Maxtor or Western Digital Hard Drives????

[James R. DeLoach]

I was at Fry's today and noticed that they have lots of
Maxtor and Western digital drives for sale. Various sizes
and etc. The Maxtor's are cheaper and come with a
one year warranty and the Western Digital's have a 3
year warranty. I was considering a Maxtor SATA drive
but don't know anything about the reliability of Maxtor
drives. WD drives used to be great, no problems. Recently
I've used IBM drives with no problems.
Are the Maxtor drives a good buy and are they reliable?
Also how are the new SATA drives?
Regards,

James

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[Will Dormann]

I was at Fry's today and noticed that they have lots of
Maxtor and Western digital drives for sale. Various sizes
and etc. The Maxtor's are cheaper and come with a
one year warranty and the Western Digital's have a 3
year warranty. I was considering a Maxtor SATA drive
but don't know anything about the reliability of Maxtor
drives. WD drives used to be great, no problems. Recently
I've used IBM drives with no problems.
Are the Maxtor drives a good buy and are they reliable?

Everybody has their own favorites, but I've had horrible luck with
Maxtor drives, as have quite a few people that I've talked with.

Go with the Western Digital.


-WD

 

[Tom]

I have also been a WD person over the past 15+ years with no problems.
Did pick up a dead WD for a guy, I think it was an 8Gig, and WD sent me a
new 13 Gig for free.

 

[Wayne Youngman]

Everybody has their own favorites, but I've had horrible luck with
Hi,

I feel the same. I had a few Maxtors drop dead on me in the past. I have
used mainly IBM drives for the past few years, but I have just bought 2 x
WD Caviar SE SATA disks but I didn't install them yet. . .

Wayne ][

 

[Dugie]

I have also been a WD person over the past 15+ years with no problems.
Did pick up a dead WD for a guy, I think it was an 8Gig, and WD sent me a
new 13 Gig for free.

Oh oh. I just bought a Maxtor 30 G as a 2nd drive, at Future Shop, for $39
Canadian - it was a promotion, I think.
I liked the supplied MaxBlast CD installation software.

I've also had a Maxtor 20 G for 2.5 years, no problems yet.

Having WD replace that 8G was amazing.

- Dugie

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Oh oh. I just bought a Maxtor 30 G as a 2nd drive,
at Future Shop, for $39 Canadian - it was a promotion,
I think. I liked the supplied MaxBlast CD installation
software.

I've also had a Maxtor 20 G for 2.5 years, no problems yet.

Maxtor seems to have been clearing distribution channels
of its parallel ATA hard drives in the past couple months.
The price drops (with rebate) have been amazing. As for
longterm experience, I've had a 17GB 5400 rpm Maxtor
HD in my Dell for 4 1/2 years, now, with no problems
whatsoever. It is mounted on its "end", i.e. connector pins
facing up, and it is bathed on all sides by the cool air
entering the case. Maybe Dell knows something about
making HDs survive.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Will Dormann]

Everybody has their own favorites, but I've had horrible luck with
Maxtor drives, as have quite a few people that I've talked with.

Go with the Western Digital.

Let me follow up on this one....

About 9 months ago, I got an 80GB Maxtor for use in a RAID array. It
started clicking and completely failed within a month. I got a drive
as an RMA replacement. This one clicked right out of the box.

I ran the PowerMax diagnostic software and did an Advanced Test. It
found errors and "corrected" them. Since it was now "Factory
Recertified", I couldn't return it. I didn't trust it so I put it away
for a while.

About 2 months ago I built a PVR machine (MythTV). Worked fine for a
while, but lately the system has been hanging up on disk activity.
Rebooted and ran PowerMax. Sure enough, I get a message that errors
have been detected and that it has "fixed" them. And when it's done,
it says that the test has passed.

I call up Maxtor support and explain the situation. Without a
PowerMax-issued error code, they will *NOT* give me an RMA. That's very
convenient for them, since PowerMax seems to stamp any drive, failing or
not, with an A-OK Maxtor seal of approval.

Never again will I purchase or recommend Maxtor...



-WD

 

[Rod Speed]

Dugie wrote

Maxtor seems to have been clearing distribution channels
of its parallel ATA hard drives in the past couple months.
The price drops (with rebate) have been amazing. As for
longterm experience, I've had a 17GB 5400 rpm Maxtor
HD in my Dell for 4 1/2 years, now, with no problems
whatsoever. It is mounted on its "end", i.e. connector pins
facing up, and it is bathed on all sides by the cool air
entering the case. Maybe Dell knows something about
making HDs survive.

