Comments

kdm wrote on 5/7/2008, 6:55 AM
I have the 641AS - basically the same drive family (7200.9 instead of .10) - the first one was DOA - second one is just a temp drive now in my eSATA chassis since I can't trust it for backup. I've since heard of a lot of problems with the 500G Seagate SATAs from a DAW/PC builder, though I don't know if this varies between the .9, .10 and .11 versions - I kind of doubt it since they are the same desktop family. Apparently Seagate has gone cheap on manufacturing. After years of using Seagate with no problems, I've moved to Western Digital based on his recommendation (one I trust quite highly). Hate to see it - I've liked Seagate, but currently reliability isn't there, at least with this series/model. Hopefully that will change in future models.

The enterprise drives might still be fine (ES instead of AS). That's probably the reason for the low price on the AS series. Fwiw.

Dedric
Tattoo wrote on 5/8/2008, 9:44 AM
Seems like Seagate had some good years where their drives were reliable, reasonably fast, very quiet & very cool. I was a big fan. Unfortunately, a 300GB (either a .9 or .10 version) completely crapped out on me so bad I had to send it off for a pretty expensive data recovery. I hadn't backed-up in a couple years and the heads had completely crashed (according to the data recovery company). After that $800 lesson (ouch!), I'm not such a big fan.

Only one data point, though. Have others been hearing this about Seagate drives recently?
DavidMcKnight wrote on 5/8/2008, 10:07 AM
I just had a 1 or 2 year old Maxtor go Tulsa/Utah on me. I had a matching drive and swapped circuit boards to try and revive the thing. It worked, and I got the data off of it.

It's still under warranty and Seagate (who now owns the maxtor name) is sending out a replacement (after I swapped circuit boards back)
Coursedesign wrote on 5/8/2008, 10:08 AM
Yes.

I've bought a lot of Seagate drives since the original SCSI Barracuda, but recently I've switched more and more to WD drives, after also trying Samsung and Hitachi.

The 640GB WD I wrote about in another post is the fastest by far at, and at a good price too. Quiet also, which is nice, and good reliability reports so far.

What about the 250,000+ hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) that you see on typical drives today?

MTBF is a mathematical calculation based on the supposed reliability of its parts. It means that half of the drives are expected to die within this time, some a lot sooner.

It might was well stand for "Mathematically Troubling Blatant Fib."
apit34356 wrote on 5/8/2008, 11:25 AM
thanks Coursedesign about posting on the 640GB WD, I'm thinking this is less power demanding under heavy loads vs 10K drives and are very close in performance Density does play into how fast data is captured off the drive. Remember the old 360/67 duals? as they were moving from magnetic cores to ic ram? Xerox was selling the old Simga 6/7 system magnetic cores in the mid 70's, did not trust those ic memory chips ;-)
johnmeyer wrote on 5/8/2008, 11:49 AM
I have had a lot of drives, and only had one or two quit. When I hear about those who seem to have more problems with their drives than I have had with mine, I always wonder about heat. Are these, for instance, in external enclosures, many of which bake their precious contents. This is true even of drives with "cooling fans" (which I put in quotes because some of these fans move less air than a gnat's wings).

MTBF is actually a pretty good measure, but it definitely assumes an ambient temperature. I worked for Hewlett-Packard's test and measurement division back in the early 1970s and then for GenRad. I learned a lot about accelerated aging, burn-in, MTBF, failure rates, etc. Without going into details, if you let something run hot, it will fail a LOT sooner. Instead of years, you will get months or days, depending on the heat level. The difference is not subtle.

Proper cooling is mandatoryespecially with disk drives.

Coursedesign wrote on 5/8/2008, 11:58 AM
I certainly agree about the heat, both from my own experience and from a huge internal evaluation at Google.

I always bought the most reliable drives I could find, but I still occasionally got DOAs (most recently a Hitachi drive), and slow drive failures where I was able to get data off in time (less hassle than restoring an online backup).

I don't think MTBF is a good measure of disk reliability for most people though.

