Maxtor SATA HD sucks

[cs120ban]

They fail to run 24/7.

On User desktop:
High failure rate. My coowokers PC freezes at least 2 times a month. Plus everytime rebooting from failure, the Motherboard does not detect the HD. After letting the PC cool down for 1 hour, it gets recognized recognize it.
On Server:
Dropping the raid array at least 3 times a month. A nightmare for me. 2 Servers went down at the same time.

The models that I use are the 200GB SATA and 200GB SATA 3.0.
DiamondMax 10 Sucks. I got 6 200GB Sata 3.0 and they all sucks and fails. DiamondMax 9 is half good and half bad.

Both sucks miserably.

Solution:
For Desktop:
In the process of switching all the Maxtor HDs to Seagate HDs

For Server:
I went ahead and grabbed 2 Raptors 150GB (Raid 1) and 6 WD RE2 500GB (raid 10 + 2 JBOB).

Now everything works without flaw on the server.

Thumbs down for Maxtor. I wonder if Seagate quality will degrate after buying off Maxtor.

 

[4Ryan6]

All my SATA HDDs are Seagate and so far they've performed problem free!

Sounds like you're in a nightmare senario, or you stepped into the Maxtor Twilight Zone, hope you get better results from the seagate change!

It doesn't take many failures to completely turn you against a product thats for sure, I've been there, and I feel for you.

 

[Mondoman]

They fail to run 24/7. ...

IIRC, those drives are just intended as consumer drives, in "sleep" mode most of the time, not to run 24/7. You'll have better luck with more robust drives intended to run 24/7.

 

[burn-e86]

you mean SATA II? which runs at 300Mbs?
anywho, i feel the same way about maxtors, they are really crap. the one that i do have is a MAXTOR 300Gb which does suck. for some reason every now and then it gives me a grinding noise which scares the crap outta me and is noisy as hell, checked it with SMART, turns out that it has a bad sector or 2, now i dont know what to do about it since i cant find my worrenty and formatting it doesnt really work properly.

 

[Doughbuy]

I had a 200 gig Maxtor drive died on me, RMA'ed, and they gave me a 250 gig, which made me a happy camper, and it's been fine ever since.

I would say Maxtor is the worst out of all the HDD manufactueres, but I wouldn't say they are really that bad. Maybe your just the one in a million chance of all that happening, I've heard HDD stories about every company.

But I still prefer Seagate, I have 4 of their drives and they all work fine.

 

[mkaibear]

>you mean SATA II? which runs at 300Mbs?

*thwack*

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SATA II!

There is only SATA 150 and SATA 300.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

They fail to run 24/7.

DiamondMax drives aren't meant to.

High failure rate. My coowokers PC freezes at least 2 times a month. Plus everytime rebooting from failure, the Motherboard does not detect the HD. After letting the PC cool down for 1 hour, it gets recognized recognize it.

That's a cooling problem, not a drive problem.

On Server: Dropping the raid array at least 3 times a month. A nightmare for me. 2 Servers went down at the same time.

The models that I use are the 200GB SATA and 200GB SATA 3.0.
DiamondMax 10 Sucks. I got 6 200GB Sata 3.0 and they all sucks and fails. DiamondMax 9 is half good and half bad.

You shouldn't be using DiamondMax's in a server. If you want to use Maxtor for a RAID, you should be using MaxLine II Plus's, or MaxLine III's. They're enterprise-class, with 1M hrs MTBF.

I've bought various kinds of hard drives for my desktops that I manage (office with about 40 computers), and frequently get Maxtors because I get a good deal on them. I've had them fail, but no more often than other manufacturer's drives.

Biggest killer of hard drives is heat. Put a hard drive in a hot case with no air flow and run it 24/7 and it'll fail pretty quickly, regardless of whether it's Maxtor, Seagate, WD, or otherwise.

 

[slicessoul]

I don't think Seagate performance will degrading just because they bought Maxtor. They have to keep their name on top by selling good products. You are the Judge.

 

[dlmac]

I have a 200gb maxtor that used to make some weird noises, but that went away a while ago. Has worked fine for over a year. I also have two 80gb maxtors, one had some bad sectors but I don't use it any more. Of all the HDD I have used only maxtor's have every failed on me. My next system will have a lot of storage and I plan on using Seagate/WD. But maxtor is not out of the question. It will be my last choice though.

Also, I have always kept my computer up 24/7, so maybe that is why I get the problems with the maxtors.

 

[atp777]

I would say Maxtor is the worst out of all the HDD manufactueres, but I wouldn't say they are really that bad. Maybe your just the one in a million chance of all that happening, I've heard HDD stories about every company.

But I still prefer Seagate, I have 4 of their drives and they all work fine.

I love Seagate. I've never had one die on me "knocks on wood". WD's aren't bad either.

I'd like to add to the horrible drives.... TavelStars and DeskStars. I'm still amazed at the amount of these drives that fail.

 

[burn-e86]

>you mean SATA II? which runs at 300Mbs?

*thwack*

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SATA II!

There is only SATA 150 and SATA 300.

only the sith deal in absolutes....

 

[Doughbuy]

Eh, Seagate is planning to market Maxtor's as lower entry level drives, I don't know if they will even continue Maxtor's enterprise levels... either way, Maxtor's name is already driven through mud, so Seagate isin't planning on rescuing much of it.

