hard drives

[iamdigitalman]

well, I am finally replacing my aging/failing 7 year old 10gb maxtor hard drive, and taking it to the (almost) max (128gb), and getting a brand new 120gb 7200 RPM hard drive tommarow!!

 

I need to know which brand is the quietest, which brand is the cheapest, and which brand holds up longer, as well as the brand with the best combo of the three.

 

here are my opinions:

 

-NO TOSHIBA!! my mom's 30gb in her 2 YEAR old laptop failed 2 months ago, and has been replaced with a 60gb seagate. it seems to be holding up well. I also had a 20gb toshiba fail on me, that went into a laptop of mine.

-IBM/hitachi deskstar/travelstar drives are flakey. I have a 20gb travelstar going bad in my laptop, soon to be replaced, a 6.4gb travelstar COMPLEATLY failed on me 2 years ago, and my 15gb deskstar wont power up anymore. it's twin 13.6gb is holding up ok.

-wester digitals WERE excellent. dont know if they still are. my dad's old tein 200mb and 850mb (or so) are still running strong.

-A 40gb seagate barricuda failed on me. first it wouldnt format right, then it got twice as loud as my maxtor (which is pretty damn loud, btw.) sounds like a 747 taking off, but stays there.

 

well, based on my experiences, and adding in yours, what do you think is my best option? note that I plan on this thing lasting AT LEAST 5-10 years. Also, I have a Parallel Ultra ATA interface. It's also a mac.

 

off to bed. AMF 4ever. -digital

[Cran.]

Western Digitals are still great. I've got a 120GB Caviar 7200RPM (8 mb cache) running in my Xbox, and it's been running great since the last crappy samsung 120GB I had in there died. Also have 2x 80GB Caviar 7200RPM in my 2 year old desktop. They haven't failed yet and I can't hear them. Most likely due to the air Thermaltake setup I have in there

[Opius]

Everyone's going to have different experiences, so don't take any one persons word as gospel.

 

That said, I've never actually had a hard-drive fail on me. Dal's been through like four in the past four years or something, but I've never had any problems with any of mine. For the record, I'm using a 30GB Maxtor drive, 2x120GB Western Digital SATA drives, and a 300GB Seagate drive.

 

[EDIT]And an 80GB Western Digital that's survived two years of LAN-ing and another two years of solid use in my Xbox.

[Forfit]

My 160GB Samsung in my computer fried a month back and i lost everything....and now i bought a 160GB western digital that's running strong (for a month, that's not saying much) But from experience with my western digital in another computer that has been going strong for 6 years, i figured i would buy another. All the Maxtor's i ever had were trash, but i just must've had really bad luck with them. I've never dealt with seagates, but they seem like good brand.

 

Like Opius said, everyone's gonna have a different story.

[fido2]

I have alot more trust in Seagate drives than any other. Even if they fail, chances are the 5 year warranty will cover it.

 

The only Western Digitals I own are a Raptor, which I trust because its basically SCSI with with an sata interface, and a 120gig that I don't trust, so its been demoted to backup. I might try to freeze it in a block of ice next time I have nothing to do.

[Wolf68k]

I'll say this over and over again.

Get a brand you like and you trust. The best way to tell that is by what brand(s) you've used in the past. You've been using Maxtor for 7 years, if you haven't had a problem with it then keep using Maxtor. If the drive had been a Western Digital I'd be saying the same damn thing.

 

DO NOT listen to what anyone says of their hard luck stories they've had with this brand or that brand. It doesn't mean s**t. All HDDs are basicly the same. They've all released perfect units that will last forever, and they've all released units that died within a few months, and they've all released units that were DOA when the owner got them home.

 

Now if you want to ask if you should get a 5400, 7200, or 10,000 RPM. Or if you should get one with 2, 8 or 16MB of cache. SATA or ATA. Then ask away.