Or maybe its just another badly designed case.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Rod Speed" impugned:

Or maybe its just another badly designed case.

Shhhh.... don't disillusion the happy componenets.


*TimDaniels*

 

[Mark Leuck]

I've used Maxtor for years without any problems

I was at Fry's today and noticed that they have lots of
Maxtor and Western digital drives for sale. Various sizes
and etc. The Maxtor's are cheaper and come with a
one year warranty and the Western Digital's have a 3
year warranty. I was considering a Maxtor SATA drive
but don't know anything about the reliability of Maxtor
drives. WD drives used to be great, no problems. Recently
I've used IBM drives with no problems.
Are the Maxtor drives a good buy and are they reliable?
Also how are the new SATA drives?
Regards,

James

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[Timothy Daniels]

I've used Maxtor for years without any problems

Interesting. How good would you say the
cooling for the drives had been? How were
they cooled? Which manufacturer made the
case? Did you modify the cooling in any way?


*TimDaniels*

 

[Guest]

Interesting. How good would you say the
cooling for the drives had been? How were
they cooled? Which manufacturer made the
case? Did you modify the cooling in any way?


*TimDaniels*

I've used a lot of maxtors over the years, but they were all 5400rpm
and didn't need cooling. I've got Western digital and maxtors in my
box right now. So far I've been lucky. On the other hand, I baby
them pretty well.

I've noticed every manufacturer has a bad run of drives for awhile.

I recall this newsgroup was a lot more busy back when all the IBM
fanatics were yapping away just before IBM drives took a big dump

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I've used a lot of maxtors over the years, but they were
all 5400rpm and didn't need cooling. I've got Western
digital and maxtors in my box right now. So far I've
been lucky. On the other hand, I baby them pretty well.

I also have been using a 5400 rpm Maxtor, and it has
run for 4 1/2 yrs faultlessly. The case is a Dell Dimension,
and the more I study its construction, the more I can
see good thermal management design. So far, the only
modification that I've made in preparation for the install-
ation of two 7200 rpm DiamondMax Plus 9's has been
to remove the gratings from over the two exhaust fans
and to remove a PVC sound damper that presses on the
face of the primary drive. But with these reports of
DiamondMax failures, I may design brackets for positions
that afford better airflow over their surfaces.


*TimDaniels*

 

[Wayne Youngman]

I also have been using a 5400 rpm Maxtor, and it has
run for 4 1/2 yrs faultlessly.

Hi,

I still have a little 5GB Maxtor - 7,200rpm - 2Mb cache that must be 3-4
years old and it still works well. Strange that the later drives have been
problematic for me. I was very close to buying 2 x Maxtor Plus9 120GBs
7,200rpm - 8Mb cache drives but then my friends 3 month old disk died, put
me right off, so that why I picked up my WD-SE SATA disks. They have only
been running one week but so far so good (read: very good).

Like its been said before, any HDD can die/crash/melt/elope etc, but I'm
getting the distinct impression that Maxtor are more prone to failure than
others. Pity IBM called it a day making HDDs, I really rated their drives.
Still have 2 x Deskstar ATA/66 7,200rpm - 2MB cache units working away, 3
years old +

Wayne ][

 

[Slash]

I also have been using a 5400 rpm Maxtor, and it has
run for 4 1/2 yrs faultlessly.

Hi,

I still have a little 5GB Maxtor - 7,200rpm - 2Mb cache that must be 3-4
years old and it still works well. Strange that the later drives have been
problematic for me. I was very close to buying 2 x Maxtor Plus9 120GBs
7,200rpm - 8Mb cache drives but then my friends 3 month old disk died, put
me right off, so that why I picked up my WD-SE SATA disks. They have only
been running one week but so far so good (read: very good).

Like its been said before, any HDD can die/crash/melt/elope etc, but I'm
getting the distinct impression that Maxtor are more prone to failure than
others. Pity IBM called it a day making HDDs, I really rated their drives.
Still have 2 x Deskstar ATA/66 7,200rpm - 2MB cache units working away, 3
years old +

Wayne ][

Well, the division was bought out by Hitachi and they continue to
produce 180GXP drives which are probably more or less IBM drives with
a new label. As for future models though, it's hard to say how well
they'll perform or function.

-Slash