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?
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.
Quote from: Caliga on September 05, 2009, 06:49:41 PM
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.
I have noticed my seagate these days seems extra noisy and slow...Bugger better not die on me.
As you say there aren't many options. I dislike Seagate. WD is the best of the lot far as I can tell.
Quote from: Tyr on September 05, 2009, 08:58:27 PM
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.
Does Toshiba still make drives?
I'd get a WD, it's your best bet.
Quote from: grumbler on September 05, 2009, 06:48:41 PM
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. :lol:
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 05, 2009, 10:29:43 PM
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.
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 05, 2009, 10:29:43 PM
Does Toshiba still make drives?
Only for laptops and external storage.
QuoteI'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.
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 05, 2009, 10:29:43 PM
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.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 03:19:44 PM
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.
:lol: 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.
Quote from: grumbler on September 06, 2009, 03:31:00 PM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 03:19:44 PM
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.
:lol: 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.
Quote from: grumbler on September 06, 2009, 03:31:00 PM:lol: 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.
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?
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 03:19:44 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 05, 2009, 10:29:43 PM
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.
:unsure:
My laptop has a Toshiba HDD. I've had it for a year and half, so far haven't had any problems with it.
I did order a 1TB external HDD about a week ago just in case it does die.
Quote from: Cerr on September 06, 2009, 03:57:40 PM:unsure: My laptop has a Toshiba HDD. I've had it for a year and half, so far haven't had any problems with it. I did order a 1TB external HDD about a week ago just in case it does die.
Actually, I misstated the problem. Toshiba put out excellent laptops, but there's a big problem with defective drives (at an informed guess, probably in the range of 20-25%). Mine came with a defective Toshiba drive that won't let the computer read any SMART info on the drive, and constantly complains about unreadable sectors on the disk; I'm just limping along with it until I've got the cash to plunk down on a WD drive.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 05:03:46 PM
Quote from: Cerr on September 06, 2009, 03:57:40 PM:unsure: My laptop has a Toshiba HDD. I've had it for a year and half, so far haven't had any problems with it. I did order a 1TB external HDD about a week ago just in case it does die.
Actually, I misstated the problem. Toshiba put out excellent laptops, but there's a big problem with defective drives (at an informed guess, probably in the range of 20-25%). Mine came with a defective Toshiba drive that won't let the computer read any SMART info on the drive, and constantly complains about unreadable sectors on the disk; I'm just limping along with it until I've got the cash to plunk down on a WD drive.
With the greatest respect, I have found you tend to take your own personal experience and then make it universal.
Do you have any kind of link or resource that even comes close to support your 20-25% failure rate?
How do you actually use the SMART thing to analyze how good your drive is? :unsure: I've never done it, I've only tested the hard drive by turning on a computer and seeing if it started.
Quote from: Barrister on September 06, 2009, 05:15:00 PM
With the greatest respect, I have found you tend to take your own personal experience and then make it universal.
Do you have any kind of link or resource that even comes close to support your 20-25% failure rate?
It was a
guess, but Toshiba failures are pretty common due to design flaws, explained here: http://www.dtidata.com/resourcecenter/2007/02/17/toshiba-laptop-hard-drive-recovery-failed-bearings/
Quote from: DGuller on September 06, 2009, 05:20:03 PM
How do you actually use the SMART thing to analyze how good your drive is? :unsure: I've never done it, I've only tested the hard drive by turning on a computer and seeing if it started.
If you get a program like SpeedFan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php)) you can not just read the SMART results, but compare them to other drives of that same make and model, to see how your results compare 9and especially to see how healthy your drives are). The actual control features of SpeedFan are, in my opinion, secondary to its diagnostic use. Try it out. It is free.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 06, 2009, 05:28:20 PM
It was a guess, but Toshiba failures are pretty common due to design flaws, explained here: http://www.dtidata.com/resourcecenter/2007/02/17/toshiba-laptop-hard-drive-recovery-failed-bearings/
That is a guy who makes a living from having people send him their "defective" drives. Not an impartial source (espacially when he doesn't tell "marissa" that the likeliest cause of her "hard drive not seen" fault is that some connections came loose whn she dropped the case (vice the "you might need hard drive recovery" message he sends).