 

 

[Dalpura]

I've gone through three 80Gb Western Digitals. They just died on me, and I've no idea why either. Since then I've gone Seagate, and wouldn't go back. I've got an 80Gb Seagate in my Xbox, which has been going two years strong. I've also got an 80Gb Seagate in my PC (going well over a year), and a 120Gb in my PC (going just under a year I believe) that I've had no troubles with. Listen to what wolf said though, I'm just throwing in my two cents. If you find a brand you like, trust, and works extremely well; stay with it. That's why I've got Seagate in everything, and always will.

[millermagic]

I have a 76 gig maxtor in my compute rand a 40 gig western digital in the other. I'm not sure if we have ever had a crash though.

[iamdigitalman]

I'll say this over and over again.

Get a brand you like and you trust. The best way to tell that is by what brand(s) you've used in the past. You've been using Maxtor for 7 years, if you haven't had a problem with it then keep using Maxtor. If the drive had been a Western Digital I'd be saying the same damn thing.

 

DO NOT listen to what anyone says of their hard luck stories they've had with this brand or that brand. It doesn't mean s**t. All HDDs are basicly the same. They've all released perfect units that will last forever, and they've all released units that died within a few months, and they've all released units that were DOA when the owner got them home.

 

Now if you want to ask if you should get a 5400, 7200, or 10,000 RPM. Or if you should get one with 2, 8 or 16MB of cache. SATA or ATA. Then ask away.

well, this is the first maxtor I have ever had. but I am figuring it is stock, making it 7 years old, and it is JUST now starting to make the death noises (repeating exact access noise, which wont correct it's self no matter how many times I run my repair programme, or how many times I format it).

 

to answer your question, I would like an Ultra parallel ATA with at least an 8mb casche.

 

the general concensus is samsung is crap, and Wester Digitals are awsome. I can agree, becayse:

 

1. my dad's twin 850mb and 250mb (or so) Caviars are still running strong after 13 or so years.

2. the stock 2gb caviar in my mom's old biege Dell is also running great, if not filling a bit cramped.

 

so, if anyone can persuade me otherwise, a WD it will be. will be heading out in a few hours. going to look at some of the retailer's websites, and see what they have.

 

AMF 4ever. -digital

[Wolf68k]

You've made up your mind, so go for it.

[iamdigitalman]

You've made up your mind, so go for it.

will do. found a nice 120gb WD 7200 8mb at best buy for $99.99 after $10.00 off. will be picking it up later, and dropping it in. Hopefully I can boot off th 10 gig and drop everything over, but if not, I made a emergency boot Zip 100 disk last week, preparing for the imminent. it's got a 9.2.2 system folder on it, and it's fully bootable. if I lose everything (which is just alot of programs, havnt had this thing long enough to drop all my docs on, plus the HD is too small anyways.

 

I also have a backup of all my program installers on a 512mb SD card. works well enough.

 

just hope I dont lose the 2.34gb Windows XP hard drive image (for virtual PC 6). if so, I will spend 3+ hours doing a complete reinstall. pain in the ass.

 

what? with Windows' worldwide dominince, i still need to emulate it for a few things. but I dont use it 24/7.

 

will be rocking with my new HD in a few hours. Im excited. first new piece of kit ever. plus, tis the largest HD I have ever had.

 

AMF 4ever. -digital

[iamdigitalman]

Update: the hard drive I wanted was at best buy, but it appears to have been taken off thier page.

 

I found the exact same on at ComUSA here. however, it's $105.99, and the one at BestBuy was $99.99. but they are the same drives.

 

also, I just found out my ATA Bus is the dead slow ATA/33, but the drive I am eying is ATA/100. should I get a ATA/133 PCI card, or just wing it? what exactly is the performance gains/differences between ATA/33 and ATA/100?

 

thanks. AMF 4ever. -digital

[anus]

I'm using Ultra ATA133, and I've used ATA 33 and ATA 66 PC's and ATA 66 doesn't show much difference, but the ATA 33 has a huge difference imo. If you can find a cheap PCI controller card, go for it, because it's worth the money.

