Good Quality Hard Drive To Buy ?????

[Ruth Cory]

I need a *good* quality hard drive. I bought a West Dig. 120 Gig about a
year ago. Then I bought a 2nd W-D 120 Gig. The 2nd 120 Gig W-D 'croaked' the
first day. So I was able to get W-D to replace it okay. My 2nd 120 Gig West.
Dig. ALSO croaked! I called W-D and they say they can't honor the warantee,
'cuz I was unable to find my bill of sale (although I KNOW it was only about
6 months old)!

So I DON'T WANT any more $@#*& Western Digital hard drives - for sure! In
fact I have a 3rd Western Digital 160 Gig that I probably ALSO am going to
replace - and SELL that thing *cheap* on e-Bay! Its either that or I'll wait
(all puckered up) for the thing to crash & die.

Does anybody know what brand of hard dirve is VERY good - that is RELIABLE
??? - Thanks (simon)

 

[kony]

I need a *good* quality hard drive. I bought a West Dig. 120 Gig about a
year ago. Then I bought a 2nd W-D 120 Gig. The 2nd 120 Gig W-D 'croaked' the
first day. So I was able to get W-D to replace it okay. My 2nd 120 Gig West.
Dig. ALSO croaked! I called W-D and they say they can't honor the warantee,
'cuz I was unable to find my bill of sale (although I KNOW it was only about
6 months old)!

That sounds like abnormally bad luck, or potentially a heat,
power supply, or rough/abusive handling problem somewhere
between factory and installation. If it is, you may find that
no make of drive is immune.

On the other hand, the WD 120GB ball-bearing drives shouldn't be
anyone's choice anymore, since their performance is bested by
other makes and/or other WD drives, plus they're louder.
Although, by this point perhaps stores have stock of the
liquid-bearing version? IMHO, there's no reason to buy a
ball-bearing drive today unless it's dirt-cheap.

So I DON'T WANT any more $@#*& Western Digital hard drives - for sure! In
fact I have a 3rd Western Digital 160 Gig that I probably ALSO am going to
replace - and SELL that thing *cheap* on e-Bay! Its either that or I'll wait
(all puckered up) for the thing to crash & die.

Does anybody know what brand of hard dirve is VERY good - that is RELIABLE
??? - Thanks (simon)

My WD drives are running fine, I would not hesitate to buy
another if reliability were the only issue. However, it's
certainly you choice, nothing wrong with choosing a different
brand either. I like Maxtor too but many people have had their
Maxtors fail, so essentially what it boils down to is a
popularity contest, that no matter what brand you'll find someone
reporting high failures, so whoever happens to be participating
in any given forum on any given day will effect which drives seem
most reliable.

However, Seagate has recently switching to 5 year warranty on
some of their drives (perhaps all?) and they're also nice and
quiet, so the drive du jour is Seagate.

An alternate approach might be looking in local newspaper and
buying whichever offer lowest price, and buying a pair of drives
so you have redundancy... not a bad idea since you seem to be
having high failure rate for whatever the reason.

 

[MCheu]

I need a *good* quality hard drive. I bought a West Dig. 120 Gig about a
year ago. Then I bought a 2nd W-D 120 Gig. The 2nd 120 Gig W-D 'croaked' the
first day. So I was able to get W-D to replace it okay. My 2nd 120 Gig West.
Dig. ALSO croaked! I called W-D and they say they can't honor the warantee,
'cuz I was unable to find my bill of sale (although I KNOW it was only about
6 months old)!

So I DON'T WANT any more $@#*& Western Digital hard drives - for sure! In
fact I have a 3rd Western Digital 160 Gig that I probably ALSO am going to
replace - and SELL that thing *cheap* on e-Bay! Its either that or I'll wait
(all puckered up) for the thing to crash & die.

Does anybody know what brand of hard dirve is VERY good - that is RELIABLE
??? - Thanks (simon)

I have to wonder if it's maybe something in your system or the
operating environment that's kind of hard on the drives. I've always
used Maxtor and WD drives, until recently when everybody dropped their
warranties down to a year except WD. No problems, I've got a 4 year
old 40Gig Maxtor that's still running fine, along with a slightly
newer 80Gig WD, and a fairly recent 120Gig WD hanging off of a 2nd
controller.

As for the receipt situation, you can't really fault them for
requiring a receipt. You must have known that when you bought it that
you'd need it for warranty service. About the only thing these days
that you wouldn't need a receipt for warranty work is a gun, and
there's still quite a bit of paperwork involved there. If you can't
find it, I'd suggest you go back to the store that you bought it from
and see if they can issue you a copy of the receipt. Assuming you
gave a real name when you bought it, they might be able to help you.

The only other company that's offering 3 year warranties at the home
user level that I can think of is Seagate. I can't comment about
their quality one way or the other, as I've haven't used a Seagate
drive in years.

 

[S.Heenan]

That sounds like abnormally bad luck, or potentially a heat,
power supply, or rough/abusive handling problem somewhere
between factory and installation. If it is, you may find that
no make of drive is immune.

On the other hand, the WD 120GB ball-bearing drives shouldn't be
anyone's choice anymore, since their performance is bested by
other makes and/or other WD drives, plus they're louder.
Although, by this point perhaps stores have stock of the
liquid-bearing version? IMHO, there's no reason to buy a
ball-bearing drive today unless it's dirt-cheap.