Having said that, a quick scan of Toshiba laptop drives on NewEgg doesn't place them at the top of the pack. Their highest-rated SATA 3.0 drive is rated 11th (worse than any other manufacturer).
If you guys are coming up with these figures based on NewEgg reviews, keep in mind that the typical NewEgg reviewer is posting a review for two reasons: a) they are a fanboi and the item is the OSSUMMIST HDD/VID CARD/MOBO EVAR, or b) it's defective and therefore the WURST HDD/VID CARD/MOBO EVAR! I am perfectly happy with my WD Caviar Greens so far but didn't feel compelled to post a review to that effect.
Quote from: Caliga on September 06, 2009, 07:15:33 PM
If you guys are coming up with these figures based on NewEgg reviews, keep in mind that the typical NewEgg reviewer is posting a review for two reasons: a) they are a fanboi and the item is the OSSUMMIST HDD/VID CARD/MOBO EVAR, or b) it's defective and therefore the WURST HDD/VID CARD/MOBO EVAR! I am perfectly happy with my WD Caviar Greens so far but didn't feel compelled to post a review to that effect.
Yeah. That, and those reading the link failed to read the comments where I actually extracted some user sentiment from. A few were shops estimating the frequency of work on Toshiba hard drives versus work on other hard drives.
Quote from: Caliga on September 06, 2009, 07:15:33 PM
If you guys are coming up with these figures based on NewEgg reviews, keep in mind that the typical NewEgg reviewer is posting a review for two reasons: a) they are a fanboi and the item is the OSSUMMIST HDD/VID CARD/MOBO EVAR, or b) it's defective and therefore the WURST HDD/VID CARD/MOBO EVAR! I am perfectly happy with my WD Caviar Greens so far but didn't feel compelled to post a review to that effect.
Since the reviews are going to be motivated by the same impulses regardless of the maker of a drive, they can be used for comparative purposes, as I have done. I would agree that the numbers are not reliable as absolute values.
I think disk space has become so cheap that by and large the concept of a "quality drive" doesn't exist. I think most people just build for redundancy now, knowing you're going to run into drive failures.
In this PC I'm typing from I have 2 x 400 GB HDD and then another 400 GB external that is usually hooked up to it. All told I probably use about 350 GB of "real" data and have 800 GB of space essentially for backup. All the drives are WD and two years old, and I'm pretty impressed none of them failed out of the box--I do agree with the earlier sentiment that with WD they do usually seem to last if they aren't dead out of the box.
Two years ago 400 GB weren't that expensive, now, 1 TB drives are roughly the same price. Disk space is cheap and getting cheaper so I just I personally just utilize a lot of redundancy in the expectation that my drives will fail.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on September 07, 2009, 02:43:42 PM
I think disk space has become so cheap that by and large the concept of a "quality drive" doesn't exist. I think most people just build for redundancy now, knowing you're going to run into drive failures.
In this PC I'm typing from I have 2 x 400 GB HDD and then another 400 GB external that is usually hooked up to it. All told I probably use about 350 GB of "real" data and have 800 GB of space essentially for backup. All the drives are WD and two years old, and I'm pretty impressed none of them failed out of the box--I do agree with the earlier sentiment that with WD they do usually seem to last if they aren't dead out of the box.
Two years ago 400 GB weren't that expensive, now, 1 TB drives are roughly the same price. Disk space is cheap and getting cheaper so I just I personally just utilize a lot of redundancy in the expectation that my drives will fail.
True. You could set up a decent RAID 0 array for about $100, and even a RAID 5 for about $200-$250.
Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though? The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning. If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 06:20:48 PM
Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though? The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning. If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
Depends on what you want the RAID for. If you are using it for a database then it might improve the speed.
As for backups it depends on the OS. Sun's ZFS supposedly performs constant checksums to identify bad data as soon as it appears and prevent dataloss.
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 06:20:48 PM
Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though? The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning. If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.
Nice program Grumbler.
Apparently both my HDD are powered on way too often.
Blah.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 07, 2009, 09:45:48 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 06:20:48 PM
Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though? The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning. If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.