 

Plus, I've just wanted to add, I'm running two 40 GB Samsung Spinpoint PATA drives, and I must say these are awesome. No noise at all, good performance, little heat produced, and overall great. Going strong for almost a year now, I bought these after my Maxtor died on me (definitely the worst HDD maker).

[Wolf68k]

I hope that is the retail verison of the HDD...other wise you're getting screwed for that price.

 

Assuming it is the retail andfrom the sound of it you want to copy everything from the 10 to the 120 and also assuming the 10 is your C drive, even if it's not that's cool too.

With the retail version you get a CD you can boot from. This CD is used to format the drive, but if you set it so that the 120GB that is also a "New bootable" it'll look at the Master (the 10, the 120 should be slave for this) and format the 120 then automattically do a disc-to-disc copy from the 10 to the 120.

Then just shut down, switch the 120's jumpers to Master, yank out the 10, start up and the OS will never know the difference, it'll just suddenly say, "Hey cool a butt load more room."

[iamdigitalman]

I hope that is the retail verison of the HDD...other wise you're getting screwed for that price.

 

Assuming it is the retail andfrom the sound of it you want to copy everything from the 10 to the 120 and also assuming the 10 is your C drive, even if it's not that's cool too.

With the retail version you get a CD you can boot from. This CD is used to format the drive, but if you set it so that the 120GB that is also a "New bootable" it'll look at the Master (the 10, the 120 should be slave for this) and format the 120 then automattically do a disc-to-disc copy from the 10 to the 120.

Then just shut down, switch the 120's jumpers to Master, yank out the 10, start up and the OS will never know the difference, it'll just suddenly say, "Hey cool a butt load more room."

what the hell is a "C" drive?

 

and what OS is on the CD? OS X or 9? you say it's bootable, but can't I just use my boot Zip disk with 9.2.2 on it, drop the data from the 10gb to the 120, and reboot off the new HDD? or wouldnt that work?

 

oh, I have 1 more day to choose. turns out I have a meeting tonight, so no new kit for me. tommarow's another day, though.

 

AMF 4ever. -digital

[Xyzar]

<!-- <b>every</b> Maxtor i've ever seen, used, or heard about (friends who have em) either started having problems pretty soon after purchase, or completely died within like.. a year or 2

 

also, everybody i've ever talked to about hard drives agreed that Maxtor sucks poopy -->

[fuckindumass]

I had a 10g maxtor of years past that served my mommy well, and served me for a year, too bad it was almost a decade old and so small and freaked out when I changed mobo....

I now run a pair of 80g western digital 7200rpm......it's about the same as far as noise goes, I still wake up and think wtf when emule or spyware starts makin it spin non-stop. So, who knows of a 'quiet' hdd? Maybe I should stick with the noise, it alerts me when sumthin evil is goin on.......atm all I hear is the cpu fan, and if I were to move the case under the desk instead of keeping it in my face maybe would not be so obvious....also, during last friday's viruse scan, it reported bad boot sectors on my master drive....... I think all you can do is buy the best you can afford, and then hope for the best.....

Seagate.....I guess the 40g hdd in my ps2 is an old seagate...all I know is my PS2 needed replacement every 9 months, but the hdd always made the transfer into the new PS2...I'll bet sony is pissed about that...oh wait sony abandoned the hdd without ever releasing anything significant for it....maybe that is why it still works, it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (and the 40g sony hdd only costed me 2.5x the 80g westerns...) oh sorry I guess I have issues with Sony.....

Back to topic...not sure what to say, I have bad boot sectors on a 1 yr old western, yet everything functions fine.....just wish I could sleep through the noise it makes....

[Wolf68k]

I hope that is the retail verison of the HDD...other wise you're getting screwed for that price.

 

Assuming it is the retail andfrom the sound of it you want to copy everything from the 10 to the 120 and also assuming the 10 is your C drive, even if it's not that's cool too.

With the retail version you get a CD you can boot from. This CD is used to format the drive, but if you set it so that the 120GB that is also a "New bootable" it'll look at the Master (the 10, the 120 should be slave for this) and format the 120 then automattically do a disc-to-disc copy from the 10 to the 120.

Then just shut down, switch the 120's jumpers to Master, yank out the 10, start up and the OS will never know the difference, it'll just suddenly say, "Hey cool a butt load more room."

what the hell is a "C" drive?

 

and what OS is on the CD? OS X or 9? you say it's bootable, but can't I just use my boot Zip disk with 9.2.2 on it, drop the data from the 10gb to the 120, and reboot off the new HDD? or wouldnt that work?

 

oh, I have 1 more day to choose. turns out I have a meeting tonight, so no new kit for me. tommarow's another day, though.

 

AMF 4ever. -digital

Oh wait this is in a Mac. Damn man why didn't you say so. I thought this was for a Windows machine. You're about only the 2nd Mac user I've seen on here, not including myself.

Yes you can boot from the Zip drive, I've done it in the past myself. You can also boot from the Mac OS CD, which ever OS (Operating System) you're using. Infact you're going to have to boot from the OS CD unless the Zip bootable has the Drive Utility program on it so it can format the new drive. You can then do a disc-to-disc copy, just select all and drag&drop. Also name the new drive to the same as the old one, other wise the aliases/shortcuts might get confused.

 

 

 

@Xyzar and f*ckindumass

No one cares, least of all iamdigitalman. He's already picked waht brand he wants to go with, not that your opinions mattered anyway.

 

[iamdigitalman]

I hope that is the retail verison of the HDD...other wise you're getting screwed for that price.

 

Assuming it is the retail andfrom the sound of it you want to copy everything from the 10 to the 120 and also assuming the 10 is your C drive, even if it's not that's cool too.

With the retail version you get a CD you can boot from. This CD is used to format the drive, but if you set it so that the 120GB that is also a "New bootable" it'll look at the Master (the 10, the 120 should be slave for this) and format the 120 then automattically do a disc-to-disc copy from the 10 to the 120.

Then just shut down, switch the 120's jumpers to Master, yank out the 10, start up and the OS will never know the difference, it'll just suddenly say, "Hey cool a butt load more room."

what the hell is a "C" drive?

 

and what OS is on the CD? OS X or 9? you say it's bootable, but can't I just use my boot Zip disk with 9.2.2 on it, drop the data from the 10gb to the 120, and reboot off the new HDD? or wouldnt that work?

 

oh, I have 1 more day to choose. turns out I have a meeting tonight, so no new kit for me. tommarow's another day, though.

 

AMF 4ever. -digital

Oh wait this is in a Mac. Damn man why didn't you say so. I thought this was for a Windows machine. You're about only the 2nd Mac user I've seen on here, not including myself.

Yes you can boot from the Zip drive, I've done it in the past myself. You can also boot from the Mac OS CD, which ever OS (Operating System) you're using. Infact you're going to have to boot from the OS CD unless the Zip bootable has the Drive Utility program on it so it can format the new drive. You can then do a disc-to-disc copy, just select all and drag&drop. Also name the new drive to the same as the old one, other wise the aliases/shortcuts might get confused.

 

 

 

@Xyzar and f*ckindumass

No one cares, least of all iamdigitalman. He's already picked waht brand he wants to go with, not that your opinions mattered anyway.

Im just yanking your chain. I know what a C drive is, as 90% of the machines in my house are wintels.

 

and yes, it's a mac.

 

I will be running out tonight to go grab the HD, and (possibly) ATA card. Im not worried about slow access speeds right now. Will be picking it up after I drop some old computer parts and sh*t off at the recycling center, and hopefully get some cash.

 

I also got to thinking:

 

I have 3 single HD brackets in there now. BUT, on later revisions of this machine, they made a U bracket that can hold 2 HDDs on the same bracket. They will fit in the current bracket space just fine. that means I could have 6 HDs in here!!

 

supposing that, and I get 2 120gb HDS, hook them up to the internal bus, and I would have 240gb on the internal bus. THEN, I hook an ATA card with 2 additional channels up, get 4 of the largest HDs I could find (right now that's 500gb each). hook them up to the ATA card. I could have 2.2TB of space, including the 240gb on the 2HDs hooked to the internal bus!! :drool: imagine the RAID!!

 

if I EVER decide to run this thing as a server, THAT would be the configuration I would use.

 

just dreaming, though.

 

oh, and I did read the other 2 posts. yes I have made my mind up, but it was still interesting input.

 

AMF 4ever. -digital

[Sixdust]

I know you already have made up your mind, but out of all the brands I have used, (Wd, Seagate, Ibm, Samsung and Maxtor) The maxtors were the best. Usually they are more expensively priced however, I bought my 250gb Maxtor for $60 at compusa. Regular price $180. It is very quiet and works real well for someone like me who uses alot o data. ( I also have another 40gb mactor in this computer and my other computer had one as well) However my old computer overloadedd and the only survivng part was the 20gb Maxtor hard drive. My dad who builds computers also prefers to use maxtors both internal and external.

 

All and all like wolf said, its all about personal choice and experience. Hopefully I may have helped you.

Edited February 17, 2006 by Sixdust

[Ar2De2]

I've never had a problem with Western Digital and Maxtor

[googlemail]

ive got a buffalo 1.6terabyte on my pc that was £957 at the time from www.ebuyer.com

[Bond996]

ive got a buffalo 1.6terabyte on my pc that was £957 at the time from www.ebuyer.com

That's actually 4 400gb drives, and since its USB2.0, and maybe Firewire, its still a pretty slow speed and can't be booted from, so its not exceptional. Is it firewire 400 or 800?

[googlemail]

my hdd is a firewire 800

[iamdigitalman]

update: sorry for it being a while, but I have been wretleing the beast to insall stuff. I fanlly got an OS on here, but have been having the damndest time getting anything else on here. a direct cloning of the old drive didnt work, and I had to get the OS CD back from my friend ( I will burn a copy later on).

 

but, atleast I finally got it. it's a Seagate Barracuda ST3120026A 120gb. it's got that awsome 5 year warrenty, and more space then I may ever need. but hey, it was a steal. $69.99 at Best Buy ($30.00 instant rebate). how f*cking awsome is that? you wait for a deal long enough, ant it will happen.

 

Actually, the one I wanted was a WD, but the cheapest one of those was $87.50+shipping. this is a hell of a better deal. plus, my mom's toshiba has a 60gb seagate, and it runs awsome.

 

here's a screenshot for your viewing pleasure (hosted off my computer, so if the computer's off, then the pic will be down.):

 

 

as you can see, it IS 120gb, when 1k= 1000 bytes, but it is only 111.79gb when 1k=1024 bytes, which is how the computer count's it, so the later is how much space is on the drive (total, not free).

 

enjoy.

 

AMF 4ever. -digiital

[Fozzy Fozborne]

I know you already got it, but if anyone else is interested in a new HD, here's a 250 GB Seagate for $90

 

7200 RPM

8MB cache

ATA 150

 

Get It Here

 

(I've had my 120 GB Seagate ($40) working just fine for 1/2 year, without a single problem with it, so I recommend Seagate)

[Wolf68k]

I know you already got it, but if anyone else is interested in a new HD, here's a 250 GB Seagate for $90

 

7200 RPM

8MB cache

ATA 150

 

Get It Here

 

(I've had my 120 GB Seagate ($40) working just fine for 1/2 year, without a single problem with it, so I recommend Seagate)

That's a SerialATA....you need to make note of that when telling people about HDDs

There is SerialATA (SATA) and standard ATA IDE (sometimes listed as PATA) drives.