Which Brand is the most Reliable Hard Drive?

[dealcatcher]

Which Brand is the most Reliable Hard Drive?

[tlamm]

In my 14 years in the computer field I have nothing but good things to say about Seagate. Ive also had great luck with Western Digital and Fujitsu.

[nathan_chan168]

7 yrs of comp experience for me

seagate - most quiet, and id say best

as far as reliability, in my experience only a WD has died on me


maxtors are loud

-nathan

[tmpz]

Seagate all the way. I have a Seagate, its so much quieter than my Maxtor. Plus the warranty is 5 years compared to 3 years OEM or 1 year retail for other drives.

[shabby]

I had a wd 180gig die on me a couple months after i got, rma'd it and got a refurb :mad:
I think my next drive will be a seagate, im just waiting till the cache hits 16megs like the new maxtor's.

[Patrick]

all i ever used were maxtors, i should try seagates

[cnbc]

Can you give a negative vote to IBM? :D

[gman]

I think I should stop bad mouthing Maxtor because whenever I bad mouth it here, one more Maxtor in my company will die.

On the other hand, may be they are all dead now. :cheesygri

For the recent years (if I have to go all the way for 15 years, Seagate was bad too), I only used WD, Seagate and Maxtor. Maxtor is the worst. Seagate is the best (among 3). I had dead disks for all 3 brands.

[Gee]

I have been doing this for almost 20 years.

I have used every drive on the market. Anyone remember Miniscribe?

I have had a failure with every drive out there. No one is perfect. Every manufacturer has a failure rate. So you should pick a drive that suits your needs best.

The only bad thing I have to say is Samsung. They have the worse RMA process of all the manufacturers

[ShadowVlican]

6 year old 8GB samsung still working fine today with ZERO bad sectors

[gh05t]

Had 2 maxtors die on me(10gig and 40gig).I actaully RMed the 40 gig a few months after getting it too.

Currently have a 40gig in an old P3(retail with 1 year warranty up already) that is soon to die as my computer fell over while it was on and the drive possibly was spinning and now there might be a bad sector as i sometimes get the message starting up that the boot info cannot be read and the prompt to put in the cd rom to boot.

Did not get a seagate 120GB because at the time I was buying, the warranty was only 1 year.This is when SATA had just come out and was around $200 so i got the Maxtor 120gig SATA for my P4 rig instead.

Seagate has improved on their warranty now so my next hard drive when this maxtor crashes (I know it will) will be a seagate.

Can't say which is the best but i know Maxtor for me has been crap.

IBMs are always expensive and Fujitsu knows they used to have quality/reliablity issues with their product and would give no hassle as my brother once took a broken 2 gig drive directly to them in Misssisauga and they just took it and gave him another drive right away, no questions asked(except about warranty i think:)).

[freddyprinze]

The Seagate 120GB drive in my Dell was only 14 months old before it crashed--lost all my email although I had backed up most of my other data. Dell replaced it with a 250GB Maxtor and after reading the other posts, I'm afraid....really afraid..... :cry:

[eelfliw]

I have not had 1 failed 4 Gig Seagate SCSI (http://forums.redflagdeals.com/showthread.php?t=117715) drive out of 32 in 8 years of 7X24 service. Very reliable. Some of these are up for sale for $10obo.

Also have not had 1 failed WD IDE drive either but these don't run 7X24.

[porphyra]

I have to say, in my experience, the most reliable hard drives I have had are IBM's.

Yes, you heard correct. IBM managed to garner a terrible reputation with their 60GXP and 75GXP due to some implementation issues with a new technology (pixie dust? I don't quite remember correctly). However they got their issues sorted and the following Deskstars viz. 120GXP and 180GXP were top of the line performers. Very few RMA's, excellent seek times and consistent performers. However, IBM never quite recovered from their earlier debacle, which saw the whole harddrive line being taken over by Hitachi. Hitachi, deriving from IBM's R&D are now making the biggest breakthroughs in HD tech.

I have 2 120GXP's, along with Maxtor DM10, WD60BB. WD 80BB, Seagate Barracuda V, and Seagate 7200.8. Apart from the two 8mb cache drives, the IBM is way faster than those in its class, has never gone through an RMA (all the other ones have, by manufacturer), and are rather quiet.

I would buy the new Hitachi drives, if I could afford them. Certainly good drives.

[Avenger]

I only use WD - I have had 2 of them running 24/7 for over 3 years no problem, and the current one in my pc for the same - I only ever had one die after 5 years of heavy use. Seem reliable enough.

I might try seagate since people say they are quiet.

[balou911]

Stick with seagate today.

they run fast, and quiet.
the 5yr OEM warranty puts them above the competition for now.

try to have a fan in your case blowing ari over the hdds.
It should in theory increase your MTBF (it should last longer)

lower temps is good.

[Macross_Freek]

So far I've used 3 brands of hard drives. Maxtor, WD, and samsung. Maxtor I've had one bad drive (the only one i bought from them) and had to rma but the rma process was pretty painless. WD so far has been good to me. The Samsung I have is a bit loud. I'll be trying seagates for my next hard drive due to the 5-year warranty + people's suggestions that they are very quiet.

[scottyb]

I hate the Seagate 120GB drive that I have now. It has this really annoying high pitched whine... it sux.

[jed]

I have been doing this for almost 20 years.

I have used every drive on the market. Anyone remember Miniscribe?

I have had a failure with every drive out there. No one is perfect. Every manufacturer has a failure rate. So you should pick a drive that suits your needs best.

The only bad thing I have to say is Samsung. They have the worse RMA process of all the manufacturers


I haven't been doing this for 20 yrs, but bang on with Samsung - they suck for the RMA process AND paperwork!