Comments

kentwolf wrote on 2/27/2004, 8:26 PM
You will hear no shortage of suggestions; kind of like Ford Versus Chevy arguments.

I'll leave the commentary for others...

All I can say is that I am currently running 8 internal Maxtor drives in a big tower and have had no troubles at all; and they get a lot of use.

I have also had WD drives as well, but those (2 ea) were the only drives to actually go bad on me. This, however, was about 10 years ago.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/27/2004, 10:11 PM
Search under my user name and "Firewire" in the past 30 days.

Bottom line: My Maxtor OneTouch Firewire works perfectly; my Western Digital Firewire won't allow print to tape or allow output through my video camera to the monitor.

I called WD and they exchanged this drive under warranty. Just got it back today. I'll report shortly on whether the "newer" drive works. They seemed awfully eager to exchange it when I described my problem.
RichMacDonald wrote on 2/27/2004, 11:17 PM
One thing that's hardly ever mentioned in the namebrand wars is loudness. My Maxtor 5400rpm has such an annoying pitch that I moved it to backup and keep it switched off. I actually have it in an external firewire case and it drives me nuts when it runs. I recently bought two sata samsungs, which aren't performance champs but they're nice and quiet. This matters!
Cheesehole wrote on 2/28/2004, 1:07 AM
In the past week I've seen one of those Maxtor one touch firewires, a 250GB WD SATA drive, and a Seagate 80GB SATA drive all go bad! Personally I usually stick with Maxtors and Western Digitals. I've had the best luck overall with them.
RBartlett wrote on 2/28/2004, 4:00 AM
I've had 5 Maxtor drives, all bought for the size/price and performance curve over the entire geometry. 1 has gone bad and replaced within warranty.
My brother buys WD, and whilst they used to be a bit clattery (like galloping horses) they aren't anymore. I'll buy WD next time around. Unless Seagate start making high performers again (ATA). Seagate quality has come on so much in the last 10=15 years.

I'll remember the quiet Samsungs (I think Fujitsu SCSI are quiet too) next time I help build/rebuild an under the telly PVR for someone.

WD 7200 8MB SE with 2yr warranty. WD Raptor if you are feeling power hungry (or have ICH5 SATA or similar >133MB controlle/bus system). That is where my money would be heading.

Also check the country that you have to send the drive to if your delaer goes under. Mine went to Ireland which cost me one third of the drives value to exercise the warranty.
rkelley wrote on 2/28/2004, 5:41 AM
I buy a bunch of HDDS for my lab (software development test bed) and have seen my share of IBM (now Hatichi) and WD go bad. It seems I RMA two or three IBM drives almost every month (SCSI and IDE). About 6 months ago, I bought some WD 120GB HDDs (thinking the quality had improved) but was disappointed again (two drives died within a month).

On a whim, I bought a pair of Seagate 120GB IDE drives (PATA - 8MB cache) and have been very happy. They are slightly slower (thruput and access times) than the WD but they have been running solid in a Linux SMB server for 6+ months. I striped a pair of drives together and get about 105MB/sec (buffered disk reads - software raid). In addition, they are nearly silent - even when heavy head-seeking. Very happy with the new Seagate HDDs. Will probably keep buying them until the quality goes down hill (flashback: late 80s/early 90s).

-Ron
wrrn wrote on 2/28/2004, 8:50 AM
Thanks All for the input
w
RichMacDonald wrote on 2/28/2004, 8:55 AM
>remember the quiet Samsungs

I'm very sorry, I need to correct myself. These aren't Samsungs, they are Seagates. Hadn't had my coffee when I wrote that.
scotty_dvc80 wrote on 2/28/2004, 9:41 AM
been using a western digital 100 gig w/ mg cache.. works flawlessly.. just my experience.. I will buy WD again.
StormMarc wrote on 2/29/2004, 12:15 PM
I've been using WD 120 g, 160g and 250g with no problems so far.

Marc
TVCmike wrote on 2/29/2004, 6:41 PM
I'll also concur that Western Digital makes great hard drives. I only recommend either Western Digital or Seagate to my clients unless they have a particular insistence on having another brand of hard drive. For example, if you want the fastest system drive you can get, go for the Western Digital Raptor 73GB. It is the fastest desktop hard drive you can get, and beats even most 15,000 rpm SCSI drives in throughput in a workstation environment.