It would be much better to have info on actual failure rate as a percentage of drives shipped.
apit34356 wrote on 5/8/2008, 12:20 PM
Absolutely, heat,---- overheating will damage if not kill the drive. Its not just the electronics, but the heat changes the aero dynamics of head/surface, cooking both. Usually the magnetic plating starts to deform, magnetic particles start to move, shift, some lose their origination. Depending on a number of things, ie. impuretents, a bubble or ridge may form in the plating material, ------ the head makes contact, flying too close because of heat and general expansion from heat, .......

Then there is the drive bearings, cheap ones are the first to fail in the over heating or continued used vs the rest of the drive. Today, more motor assemblies seem to be the first to go... vs. the heads/electronics..////
craftech wrote on 5/8/2008, 12:56 PM
I have posted deals almost entirely on Western Digital drives for a few years now on the forum, but I know that some people here like the Seagate drives (the five year warranty helps) so when I saw this one it sounded like a good buy on this unit and I passed it along.

My own preference has been for WD drives for years and I haven't changed that preference although (as we discussed around a year or so ago) all drives overall seem to have a higher failure rate than they used to. Quality control in general is a declining phenomenon on mass produced products with a few exceptions maybe.

Given that, the cost of hard drives has certainly been reasonable. The WD6400AAKS that Bjorn mentioned above at $109.84 shipped is certainly a good deal for a 2 platter performer that seems to have great promise.

John
apit34356 wrote on 5/8/2008, 2:33 PM
Craftech, thanks for notice. I'm sure everyone likes the leads to good buys. Your pricing posts on cpus pricing is always helpful!
Coursedesign wrote on 5/8/2008, 8:16 PM
I was a WD fan for years, then the quality started dropping and I went back to Seagate.

Then I started seeing high failure rates on Seagate drives, so I tested Samsung and Hitachi.

Mixed bag with those, and then, tada, WD came back with a roar.
Harold Brown wrote on 5/9/2008, 10:04 AM
I have the Antec 900 game case with 5 case fans! Two 120mm fans blowing air over the hard drives helps keep them cool. I run all the fans at max speed. The only drive that went bad on me was a WD external drive and I think heat did it in. I am in the process of moving everything onto internal drives and using all my externals for backups.
craftech wrote on 5/9/2008, 3:26 PM
Price went up to $75 now.

John
MSmart wrote on 5/21/2008, 3:11 PM
I just picked up the WD6400AAKS for $115 and put it into a Rosewill RX-358 enclosure for $45. Fortunately my PC has a Serial ATA port to plug it into so I didn't need to use USB. I just wish the eSATA cable was a little longer so I don't have to keep the drive on top of my PC (heat concerns).

Thanks for the suggestion on the drive.
craftech wrote on 5/22/2008, 8:49 AM
just picked up the WD6400AAKS for $115 and put it into a Rosewill RX-358 enclosure for $45. Fortunately my PC has a Serial ATA port to plug it into so I didn't need to use USB. I just wish the eSATA cable was a little longer so I don't have to keep the drive on top of my PC (heat concerns).
================
Actually that drive is $99.99 with free shipping from Newegg right now.

John
LReavis wrote on 5/22/2008, 11:25 AM
this morning NewEgg sent an email ad for a Seagate 750GB 7200.ll for $120; I bit. I've been using a Seagate 750GB 7200.10 for about a year now, with no problems. I also have a pair of 750GB WD drives, and a pair of 750GB Hitachi drives. I had a DOA Hitachi, but the replacement, and the WD drives, have been solid for the 6 months or so that I've used them. I keep everything backed up, so am not too worried about Seagate's declining reputation, and the 5-year warrantee is very appealing (I typically lose at least one or two drives per year).

In order to maximize drive life, I run the drives in open air, standing vertically, or on an open plastic-coated metal grid - with fans nearby to keep air circulating (plus, a grille in my computer closet opens to a roof-mounted exhaust fan). I monitor temperature on hot days with an IR thermometer, and almost never see the temperature exceed 130 degrees F., even after sustained writes of uncompressed HD backups (typical temp: about 118 degrees). I've read that you have to worry only when temps approach 160 degrees F.