound like a couple of "click" and it goes off after 1 or 2 secs.

I ask the question because i know someone that has the same drive but
it is a Maxtor 6Y080L0 the 2 mb cache version and he's drive just fail
on him... symptom are missing file and folder. And most of all it
doesn't pass the maxtor test...


So are maxtor drive known to fail??? And what drive should i use for
best safety and protection vs data speed transfer? Are WD good at it

And is a WD Caviar RE a good choice???

Three failed Seagates in six months, and under their warranty, even if
you paid good money for a new drive, they send you a used
(refurbished) drive as replacement. And you will speak to a dot head
at customer non-support. Two 80 gig and one 120 gig, all with twin
fans blowing on them, one slot away from a Wd 120. Ive had one WD fail
in the last ten years, my fault, pancaked it to close with no air
flow, just fried it. Dont think I'll try seagate anymore, just what my
experience shows works.

 

[Leythos]

I have seen more maxtors go belly up than any other brand. I am WD
fanatic for years now with no failures on any Raid 0 array I have built.

The same can be said about any vendors drives, and that RAID-0 is asking
for double the chance for a loss (total loss).

The only thing that should be on a R/0 array is the data you are
processing for Video/Audio or other that requires faster performance,
after completed it should be moved to more reliable array types or other
media, even a single drive is more reliable than a RAID-0 array.

In the 20 years I've been working with hard drives, all vendors seem to
have bad runs over a period of 6 months, then a couple years of good
runs, then it comes back... It's hit or miss on which vendor at what
time.

 

[Jesys]

I will only use Seagate now but then I like to be able to go back and find
my data exactly where I left it.

I have seen more maxtors go belly up than any other brand. I am WD
fanatic for years now with no failures on any Raid 0 array I have built.

 

[Jesys]

The same can be said about any vendors drives, and that RAID-0 is asking
for double the chance for a loss (total loss).

The only thing that should be on a R/0 array is the data you are
processing for Video/Audio or other that requires faster performance,
after completed it should be moved to more reliable array types or other
media, even a single drive is more reliable than a RAID-0 array.

In the 20 years I've been working with hard drives, all vendors seem to
have bad runs over a period of 6 months, then a couple years of good
runs, then it comes back... It's hit or miss on which vendor at what
time.

Well, I always have an additional drive 'behind' my Raid 0 array.
Operating systems are ephemeral after all, ghost images are stored
redundantly on my other tower too, and a spare hard drive which is put
away.

 

[Paul H]

they are, like any other manufacturer's
I run several PCs in a small office, continually upgraded. Have used
probably 200+ HDDs over the years in my and friends PCs. I've had two
Maxtors fail, one was a replacement for the failed drive. However in both
cases their warranty service was impeccable, confirm drive faulty using
downloaded tools, get RMA, send drive off, get new (bigger - thank goodness
for technology advances) drive back. Their warranty service alone would
induce me to buy from them, if you know what I mean. I think from the
original 80GB drive, its now a 160Gb via a 120 replacement in the middle.
I've also had failures with IBM, Hitachi, Seagate and WDs. Most of my PCs
use mirrored arrays to the failure doesnt matter much, plus I do back up
from time to time so the only realistic loss will be a few emails and
changes of email address.

 

[Rob Stow]

I ran into a lot of bad drives in the DiamondMax 9 series, but
other than that Maxtor has been just another brand.

Every drive manufacturer seems to churn out a dud line of drives
once in a while - and they seldom handle it well when consumers
start complaining. I have run into similar situations with
drives from IBM, Seagate, and Fujitsu.

These days, I try to remember to only buy drives after they have
been on the market for at least three or four few months - let
other consumers be the guinea pigs.

 

[DDC]

I ran into a lot of bad drives in the DiamondMax 9 series, but
other than that Maxtor has been just another brand.

Every drive manufacturer seems to churn out a dud line of drives
once in a while - and they seldom handle it well when consumers
start complaining. I have run into similar situations with
drives from IBM, Seagate, and Fujitsu.

These days, I try to remember to only buy drives after they have
been on the market for at least three or four few months - let
other consumers be the guinea pigs.

LOL does it work that way?
Manufacturers must sell all of their production so my guess would be
taking a chance and get one drive out of a reseller and pray that the
drive is out of a good series of drive in the production...

That i can't tell so your maybe write. I think i could get a 200 gig
maxtor with the 16 mb of cache and say that it will not fail because
it out there in the resellers shop for at least 4 mount???

Are there any sign of revision number on maxtor drive or something???