HDD's for me depends mainly on warranty. Between models, there is very little difference in performance and whatnot... therefore Seagate always wins in my book.

 

[exarrkun]

>you mean SATA II? which runs at 300Mbs?

*thwack*

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SATA II!

There is only SATA 150 and SATA 300.

only the sith deal in absolutes....

mmm
very well, i shall do what i must...LOL

no seriously
stop using the sata2 term
it's nothing more than a marketing stunt

 

[Fulmar]

I've used Maxtor drives for the last 10 years. From 1.5Gb to 6.4 to 20 to 40 to 80 to 250gb. I've also owned 2 WD's and 1 Seagate.

Not sure if it's my luck, but I've never had a Maxtor drive fail on me, I still have the 1.5gb drive for kicks and it still works, even for 4200RPM. Out of the 2 WD's, 1 crashed, the other is still working. Seagate one I owned did crash on me.

 

[nukemaster]

>you mean SATA II? which runs at 300Mbs?

*thwack*

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SATA II!

There is only SATA 150 and SATA 300.

Ummmmmm Sata 150 is Sata(I)
Sata 300 is Sata II

its like saying UMA mode 4 and ATA100 are not the same....they are....

@ topic

I have seen allot of drives die...and most are maxtor.....
Yet i still have some maxtors that have gone 24/7 for years....

I get seagate and WDC.... and they seem to work good

 

[Onus]

The old Seagate 9.1 GB SCSI's we used to put in servers even had a sticker on them that changed color if the drive got too hot, and if it did, it wasn't covered by the warranty.

My rig goes into a powersave mode from time to time, but is otherwise powered on almost continuously. The Maxtor drive in it has never hiccuped.

A boss' boss once insisted I use some [non-enterprise class] SCSI drives in a RAID-5. After two weekends on which I spent parts of both days rebuilding the failed array, he finally relented and let me get the drives I'd wanted from the beginning (also Maxtor). There were no further issues.

(He had wanted more, smaller drives; basically micromanaging the project)

 

[atp777]

I always try to keep this in mind... it's a hard drive, it has moving parts, IT WILL FAIL. It's just a matter of time. I take it all with a grain of salt. But yeah, what doughbuy said, Seagate has a nice warranty.

 

[TSIMonster]

I love my Maxtor 10. It is easily the fastes HDD I've ever owned (my first SATA, plus, Im use to notebook HDDs)

Mine is quite and passed multiple HDD benches, and has run for as much as 72 hours at a time without a hitch. (I turn my PC off when I am done with it)

To be honest, I have had many HDDs from all of the brands and have never had a single one fail on me knocks on wood minus a toshiba one (toshiba sucks anyway)

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Ummmmmm Sata 150 is Sata(I)
Sata 300 is Sata II

That is a misnomer that many manufacturers have used, and used incorrectly.

"SATA 2" or "SATA II" is NOT supposed to be used as a synonym for support of the 3 Gb/sec transfer rate. Various revisions to the SATA specification exist, but the 3 Gb/sec transfer rate is not tied to any particular one. Neither are other optional or extended features, like NCQ, hot plug, or eSATA.

Manufacturers are supposed to drop all references to "SATA 1" and "SATA 2", and instead just list the device's capabilities. You can see that a reputable company like Promise has done exactly this, and all of their products now are using names like "SATA300" or "SATA150" to describe them, not "SATA 1" or "SATA 2".

Please see http://www.sata-io.org/namingguidelines.asp for further information.

 

[KiLo81]

I have two Maxtor Diamondmax 9 160GB drives and they get the piss ran out of them (24/7) using Azereus. Never had any problems, strange sounds or smells, nothing.

 

[Doughbuy]

Now that I think back, the Maxtor drive that died on me was most likely due to heat since there was no fan anywhere near the hdd area (old Dell case, about 4 years ago). Heat is the main enemy, so with all my HDD's, I ensure they are properly cooled. In fact, I'm sure my HDD's are cooled better than my CPU... but the stuff on them is priceless...

Well, if the RIAA and MPAA and others had their way, it would probably equal the GDP of a small african nation, but to me... priceless...

 

[minim3]

most hd's fail due to luck of cooling. I love my maxtor 300gb sata2 300gb maxline III. Works 24/7 for months now and not a single weird sound or anything.

 

[mesarectifier]

Maxtor drives are awesome.

 

[burn-e86]

Maxtor drives are awesome.

...i hate you....
anyway, i think back to one of the other posts about heat, my maxtor prob went up to ~70 C which i nearly burned myself on. i'm pretty sure that it can be counted as RMA but i cant find the warrenty or recept.
also, to exarrkun, my bad about the SATA II.

 

[mesarectifier]

Wow that was helpful.

Anyway, if I elaborate, the reason I think Maxtor are awesome is because of all my drives Maxtor have always been the best. I've had WD fail, Seagate fail and not a peep from Maxtor (including two 6 year old 16gbs that are still in near constant use).

All my WD drives are much noisier and not as fast, and while the Seagate currently in my Xbox is quiet, it's not nearly as fast as the other two (this is from my perception, no benchies).

As long as you mount your Maxtor drives in a sensible place and give them enough cooling then they last, well...forever thus far in my experience.

Someone's gotta support them. They're cheaper, too.