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Rank hard drive manufacturers in order of awesomeness
- Thread starter sprsk
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LinesInTheSand
Banned
Maxtor
fennec fox
ferrets ferrets ferrets ferrets FERRETS!!!
All hard drives may fail, but I've bought nothing but WDs for the past few years and have had no big surprises.
(I don't consider a hard drive failing after 4 years a surprise, though, so...)
(I don't consider a hard drive failing after 4 years a surprise, though, so...)
I got this external drive 2 weeks ago.
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4279704?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
No problems so far.
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4279704?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
No problems so far.
crumbs
Member
I've had good luck with Samsung's current drives, I've had about nine months. They're affordable and relatively quiet.
I used a Sagate in my last pc, which worked fine, but became increasingly loud after six months. It worked fine for the last four years, but the noise was my only complaint. Hopefully Seagate has improved this aspect on their newer drives.
I used a Sagate in my last pc, which worked fine, but became increasingly loud after six months. It worked fine for the last four years, but the noise was my only complaint. Hopefully Seagate has improved this aspect on their newer drives.
Bah, the whole 'teh best' hard drive brand thing is mostly hot air. Buy the hard drive that's best for your situation. They're all going to be pretty similar in specs. Maxtor tends to have the cheapest drives, but they're also fairly loud, still I've had no problems with the ones I've owned. Personally I recommended Seagate Barracudas just because they're so damn quite. Or you could go with a Western Digital Raptor SATA HD for sheer speed. Depends on what you're after....
The Faceless Master
Member
all HDD's *will* fail, some before the MTBF, some after..
buy whatever's on sale
buy whatever's on sale
COLD HARD FACTS:
1 Western Digitar Caviar bought in 1996 (850 MB) still up & running (no bad sectors, perfect).
1 Maxtor Quantum Fireball 30 GB bought somewhere in 2000? dead after 3 months.
1 Seagate Barracuda 30 GB bought after ^^ dead after one year.
1 Western Digital 160 GB bought one year ago runs flawlessly 24/7.
Yea, WD rocks.
1 Western Digitar Caviar bought in 1996 (850 MB) still up & running (no bad sectors, perfect).
1 Maxtor Quantum Fireball 30 GB bought somewhere in 2000? dead after 3 months.
1 Seagate Barracuda 30 GB bought after ^^ dead after one year.
1 Western Digital 160 GB bought one year ago runs flawlessly 24/7.
Yea, WD rocks.
Maxwell House
Member
Seagate drives are the best, and come with the best warranties.
Teknopathetic
Member
I'll use Hitokage's theory that people are born with a blood type that determines whether they'll have luck with WD or Maxtor.
Bottomline: Buy either, anyone who thinks WD is shit, or Maxtor is shit, is full of shit. *fact*.
That said, I have luck with Maxtor, not WD.
Bottomline: Buy either, anyone who thinks WD is shit, or Maxtor is shit, is full of shit. *fact*.
That said, I have luck with Maxtor, not WD.
Azwethinkweiz
Member
I used to be part of the whole "brand doesn't matter" crowd and always bought Maxtor because it was usually the cheapest and always had rebates. However, in the past year both my mother's and my Maxtor drives have failed. Her drive was still covered under the 1 year warranty, but I wasn't so lucky. Mine failed after about a year and a month. No more Maxtors for me.
my favorite is seagate.. though i had one die on me (80gig). currently all my main drives are seagate (36gb 15k scsi.. 80gig warrentied.. 200gig storage)
then would probably be maxtor and quantu,... all my maxtor drives are solid (8.2gig and 6.4gig going strong 24/7 in my linux server for years)
have had plenty of western digitals die on me over the years so personally i avoid them
then would probably be maxtor and quantu,... all my maxtor drives are solid (8.2gig and 6.4gig going strong 24/7 in my linux server for years)
have had plenty of western digitals die on me over the years so personally i avoid them
Teknopathetic
Member
^^ perfect example of the "theory."
BugCatcher
Member
I've only ever used Western Digital drives, but never had any problems. My history:
WD 8G (1997?)
WD 25G (1999?)
WD 80G Caviar (2001)
WD 200G Caviar (2003)
WD 250G Caviar (2004)
The only one that has given me any problems was the 80G I bought right before I went to Japan. I packed my desktop well, but I still worried it wouldn't survive being dropped, thrown, banged, or whatever else happens to airline baggage. It's traveled in boxes and suitcases like that from US->Korea->Japan->US->Japan->Korea->US, and still works. However, after the last trip, I noticed that every few weeks or so it would cause the computer to hang continuously in 1-2 second intervals when reading files. Rebooting always fixed the problem, though. This slowly got more frequent, and occasionally it would make a horrible pinging noise. That was kind of unnerving, but I was able to keep using it for months up until I replaced it. I was able to copy all my data to my new hard drive, save 200K lost to bad sectors. Still, considering the circumstances, I think that drive was quite the trooper.
WD 8G (1997?)
WD 25G (1999?)
WD 80G Caviar (2001)
WD 200G Caviar (2003)
WD 250G Caviar (2004)
The only one that has given me any problems was the 80G I bought right before I went to Japan. I packed my desktop well, but I still worried it wouldn't survive being dropped, thrown, banged, or whatever else happens to airline baggage. It's traveled in boxes and suitcases like that from US->Korea->Japan->US->Japan->Korea->US, and still works. However, after the last trip, I noticed that every few weeks or so it would cause the computer to hang continuously in 1-2 second intervals when reading files. Rebooting always fixed the problem, though. This slowly got more frequent, and occasionally it would make a horrible pinging noise. That was kind of unnerving, but I was able to keep using it for months up until I replaced it. I was able to copy all my data to my new hard drive, save 200K lost to bad sectors. Still, considering the circumstances, I think that drive was quite the trooper.
I would get a WD, Maxtor, or Seagate. I use a WD Raptor SATA drive in my PC, and a Maxtor 120gb inside of an external enclosure. You can't go wrong with either brand. I've had the Maxtor for over two years (and it used to be my primary hard drive), it performs as good as it did the first day I got it. I have another 40gb Maxtor that has been used for 4.5 years and still works just fine. I've had the Raptor since November/December... excellent performance. I've never owned a Seagate, but a lot of people swear by them, and I've rarely heard complaints of them failing. In fact I think their faliure rate is said to be lower than even Maxtor and WD... and if that's the case, that is extremely low.
I would stay away from anything else, personally. I've read too many horror stories.
I would stay away from anything else, personally. I've read too many horror stories.
Shogmaster
Member
OK, This is how it goes:
If you are going to cool your hard drive well with a fan right in front = Western Digital Caviar SATA drives (JD series) will give you great perfromance for a way affordable price.
If you are not gonna cool your drives well due to whatever reason (like you have a cramped mATX case that won't allow for a fan to cool the HDs) = Seagate Barracuda SATA drives will give you the highest tolerance for heat, and longest warranty (5years).
If you are going to cool your hard drive well with a fan right in front = Western Digital Caviar SATA drives (JD series) will give you great perfromance for a way affordable price.
If you are not gonna cool your drives well due to whatever reason (like you have a cramped mATX case that won't allow for a fan to cool the HDs) = Seagate Barracuda SATA drives will give you the highest tolerance for heat, and longest warranty (5years).
Go to www.storagereview.com and look at their leaderboard or their database to do a good comparison. Reliability is about the same for everyone. Some offer better warranties than others though. Find the best performer for the dollar. PEACE.
EDIT: Steer clear of the IBM 75GXP. It's an old HDD line by now, but it's gotta have the highest failure rate of any such drive. I've had one die, and the other had major corruption problems (had to change cables).
EDIT: Steer clear of the IBM 75GXP. It's an old HDD line by now, but it's gotta have the highest failure rate of any such drive. I've had one die, and the other had major corruption problems (had to change cables).
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
Seeing as how there is no longer an IBM hdd division you dont have much to worry about. Now that Hitachi has bought it, they are called travelstar and theres a totally new generation of HDD from them leaving the GXP75 in the hdd graveyard heh..
Basically it goes like this
reliability and low noiselevels = Seagate but they are not the fastest
Speed would be the Hitachi or WD especially the WD raptor that has the 10,000 RPM speed much less space though so i dont think its for you. Both companies have great 200GB + solutions though for great prices. Which kind of format will it be on? SATA or PATA?
And Maxtor...well I cant say so I wont not much experience with them.
Basically it goes like this
reliability and low noiselevels = Seagate but they are not the fastest
Speed would be the Hitachi or WD especially the WD raptor that has the 10,000 RPM speed much less space though so i dont think its for you. Both companies have great 200GB + solutions though for great prices. Which kind of format will it be on? SATA or PATA?
And Maxtor...well I cant say so I wont not much experience with them.
My vote goes Seagate->Maxtor->WD->Hitachi
IBM stopped being good about 3 years ago. The 75GXP series actually suck, when everyone thought at first they were good. I recommended the series to others and after about a year 3 drives are dead. Stay away. This is pretty well known.
I have bias against WD, my only experience is an OEM drive that died after 1 day.
Maxtor I've never had one die prematurely, my first HDD purchase was a Maxtor 5gig and it only died a couple months ago. That's about 8 years.
Seagate seems to be the most consistent.
I've heard WD has the best SATA drives though, dunno how reliable that info is though.
IBM stopped being good about 3 years ago. The 75GXP series actually suck, when everyone thought at first they were good. I recommended the series to others and after about a year 3 drives are dead. Stay away. This is pretty well known.
I have bias against WD, my only experience is an OEM drive that died after 1 day.
Maxtor I've never had one die prematurely, my first HDD purchase was a Maxtor 5gig and it only died a couple months ago. That's about 8 years.
Seagate seems to be the most consistent.
I've heard WD has the best SATA drives though, dunno how reliable that info is though.
Shogmaster
Member
Diablos said:
I have no experience with Raptors. I do remember reading a review where the guy warns against Caviars in mATX case without direct cooling, although he did run them as a server 24/7, and surmised that that's what put it over the edge and cooked them....
Also, I believe Raptors have much smaller size platers than Caviars (less than half the diameter IIRC), and maybe that's why it heats up less than Caviars, even though they spin faster.
Apharmd Battler
Member
Borys said:
Yup, I'll chime in for Western Digital, both IDE and SATA. I still have drives I use in my backup PC from 6 years ago and they run just fine. I also love WD's utilities/apps for HD format and maintenance. What made me fall in love with them years ago was the ease of format/partitioning. You slap in a WD drive in a PC and it's ready to rock in less than 2 minutes with no DOS prompt commands, or other hoop jumping. I don't know if other manufacturers do this now, but WD was one of the first. I've had issues with Maxtor and a few others, so ALL I purchase now are Western Digital HDs.
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