Does a decent hard drive manufacturer actually exist?

McGraw · 22-08-2005, 16:21

All the major manufacturers get slagged off by someone on the net.

Personally I've had no probs with IBM/Hitachi or Western Digital.

My 20Gb 6 year old WD died last week. Not bad really.

Halcyon · 22-08-2005, 16:26

Although some Seagates can be a little noisy, I have had no problems with them and reccomend them.
As for Fujitsu, I've only had problems with them.

ntl customer · 22-08-2005, 16:29

Seagates are my preferred choice of drive. Reasonably quiet compared to my old old Fujitsu drive, which made a din.

You get 5 years warranty with Seagates as well IIRC.

Dave Stones · 22-08-2005, 16:29

never noticed to be honest. i have a hitachi/ibm travelstart 7k60 in my laptop, a maxtor maxlineII in one computer, a maxtor diamondmax in my external drive... i think people just get a bit bitchy when theirs breaks down...

...and then there are the fanboys

McGraw · 22-08-2005, 16:31

That's what I think too.

**Paul** · 22-08-2005, 16:39

Maxtor.

LemonyBrainAid · 22-08-2005, 16:41

I'm buying a 300GB Western Digital from dabs soon - All I've heard is good reviews from people using Western digital

jtwn · 22-08-2005, 16:45

I think people rant about a particular manufacturer if they've had a couple fail in a short period or something...I just believe drives have the possibility of failing in the short term or long term, whether one manufacturer or not...basically, down to luck

**Paul** · 22-08-2005, 16:49

IBM Deathstars are the only ones I would activley avoid.

22-08-2005, 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Halcyon

As for Fujitsu, I've only had problems with them.

I've tried a variety over the years, and have found some minor problems with Seagate, but the worst was the infamous Fujitsu HD failure of their MPG series drives: http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/fujitsu-...k-recovery.htm
There was some major fall-out over this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09...itsu_hdds_all/ and I would like to think that Fujitsu have made sure that won't happen to them again.
Having said that, all they offered was a replacement drive, no chance of getting the data recovered - even though it would have been simple for them to do. And trying to get it done commercially was obviously not economical for home users.

Some other info on other drives: http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-failures.htm

My most recent problem was with a Seagate drive - partition info getting corrupted etc. I don't know if this was due to the drive or not, but it's not going back into any of my computers!

Now got a WD drive in it's place - a little noisier on seek, but only time will tell if it's a good drive.

Meanwhile, no matter how good your drive, make sure you back up the stuff you think you can't live without, cos recovery can be costly. In my case with the Seagate it cost about 60 quid for some software that managed to unravel the disk's logical structure. I got everything back (as far as I can tell) but would rather not have to go through all of that again.

jtwn · 22-08-2005, 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul M

IBM Deathstars are the only ones I would activley avoid.

Oh yeah, damn! Was going to mention those as the exception...bad bad, drives if there was one I could think of, a few companies just rebrand those drives...excelstor being one. I had two.

Halcyon · 22-08-2005, 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScaredWebWarrior

Meanwhile, no matter how good your drive, make sure you back up the stuff you think you can't live without, cos recovery can be costly.

Sound advice there. All drives will die at some point so doing some regular, (eg. weekly or monthly) backups of important data is critical.

nffc · 22-08-2005, 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul M

Maxtor.

Better be- I have just bought a Maxtor 250 GB SATA 16 MB cache jobbo. Now how to partition it...

That said the drive I intend to replace is a Maxtor EIDE one. Had no probs with that.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul M

IBM Deathstars are the only ones I would activley avoid.

I have one of those too- and again, no problems.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by LemonyBrainAid

I'm buying a 300GB Western Digital from dabs soon - All I've heard is good reviews from people using Western digital

Now they are the one I'd tend to avoid, we have a lot more of them actually fail- y'know, the types that ring in, diag a HD fault, look on the intranet, surprise surprise it's a WD. Keep well backed up in case...

22-08-2005, 23:12

You only ever hear horror stories.Theres not many people post on the web about how good a product is but plenty of people want to moan. Look on ebuyer for there customer reviews .Does not mean you have to buy from there but have a look

budwieser · 22-08-2005, 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScaredWebWarrior

I've tried a variety over the years, and have found some minor problems with Seagate, but the worst was the infamous Fujitsu HD failure of their MPG series drives: http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/fujitsu-...k-recovery.htm
There was some major fall-out over this http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/09...itsu_hdds_all/ and I would like to think that Fujitsu have made sure that won't happen to them again.
Having said that, all they offered was a replacement drive, no chance of getting the data recovered - even though it would have been simple for them to do. And trying to get it done commercially was obviously not economical for home users.

Some other info on other drives: http://www.dataclinic.co.uk/hard-disk-failures.htm

My most recent problem was with a Seagate drive - partition info getting corrupted etc. I don't know if this was due to the drive or not, but it's not going back into any of my computers!

Now got a WD drive in it's place - a little noisier on seek, but only time will tell if it's a good drive.

Meanwhile, no matter how good your drive, make sure you back up the stuff you think you can't live without, cos recovery can be costly. In my case with the Seagate it cost about 60 quid for some software that managed to unravel the disk's logical structure. I got everything back (as far as I can tell) but would rather not have to go through all of that again.

In my case with the Seagate it cost about 60 quid for some software that managed to unravel the disk's logical structure. "

What software was that then mate?
"