The Best H.D.D

[cyberjohnys17]

Can u tell who do u think is the best Hard disc Drive?
Ibm-Seagate-Western Digital-Maxtor FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE!!
With no crashes and problems
I am very confused
thanks a lot

 

[marneus]

the ibms that I run are sweet... (GXp120 & Gxp180)

Trust me I know what I'm doing... ooops, grab the cat...

 

[cyberjohnys17]

Are u sure for these drives???About Western Digital?I've read that they have some crashes?I am interested between 80-160 GB buffer 8MB

 

[goblinking]

You're kidding right?

Don't go NEAR IBM. They're nicknamed "DeathStar" for a reason. As the platters get hot, they warp slightly, and over time they get so out of shape that the drive can no longer read them; on IBMs, this seems to happen after around 10-15 months, on at my guess (just a guess based on returns where I work and forums I've read on the web) 30-70% of the drives, and they don't even give you a SMART warning.

Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don't.

Go for Maxtor or Western. Western have the rep for reliability, but Maxtor have earned my respect as well; just seen my first bad sector in about three years. Not bad going, considering how much I've thrashed this drive

 

[DOOM]

I have seen EVERY kind of drive crash or DOA at some point or another. Maxtor, WD, IBM alike. No drive is perfect.

Personally, I prefer WD, because they are fast, quiet, and reliable. They have an awesome warranty system, should you ever need to RMA a drive. You just go to the website, type in the serial number, and they will send you a new drive on the spot, no questions asked. Super easy. Another cool thing about WD (which the other drives seem to lack) is easy jumper arrangement. Master, slave, CS = A, B, or C. None of this "put one jumper sideways and remove the second jumper only if this is the only drive present, otherwise put the first jumper one space to the left and apply the second jumper vertically, unless you want to... etc. etc." crap.

(On a side note, WD is the only mfg to offer a 10,000 rpm SATA drive.)

Maxtors are LOUD and seem to advertise slower access times. But they do offer ATA133 drives, which WD does not.

IBM as a company is on the cutting edge of storage technology, and therefore provides probably the most technologically advanced drives. IBMs are probably the fastest drives, but I tend to stay away because of the "Deathstar" rumors. I've never verified whether there is any truth to these, so I take them with a grain of salt. I owned an 80GB IBM drive for two years and never had a failure. IBM's are the QUIETEST drives I've heard. You have to put your hand on the drive case to be sure it's running, and even then there's hardly any detectible vibration.

At the end of the day, I have been happiest with WD. I trust their products, and I trust their company. However, I would not hesitate to buy an IBM or a Maxtor if the situation called for it.

Final answer: THEY ARE ALL FINE DRIVES. Choose any of them, you will probably be happy. If I had to recommend one, I'd recommend WD (unless you need ATA133).

Oh yeah, one last cool thing about WD is that their model numbers are easy: WD800BB WD1200JB etc.

__
0100000101001100010011000101100101001111010101010101001001000010 0100000101010011010001010100000101010010010001010100001001000101 0100110001001111010011100100011101010100010011110101010101010011

 

[smitbret]

I really liked the Seagates I've owned in the past. I've sinced moved through Maxtor and on to Western Digital. Since Seagate has gone to the 1 year warranty, I think I'll stay with Western Digital. The Maxtors that I had performed no better than the Seagates they replaced and were noisier, although I've never tried the 8mb cache versions. When I jumped to a WD JB1200SE, I fell in love the minute I installed the OS and bought two more to put in a RAID 0. I'd like to try out the Seagates with the 8mb cache, but I'll probably not get around to it. Incidentally, the IBM "Deathstar" thing was restricted to just one model of drive, the 80gb, I think. I've put a few of the 60gb in some systems over the past two years and have yet to run into a problem. So, my order of favorites: WD, Seagate, IBM, Maxtor. Western Digital for performance and Seagate for noise, that's my mantra.
-Brett

 

[dhlucke]

I have had the following drives:

14.4GB 7200 RPM IBM - Still using. Been passed down through 3 computers. Not used very often.
27.3GB WD? 7200 RPM - Just died after 4 or so years. Not sure if the data was saved. I gave the hard drive to my ex.
20GB WD 7200 RPM - Died after 3 years. Died slowly. All data saved.
40GB 60GXP IBM Deskstar - Died a horrible death after 4 months. All data saved. Worst death ever though.
20GB Maxtor - Died after a few years. No data lost. Was more of the electronics that died rather than anything in the plates. The plug was shorting.
120GB WD 1200JB - Still using. Running strong after 1.5 years
200GB WD 2000JB - Still using. Had for a couple months now.
80GB WD 800JB - Still using. Running strong after 9 months.

I would recommend WD. I'm neutral to Maxtor. I would stay as far away from IBM as possible.

______________________________________________
<A HREF="http://www.teenirc.net/chat/tomshardware.html" target="_new">http://www.teenirc.net/chat/tomshardware.html</A>

 

[fnbrowning]

I too have seen EVERY kind of drive crash. But having two WD Raptor drives fail me recently, I'm getting worried about WD. See my thread titled: "Problems with new Western Digital Raptor Drives"

Could the Raptor be WD's "Deathstar?" I hope not.



<i>"I'm your biggest fan, Ms Blake . . . .
Well, the most heavily armed anyway"</i>

 

[Vonkwink]

Western Digital drives have always been my personal preference. They are quiet and reliable. Their one flaw is heat. They do run slightly hot. It will not damage your harddrives themselves, but if your planning on overclocking the bejesus out of your system you might want to look elsewhere. If you do get a western digital, definatly go for the 8mb cache. There is a major performance boost for very little money in going from 2mb cache to 8mb.

