Hard Drive Question

[Dinobot2]

I'm building a mini server and I wanted to know about some hard drives.

What I want to know which drives are better.

Maxtor? I've heard some good and bad things about them that averages about 50/50. personally I haven't had any problems with Maxtor.

Seagate? some of my friends swear by them. they said that they have the best drives ever.

Western Digital? for me they were the first drives i've ever tried and they are a name in the industry. I haven't used them in a while so I want to know if they've changed.



What do you think?

 

[electronicsfreak]

Seagate from what ive read is good. maxtor i dont know much about but i consider them ok. Western digital from previous experience I no longer like. I had read comments before I had bought my drive about it dying after about a year or so. I ignored them figured it was people who probally didnt know what they were doing or damaged it somehow. Well a little over a year my drive died. It was also 2 weeks before the waranty expired and the company said it wasnt still under warranty and refused to acknowledge me. So I recently bought seagate and am giving them a try. Ive only had it for a month now so I cant really say if its good or not however it came with a better warranty then western digital. Seagates came with a 5 year warranty. Also in case your wondering which western digital drive i was using is a caviar 40GB 2MB buffer 7200rpm ide drive. Im using a seagate now which exact same specs. Anyways weither this sheds light or not for helping I dont know just thought id give my opinion and history on the matter.

 

[KevinADC]

They are all good, Hitachi is too. What will be most important for your servers hard drive(s): price, reliability , speed, capacity?

The WD Raptors (SATA) are very nice and super fast, but low capacity and expensive. 3 year warranties are pretty good.

Hitachi has some gigantic capacity drives that are great performers.

For ATA drives I like the Seagate Barracuda 7200 (ST3400832AS). 400GB, 5 year warranty and a good performer for around $300 last time I checked.

 

[garebo]

To give a real good accounting i think a person would want to know what is important to you, speed, reliability, cost, pata (ide) or sata etc.

They are all good drives, but, in my opinion, if you can
get a samsung or a seagate for around the same price and same time length of warranty, i would go for those over the other brands.
All being equal, price, warranty, etc, etc, i would go for:

Seagate
samsung
fujitsu (bought out, i think, but older ones around)
maxtor
west dig
IBM, Hitachi, all the rest IBM owns now. But thats because i dont like some models of IBM hard drives and i dont trust them not to rebadge or re-label.






Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[addy]

I used to use Seagate Barracuda drives and i am now on Maxtor and never had a problem with either

 

[kmcferrin]

The only hard disks that I have ever had die on me were Western Digital. I have also used Seagate and Maxtor, and haven't had any failures with either. In general, my Seagate drives have been faster and quieter than my Maxtor drives (some of my Maxtors are outrageously loud), but there are many models to choose from that might swing this one way or the other. I do know that most Seagate drives have a 5-year warranty, while most other drives are 3 years. I like the 5-year personally.

Hitachi is formerly IBM, which used to be really good. They had one bad run of DeskStar drives (as IBM) that really killed their reputation though.

 

[garebo]

And either fujitsu or hitachi had some bad ones as well, i think it was 30 and some 40 gig fujitsu.
And they are still out there for sale too.

This kind of survey really only works when you narrow down how much you want to spend, what you would use the drive for, on and on, so many many variables. That makes it to unweildy as a survey, like this whole thread is gonna be, lol. Plus its very subjective. For instance, i just like to stay away form al IBM h drives because of a few.

Still, it makes a good read, lol.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[kmcferrin]

Good point, Garebo. If he specs our some requirements (capacity, interface, speed, noise level) we could probably point him to a clear winner for his particular case. But when you ask open-ended questions like this, it's like asking if AMD or Intel is better. First someone says "better for what", and then there everyone responds with their favorite brand.

Speaking in very general terms, there are no "brand lemons" with hard disks like there might be with other products (mainboards come to mind). All manufacturers will have lines of drives that are particularly good, and all of them will likely have runs of bad drives too.

 

[garebo]

Not only that but you hear this kinda stuff:

I had a new maxtor go bad on me, i hate maxtor, dont buy them. In the meantime the guy went thru maybe 5 machines with maxtor drives and they were all fine. Who on earth knows what he did to this drive, lol.

or

We had 38 pcs with west dig, had to replace them all with such and such.

Unless they were all part of a bad batch or bad model, i would say there was some other problem there, not related to west dig hard drives!

I dont pay a lot of attention to that kinda stuff.

There have been well documented issues with a few models, like the infamous IBM deckstar, but it didnt apply to all IBM or even all deckstar. The only reason i stay away is that im not sure and IBM has bought up some other brands that had some problem drives, it was either fujitsu or another japanese name, i think. Unless i get a chance to do some research i simply avoid them all. But thats just me and there are some good IBM drives out there for sure.
I am pretty certain there were some bad 30 gig fujitsu drives out there, maybe also even the 40 gigs as well, but not sure on that.

I think too much reporting goes on by people who dont know how to properly handle hard drives, period! And i sure as heck am not saying i know everything either.

All things being equal, i would go for a drive that has a 5 yr warranty over a 3 yr warranty, thats for sure, and the 5 yr warranties are indeed coming back, it seems. Or at least partly so, hope the trend continues.









Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[RICHINMINN]

I've used most brands of hard drives over the past few years, and since most of the brands have reduced their warranty period to 1 year, I've switched almost exclusively to Seagate drives, which still carry 3- and 5-year warranties. I also like their performance, which matches or beats that of just about any other drive out there. Even if they only had a 1-year warranty like everyone else, I'd still use Seagate drives because I think they're better-built.

Just my 2¢.

Rich (in Minn.)

 

[garebo]

I agree with RICHINMINN, i have seagate first on my list because i like them, they are usually quieter than, say, maxtor, and then there is usually a better warranty.
But others have their preferences too.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[smah]

The only advice that I'm going to give is to stay away from IBM drives. With that said, it's interesting to note that no one has mentioned SCSI drives - faster & generally more reliable.

 

[kmcferrin]

Nobody has mentioned IDE or SATA either. Everyone was talking about manufacturers, not models.

 

[garebo]

yes, its already been established this is pretty much a waste as you have to be real specific when discussing hard drives, otherwise its all just small talk with a bit of real info mixed in.
In the end, though, a bit of general info finds its way here.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[Dinobot2]

Ok. What it is going to be used for is that, I'm just planning to use it for a test server to install applications that we are going to use in the office. I already have in place a Dell Precision 360 P4 workstation with 1 gig of memory. it didn't have a hard drive so I want to convert it into a test server.
The applications on our network are running fat-server thin-client, being that more processing happens on the server side.

When I was doing an evaluation of our network, I see that some of our offices are getting into fat-client fat-server that is really slowing down part of the network. (for the must have or need. Some admins can’t say no.)

Right now I'm restructuring the network and before anything new goes in I want something fast to run it on.
I need reliability and speed.

From all of your post I'm going Seagate. so Thanks
all of you.

any other suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[KevinADC]

I'd go with the WD Raptors then if I were you unless the capacity is just too small, but you can install a couple or more. The Segates are great hard drives though and should work well.

 

[garebo]

Problem with going with the raptor is they likely wont give him a true user experience as the pcs that actually use the software wont be running with raptors. At least thats why i didnt mention them.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paparazi]

IBM rant!!!!!
Just because IBM made some bad drives 4/5 years ago!!!!!!!
GXP60 and GXP75 Deskstars 30gig through to 80gig as far as I remember.

Hitachi have SINCE bought out the IBM HDD manufacture
This was multi dollar takeover, production anomolies were quickly dealt with.
But more importantly, the models that were effected HAVE LONG SINCE GONE!!

So please lets not have any more uniformed opinions.

Hitachi drives are amongst the best available and personally I would buy an IBM over a Maxtor any day, It's like comparing a BMW to a Ford.

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[bygeek]

For what it's worth, as a field technician who repairs all brands of pc's, I've replaced more failed Maxtor drives in the last 4 years than any other brand. I use Western Digial exclusively (8mb cache with 3 yr warranty), and I've yet to have one fail. These are not just in older machines - I've replaced failed Maxtors in Dell machines that were only 6 months old.

 

[garebo]

I have maxtor a bit lower on my list for the simple reason that i have heard that a lot. The only thing is that it may very well be that maxtor sells more hard drives than most other or all other companies so that you will hear a lot about them, its just the numbers. Its possible their failure rate is not any higher than others. That and a low price and a big rebate is why i buy them!
I have a few 60 and 80 gig maxtors that have been running night and day for years, right along with my seagates and samsungs.

Still, i prefer some others over maxtor. Maxtor can be noisy too, although one of my 60 gig maxtors sits in an open usb enclosure and its quiet. What i mean is that i have a full high tower and the maxtor drive is in a usb enclosure but the top isnt on it, and it sits on the top of the tower. I do that to all heat dissipation. So its an open drive sitting at near shoulder level, open, and 1.5 ft away from me, and no noise.
Still, though, i have found that some can be noisy.
Its hard to put one company down, but its easy to have preferences!


Good advice + great people = tek-tips