Maxtor -- deaded

Serena wrote on 3/1/2006, 2:28 PM

Well I've just spent an interesting few hours. My current project was largely on a 300G Maxtor extenal HD and suddenly, so far as my machine was concerned, it vanished. Quite a lot of work drifting off in a cloud of smoke.
So it was time to follow up on advice recently given here and I chased up Getdataback and pointed it at the drive. Voila! Project back.
Now I'll send the 6 month old unit back to Maxtor and tell them to recover the data and replace the drive. I expect they'll do the latter and say they can't do the former.
Various comments here about the unreliability of Maxtor has had me concerned and now I'll add this experience to those words.

Comments

rmack350 wrote on 3/1/2006, 3:13 PM

Glad you got the data back!

Rob Mack

farss wrote on 3/1/2006, 4:16 PM

I've never used those Maxtor built boxes, used plenty of Maxtor drives in my own boxes without issue but I always make certain the drives get plenty of air flow. They might be noisy but better that than dead quiet.

Bob.

johnmeyer wrote on 3/1/2006, 6:24 PM

I assume your external drive has a fan. NEVER get an external drive that does not have a fan. A fan is mandatory.

Serena wrote on 3/1/2006, 6:25 PM

Bob, good observation there. I've been surprised that the drives get so hot when they're being accessed and this one was very warm to the touch.

Jeff Smith wrote on 3/1/2006, 6:32 PM

I posted this before, my 4 month old one touch II died, maxtor will not recover, but sent me a new one promptly

Serena wrote on 3/1/2006, 7:17 PM

That seems to be the policy -- I expect my new Maxtor tomorrow and the cost of Getdataback was a good investment.

farss wrote on 3/1/2006, 7:30 PM

These kinds of drives in boxes are probably fine for office applications where the duty cycle is less than 1%. A few hours of rendering would push that to closer to 100%, the head servo circuits probably handle quite large currents and generate a lot of heat, heat that is only being conducted to the outer case by air.

Bob.

Serena wrote on 3/1/2006, 8:10 PM

I was about to write that the Maxtor cases do include a small fan in the rear panel, but actually (I perceive) the cases have a number of holes that look like a vent for a fan. Air does gently waft in, but probably by convection.

And, of course, it is summer!

rmack350 wrote on 3/1/2006, 9:10 PM

Ah. Then you need to always place it straight up like a chimney to get a good updraft going. ;-)

Rob Mack

Stonefield wrote on 3/2/2006, 7:06 PM

This makes me nervous as my client back up drive is a Maxtor one touch 300 gig, but it's one of two redundant identical drives we swap back and forth. But still....

Also my new external is a Maxtor inside an external enclosure. But again, there is no unrecoverable data on there. It's all stuff I have on disks and tapes that are placed there for quicker access.

It would just be a pain to have to recapture all that.....but hey, these crazy things they call computers, they're certainly not perfect. I'll take the good with the bad.

MH_Stevens wrote on 3/2/2006, 7:24 PM

I run the Maxtor 300G OneTouches but I use them for backup and dumping when my fixed HD fills up, so they are never left on for very long. They do get very hot if permanently connected and switched on, and being in a metal case with no fan I suspect they were designed for backup and were not meant for continuous use.

Michael

Serena wrote on 3/2/2006, 8:05 PM

Yes, I think you're right -- "one touch back up" . Not that the manual says anything to indicate limited application. I think a change in my workflow is indicated. However I've put them in a box with an 8" fan (because I have it) and that does keep them cool.

farss wrote on 3/2/2006, 8:15 PM

We use a 5.25" firewire enclosure with a caddy mount in it and plug the drives in caddies into that. The caddies have 2 fans and the box another one.
Then we can plug the drive in its caddy into any of our other systems, workflow works very well and we've never had a drive die.

Serena,
NASA Multimedia up here in Sydney sell the caddies, very cheap, the firewire box I got from:

http://www.dvdirect.com.au/shop/product.php?productid=17378&cat=256&page=1

Bob.

Steve Mann wrote on 3/2/2006, 8:23 PM

"These kinds of drives in boxes are probably fine for office applications where the duty cycle is less than 1%."

Consumer drives are rated for a 30% duty cycle. Server-rated drives are made for 24/7 operation, but they are a lot more expensive.

Heat is what kills drives most often.

Steve

Serena wrote on 3/2/2006, 10:58 PM

Thanks Bob. Interesting name and web address for NaSa Multimedia; google gave me stuff on Mars shots etc. Guess you use the RH-SLALM HHD kit? This certainly looks like a convenient system and the DYNA216 looks very neat. Perceptible advantages over Maxtors plus 200mm fan roaring away!

ken c wrote on 3/3/2006, 5:22 AM

I've read a lot of complaints about the maxtor external drives, so I also got a bunch of western digital 320 gigs from newegg.com ... I feel better now that I've backed up all critical project data onto other external drives ... but it's still a hassle.. I don't like worrying about "not if, but When", the maxtors will go, I've bought quite a few of them..

any other experience, re maxtor external 300gigs failing?

here's one tip: I turn off the ones I'm not currently using, so they're not running all the time.. I suspect that will help a *lot*, vs running all my drives 24/7 like I used to..

ken

Serena wrote on 3/3/2006, 3:11 PM

The thing brought out by this thread is that heat is the enemy of hard drives (as indeed it is for electronics in general). The deficiency of the Maxtor ext hard drive system is its lack of active cooling and rather minimal approach to convection cooling. This isn't a problem for low cycle activity such as backing up an office machine for changes since yesterday, but can be for higher duty cycle when heat builds up. When I recovered the data from the failed drive and wrote it (about 200GB) to a new Maxtor, that unit got very warm to the touch. The one that failed was noticeably hot (but < 50deg C).
A friend in the computer business was surprised that we find Maxtor ext HDs unreliable, but his clients doing intensive work employ RAIDs and the Maxtors are mostly used in business back up.
So, I think, the Maxtors are probably reliable if you keep them from getting hot. I've had one (the older style) for a couple of years, but during this hot spell of weather it wasn't being accessed. Leaving them running doesn't generate anything but gentle warmth.

jaydeeee wrote on 3/3/2006, 3:34 PM

Recently - Maxtor is now in the AVOID grouping.
I'll never buy maxtor.

*yes - all hd manufac have "seasons of issues". Maxtor is now taking the lead on this once again.

Winners (meaning smarter hd's to buy, by ratio of drive defects) - Seagate
WD is also holding steady

jaydeeee wrote on 3/3/2006, 3:37 PM

>>>Heat is what kills drives most often.<<<

Not by studies at storagereview and more...
spin-up/down is still the #1 killer, then heat

even a consumer drive, it's better to keep on 24/7 (no spin down on stand-by/hibernate)

Maxtor should just plain be avoided (even though you'll soon see incredible maxtor deals coming - avoid).

JJKizak wrote on 3/3/2006, 4:38 PM

This thing goes in cycles, first it was Western Digital, then Seagate, then IBM, and now Maxtor. I have had all of them fail, all different situations. Fujitsu is the only one that hasn't failed. I did have one Medea fail too. Maxtor seems to have an electronics control problem, not so much the mechanical drive, at least that was the problem I had with the IDE 300 gig Maxtor which I gave to my guru buddy and he made it work. No bad sectors in it, it just blue screened XP Pro which is hard to do any more. IBM's were like coffee grinders. Seagates would loose sectors and Western Digitals just failed. When you get a drive that works, keep it. I have two Maxtor USB/Firewire 300 gigs that I keep off until I need them. They do run way too hot though. Actually it's better if the drives fail once in a while so you have an excuse to upgrade to bigger/faster drives. (Everybody just fainted)

JJK

kentwolf wrote on 3/3/2006, 7:45 PM

I have 9 (fixed) Maxtor drives in my case and I haven't ever had one fail; it's been a few years now.

The last drive I ever had fail was about 12 years ago (Western Digital). I never had one fail since seeing I upgrade them probably before they have a chance to die.

fldave wrote on 3/3/2006, 9:10 PM

I have 3 dead WD drives in my house right now. All within the past 5 years. One of these days I will actually try to recover/reuse the drives. I hope having them sit for a couple of years helps to give them a rest. I may try the freeze technique to try to recover what I can off of them.

No worry to me though. I have backups of all of them. It would be interesting if I can revive them.

With all the PC parts I have around the house, I'm hoping to some day build a Linux Beowolf Cluster that can actually render Vegas files quicker!

farss wrote on 3/3/2006, 9:28 PM

Samsung are looking pretty good too.

Serena wrote on 3/3/2006, 9:58 PM

Incidentally, I just found a Maxtor manual and all it says about video editing is use the firewire connection. So the makers are happy with high duty cycles.