My WD drives are running fine, I would not hesitate to buy
another if reliability were the only issue. However, it's
certainly you choice, nothing wrong with choosing a different
brand either. I like Maxtor too but many people have had their
Maxtors fail, so essentially what it boils down to is a
popularity contest, that no matter what brand you'll find someone
reporting high failures, so whoever happens to be participating
in any given forum on any given day will effect which drives seem
most reliable.

However, Seagate has recently switching to 5 year warranty on
some of their drives (perhaps all?) and they're also nice and
quiet, so the drive du jour is Seagate.

An alternate approach might be looking in local newspaper and
buying whichever offer lowest price, and buying a pair of drives
so you have redundancy... not a bad idea since you seem to be
having high failure rate for whatever the reason.

I, like Kony, use both WD and Seagate hard drives. The newer 2004 versions
of the WD 800JB and WD1200JB are quiet and perform well. The Seagate
Barracuda IV,V and 7200.7 Plus series are among the most quiet hard drives
available. With Seagate raising theor warranty to 5 years effective late
July, 2004, I'm even more likely to keep buying them.

Either you've had really bad luck with WD products or your power supply is
hosing them. Give strong consideration to swapping it out before installing
any new hardware.

 

[Noozer]

Is there a build date stamped on the drive? They can't claim it's too old if
it was built less than the warranty length. Also, how did you RMA the first
drive without the reciept... and tell them you didn't buy the drive, it was
a warranty replacement so there is no receipt.

 

[John Oliver]

I need a *good* quality hard drive.

This is practically religious war territory... Everybody has a
different opinion. And the "good" maufacturer changes over time.

Back in '95-'96, I remember Western Digital was the drive to get. Then,
they started to turn out crap. Seagates and Quantums had their turn in
the barrel. IBMs were the disk for a while, until they had some
spectacular problems. I started using Maxtors in '00 or '01 after the
San Diego Supercomputing Center chose them for a bunch of new
machines... I read the paper where they talked about their criteria and
test results. I'm still partial to Maxtors, as I've had good luck with
them. But, within the past couple of years or so, Western Digital was
"the" disk to get again.

In the grand scheme of things, I really don't think it makes much
difference, as long as there isn't a known issue with a line of disks
(like the IBM situation). Seagate offers a 5 year warranty on their
disks now. Is that because they're that much more confident in their
quality, or because they figure the apparent boost in confidence will
result in more sales than people who will RMA bad disks? I don't know.
I'm buying a new system that was quoted with a Seagate disk next week,
and will probably go with the vendors recommendation.

 

[Ken]

However, Seagate has recently switching to 5 year warranty on
some of their drives (perhaps all?) and they're also nice and
quiet, so the drive du jour is Seagate.

Yes, Seagate make very good drives now.

 

[Duddits]

In the grand scheme of things, I really don't think it makes much
difference, as long as there isn't a known issue with a line of disks
(like the IBM situation). Seagate offers a 5 year warranty on their
disks now. Is that because they're that much more confident in their
quality, or because they figure the apparent boost in confidence will
result in more sales than people who will RMA bad disks? I don't know.
I'm buying a new system that was quoted with a Seagate disk next week,
and will probably go with the vendors recommendation.

Chrysler had a huge quality problem back in the 80's. What did they do?
Offer a good warranty. Nothing to do with the quality of the cars but it
did help build consumer confidence.


regards

Dud

 

[Ruth Cory]

Is there a build date stamped on the drive? They can't claim it's too old if
it was built less than the warranty length. Also, how did you RMA the first
drive without the reciept... and tell them you didn't buy the drive, it was
a warranty replacement so there is no receipt.

Yep, there WAS a build date on that drive. It was Jan of 2003 as I
recollect. So that meant I *couldn't* insist that my drive WASN'T over a
year old 'cuz of the build date.

As to that first bad hard drive (also 120 Gig) I'd waited about 2 months to
even try using the thing. So at that time I'd *had* the sense to keep my
bill-of-sale where I could locate it! Thus it was no problemo for me to
prove the thinng *wasn't* past the warrantee period. Also the FIRST bad hard
drive (both were 120 gigs) was a THREE YEAR warrantee job! So the W-D *$#@
guys could NOT tell me my drive was "out of warantee pal".

By the by, I just ordered a Seagate 80 Gig drive romNewegg for about $83,
and I'm pretty pleaesed about THAT - for sure. As one of the other guys
(here) informed me, the SEAGATE company puts a 5 YEAR warrantee on *their*
drives, which is AOK!

Thanks to ALL of you Food Guys - for giving me decent advice, so I could buy
a new drive. Last thing I 'need' is have an 'important' drive crap-out & be
forced to go downtown to grab the first "bargain" crap-ola drive I come
across!

- bob

 

[S.Heenan]

As to that first bad hard drive (also 120 Gig) I'd waited about 2
months to even try using the thing. So at that time I'd *had* the
sense to keep my bill-of-sale where I could locate it! Thus it was no
problemo for me to prove the thinng *wasn't* past the warrantee
period. Also the FIRST bad hard drive (both were 120 gigs) was a
THREE YEAR warrantee job! So the W-D *$#@ guys could NOT tell me my
drive was "out of warantee pal".

By the by, I just ordered a Seagate 80 Gig drive romNewegg for about
$83, and I'm pretty pleaesed about THAT - for sure. As one of the
other guys (here) informed me, the SEAGATE company puts a 5 YEAR
warrantee on *their* drives, which is AOK!

Even if the hard drive had a 25 year warranty, you should be doing regular
backups to CD or DVD. Assume every hard drive will die, at a very bad time,
which they usually do. Keeping this in mind, creating regular backups
becomes a habit.