What does that mean?
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 11:41:33 PM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 07, 2009, 09:45:48 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 06:20:48 PM
Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though? The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning. If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.
What does that mean?
That RAID was designed to ensure no data are lost if one HD in the array buys the farm (that's what 'system integrity' means), not to make backups. In the 80s we were so used to make regular backups that it was second nature to us IT people, no one would have bothered to conceive something like RAID just to get automatic back ups.
A very, very simplified example (and remember, in the real world we wouldn't use decimal numbers): we have to store the number '11302'. That would use five digits, plus one to ensure integrity. How? We add 1+1+3+0+2 = 7. We write '7' in our 'security' digit and should any other digit die, for example the third, we would be left with '11X02' but thanks to the '7' we stored it's childish to deduct that the lost digit was a '3', i.e. we can recover any data lost.
Quote from: Alatriste on September 08, 2009, 01:15:55 AM
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 11:41:33 PM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on September 07, 2009, 09:45:48 PM
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 06:20:48 PM
Isn't RAID pretty bad for backup, though? The only situation where I can see it being useful is if the hard drive suddenly drops dead without a warning. If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
RAID isn't really designed for backing things up; it's designed for system integrity.
What does that mean?
That RAID was designed to ensure no data are lost if one HD in the array buys the farm (that's what 'system integrity' means), not to make backups. In the 80s we were so used to make regular backups that it was second nature to us IT people, no one would have bothered to conceive something like RAID just to get automatic back ups.
A very, very simplified example (and remember, in the real world we wouldn't use decimal numbers): we have to store the number '11302'. That would use five digits, plus one to ensure integrity. How? We add 1+1+3+0+2 = 7. We write '7' in our 'security' digit and should any other digit die, for example the third, we would be left with '11X02' but thanks to the '7' we stored it's childish to deduct that the lost digit was a '3', i.e. we can recover any data lost.
What would you have done if more than 1 digit died?
Quote from: Cerr on September 08, 2009, 03:00:59 AM
What would you have done if more than 1 digit died?
Ah, but the key is, each digit in our example would have been written in a different hard disk. Having two disks die at the same time is a bit... extreme, shall we say (although RAID 6 supposedly can use four or more disks together and protect data against the failure of two disks)
What are some good backup ideas? I've tried a couple of them and there always seem to be problems. Norton Ghost I used on a previous PC, got a couple of backups, even was able to use it to replace a hard drive and ghost the new one, then Norton Ghost stopped working, wouldn't ghost or do backups.
I then went to Acronis but never really used it much. I do back up files, game saves, and other stuff that I want to save, but I'd rather not have to rebuild a hard drive from start. I have Dell and they have the original drive image so would send me a new drive, but still, lots of work, Vista updates, etc. to rebuild.
Quote from: DGuller on September 07, 2009, 06:20:48 PM
If the failure is any more gradual, or not hardware-related, then you have a big risk of overwriting the good backup data with the bad.
Any incremental backup system will have that issue, unless you have large amounts of backup storage space to allow you to roll back far enough.
You are right, though, in that RAID does nothing for non-hardware failures, such as damage caused by crackers or viruses. As mentioned already, it only protects against drive failures.
Quote from: KRonn on September 08, 2009, 08:10:12 AM
What are some good backup ideas? I've tried a couple of them and there always seem to be problems. Norton Ghost I used on a previous PC, got a couple of backups, even was able to use it to replace a hard drive and ghost the new one, then Norton Ghost stopped working, wouldn't ghost or do backups.
I then went to Acronis but never really used it much. I do back up files, game saves, and other stuff that I want to save, but I'd rather not have to rebuild a hard drive from start. I have Dell and they have the original drive image so would send me a new drive, but still, lots of work, Vista updates, etc. to rebuild.
Make a Ghost image every now and then, or even the Windows Backup utility for a full backup. For the save game files and all that, you could get a USB hard drive, some of them now come with software that will autobackup whatever you tell it to.
Alternatviely you could burn them onto a DVD-RW once a month, or week. Get a mirrored RAID going, use off site backup, there are several services that will offer that soon. