Hard Drive replacements

[grumbler]

My sixteen-month-old Seagate 500GB HDDs are just about worn out (according to HDStatus.com, one is at 25% fitness/25% performance, and the other at 52% fitness 48% performance), so i decided to replace them with a single 1TB drive.

The problem is that there are not many HDD makers anymore, and all of them suck.  Reliable, efficient Maxtor was bought out by unreliable inefficient Seagate, so the one clearly good option is not an option.

I don't want to go with Seagate if I can help it.  They just don't last.

I got a WD 1TB drive, and it failed out of the box.  I have had a lot of luck with their 250GB drives, but anything bigger appears to be over their head.

My experience with Samsung drives was bad, but some time ago.  I understand their customer service is still non-existent, so their warranty is effectively 30 days (i.e. return it to NewEgg within 30 days, or toss it when it fails because Samsung will never authorize a replacement under warranty no matter what).

Anyone had any pleasant experiences with 1TB desktop drives?

[Caliga]

I have two WD Caviar Green 1 Tb drives (one in my PC and one in Princesca's) and they've been functioning flawlessly so far.

[grumbler]

I have two WD Caviar Green 1 Tb drives (one in my PC and one in Princesca's) and they've been functioning flawlessly so far.

Well, maybe I will get a replacement WD rather than a refund. WD has a very high rate of failure out of the box, but my experience with the drives that work has been pretty good.  It is just such a pain having to deal with the delays and troubleshooting, though.

I was hoping that somebody knew of something better than WD, though.

[Josquius]

I have noticed my seagate these days seems extra noisy and slow...Bugger better not die on me.

[Darth Wagtaros]

As you say there aren't many options.  I dislike Seagate. WD is the best of the lot far as I can tell.

[Caliga]

I have noticed my seagate these days seems extra noisy and slow...Bugger better not die on me.

One of the nice things about these WD drives is that they are totally silent.  I mean, they might make a slight noise, but my PSU fan (which itself is not very loud at all) drowns it out in my case.

[Grey Fox]

Does Toshiba still make drives?

I'd get a WD, it's your best bet.

[Ideologue]

My sixteen-month-old Seagate 500GB HDDs are just about worn out (according to HDStatus.com, one is at 25% fitness/25% performance, and the other at 52% fitness 48% performance), so i decided to replace them with a single 1TB drive.

The problem is that there are not many HDD makers anymore, and all of them suck.  Reliable, efficient Maxtor was bought out by unreliable inefficient Seagate, so the one clearly good option is not an option.

I don't want to go with Seagate if I can help it.  They just don't last.

I got a WD 1TB drive, and it failed out of the box.  I have had a lot of luck with their 250GB drives, but anything bigger appears to be over their head.

My experience with Samsung drives was bad, but some time ago.  I understand their customer service is still non-existent, so their warranty is effectively 30 days (i.e. return it to NewEgg within 30 days, or toss it when it fails because Samsung will never authorize a replacement under warranty no matter what).

Anyone had any pleasant experiences with 1TB desktop drives?

Up until it started fucking up today, I rather enjoyed my Caliga-approved WD.

[Ideologue]

Does Toshiba still make drives?

I'd get a WD, it's your best bet.

I think it's Toshiba that makes the biggest commercial SSD on the market, at 500GB.

[grumbler]

Does Toshiba still make drives?

Only for laptops and external storage.

I'd get a WD, it's your best bet.

Yeah, that's what I am thinking, too.  I guess I will just have to continue to slog through all the DOAs to get one that works.

[DontSayBanana]

Does Toshiba still make drives?

Not sure if they do for desktops, but do not, under any circumstances use Toshiba laptop drives (optical or HDD); their failure rate is staggering.

[grumbler]

Not sure if they do for desktops, but do not, under any circumstances use Toshiba laptop drives (optical or HDD); their failure rate is staggering.

  Seems that is true for all HDDs.  Seagate's DOA rate seems to be in the >25% range (looking at Newegg), Samsung around 15%, and WD around 10%.  Those are all staggering numbers to an old-time techie like me, who used to find DOA rates of around 2-5% when I bought large numbers of drives.  Maxtor used to be a gold standard - never a DOA, and even after years of use, failure rates were low and replacement of 2-3 year-old drives was fast.

When I was shopping for my replacement drive, I was staggered by both the low cost and the crap quality.

[jimmy olsen]

Not sure if they do for desktops, but do not, under any circumstances use Toshiba laptop drives (optical or HDD); their failure rate is staggering.

  Seems that is true for all HDDs.  Seagate's DOA rate seems to be in the >25% range (looking at Newegg), Samsung around 15%, and WD around 10%.  Those are all staggering numbers to an old-time techie like me, who used to find DOA rates of around 2-5% when I bought large numbers of drives.  Maxtor used to be a gold standard - never a DOA, and even after years of use, failure rates were low and replacement of 2-3 year-old drives was fast.

When I was shopping for my replacement drive, I was staggered by both the low cost and the crap quality.

My drive that recently died was a WD that was two years old.

[DontSayBanana]

  Seems that is true for all HDDs.  Seagate's DOA rate seems to be in the >25% range (looking at Newegg), Samsung around 15%, and WD around 10%.  Those are all staggering numbers to an old-time techie like me, who used to find DOA rates of around 2-5% when I bought large numbers of drives.  Maxtor used to be a gold standard - never a DOA, and even after years of use, failure rates were low and replacement of 2-3 year-old drives was fast.

When I was shopping for my replacement drive, I was staggered by both the low cost and the crap quality.

My personal belief is that the crap quality is coming from the massive sizes of hard drives without re-engineering the mechanisms for access. More and more data is being accessed in denser clusters on the platters with the read heads moving at higher and higher speeds- they're getting the performance when they work, but they've engineered themselves out of substantial tolerances that could be used for safety margins.

There are a couple competing designs for solid-state drives that are looking to ease some of the load and increase the usable size to be on par with traditional HDDs in one fell swoop, but they're all a good distance away from mass-market production.

[DGuller]

This thread makes me glad I got the second hard drive anyway, although ultimately it turned out to be unnecessary.  At least now I use the second drive for backup.  Two drives can't fail at the same time without a larger catastrophe, right?