I hang as far back from the IBM drives as possible simply because their reliability is total crap

Maxtor makes very nice harddrives except for one thing: the NOISE. These drives are incrediably loud. They may not be as loud as casefans or what have you - but they click and click and click which gets very very irritating. I have a computer with some maxtor drives that I put in drive enclosures and that is quite nice.

I have never tried seagates but from what I hear they are nice.


So what kind of harddrive are you looking for? Do you want something along the lines of a western digital raptor or seagate baracuda (which are ultra ultra fast but also ultra ultra expensive and have ultra ultra low storage capacaties)? Or something that goes in most computers like a western digital caviar (my favorite set of drives i might add)? The caviars are my personal favorite because they are quiet, affordable (if you buy online you can usually get them for a little bit more than 1 dollar to 1gb), reliable, and fast enough for my needs.

 

[Derek1970]

True true ... two weeks ago, I lost my IBM 40gig 60GXP (after 8 months) and this week I lost another 40 gig 60GXP on my gaming machine. It seems the 60GXP drives are living up to their 'Deathstar' reputation.

I sent both drives back but I must warn all of you of Hitachi's (IBM warranty provider) strict packaging requirments. If you don't have the original shipping materials, good luck finding the 'rubber foam' inserts Hitachi requires. All I could think of what grossly overpaid executive suit came up with this brilliant idea to screw people out of their deserved warranty replacement.

 

[blah]

""Don't go NEAR IBM"" - are you sure you talking from yer brain?, because "30-70% of the drives" is a big "in between", so is it 30 or 70 or something in 31-69 range? I have 100% working IBMs (SCSIs and IDEs), none died since they came into my, and the ones I have built for other pplz, machines, NONE, how about that?

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Vapor]

from experience, WD and IBM are the best. I have had 4 80GB Maxtors die on me in less than 7 months. No bad sectors in my 3yr old WD 10GB, my 2.5yr old IBM 30GB, my 1.5yr old WD 60GB, or my 2 month old WD 120GB. WD run cooler, quieter, and faster though. I'd recommend a WD. any of the special edition caviars with an 8MB cache should run the best for IDE. the best performing drive is the raptor, which is SATA and has a 5 year warranty.
EDIT: didn't see you were looking between 80-160GB. I'd get the WD1200JB, which is 120GB and 8MB cache. I have one and love it.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Vapor on 08/28/03 01:47 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Guest]

I am posting to confirm that there is nothing wrong with IBM drives. If they are running within an environment which conforms to specs they last forever by my experience, well I haven't had any die yet. I think my 7200RPM 4Gig is from about 1997 or 1998, and it's still in an old PC happily running. They are low cost and decent performing too.

All of mine were nearly supernovaing without the cooling I added. The heat could explain why others are seeming to have so much trouble. Most of the time if some electronics seems a little too hot it probably is...there are ways of dealing with the heat.

 

[marneus]

Does nobody read anymore ???

the 'Deathstars' are the 60/75 GXP serieses... there is no problems with the 120/180 GXP serieses... IBM have now produced a fix for these deathstars... late but welocme for those with the problem units...

Trust me I know what I'm doing... ooops, grab the cat...

 

[Villas]

After loosing data on 2 30Gb IBM GXP60 and 3 40Gb GXP75, I changed all my HDD's to Seagate Barracuda IV 80Gb 7200rpm. No problems untill now and I'm using one of the 80Gb ones in a External USB 2.0 Bay. It keeps on falling, jumping in the car, etc, and still, NO problems. I'm using 2 80Gb in my personal computer (for DivX films and MP3, 2 80Gb in a small file server and one 80Gb in the external case (a ViPower VP 9054V Series), and everything is working.

I also have some respect for the Maxtor HDD's. I believe they're working with Quantum staff to make more reliable HDD's. (someone correct me if I am Wrong)I still have a 15Gb Quantum working fine (no bad sectors) and, as i'm working as a computer technician, it's normal to find a big, noisy quantum fireball 5 1/4 working in old computers!!!

Western Digital HDD's were great if it wasn't for it's jumper settings. It's hard to put some models working with a slave on the cable. Sometimes cable select, Master once in a while, slave if it has to be.

I hope this helped

Rui Villas
<font color=blue>Linux makes an AMD K/6 350Mhz run like a P4 2.4 Ghz. Why do I have Win2k Pro?? </font color=blue>

 

[Col_Kiwi]

For what you're looking for, I'd reccomend the WD SE/Caviar (JB model numbers) series. Very high quality drives as several people have said. Been using my WD800JB for over a year, no problems, good performance. Plan to add in the next few months 2x Raptors in RAID0 for speed, but I'll probably keep my nice reliable JB for extra storage.

-Col.Kiwi

 

[TomaHawK]

I am happy with my IBM HDD, never had any troubles with it, but recently i have seen a few WD drives go bad in my company, some showing the SMART warning some going bad right away the ones gone bad were all 40 gig drives if i rememer right, but as someone posted before me i guess every drive is as good or as bad as the other, the most important criteria for buying a HDD should be your needs and your purse. Of course drives running in RAID mode shoveling data all day long are more open to failure, at least thats what i´ve heard.

Beat the heat with the USB-Powered Fan

 

[SoopahMan]

I'm using 2 WD Raptors in a RAID 0 array, and the performance is unmatched. No drive can hold a candle to these little monsters. Be prepared for heat though... .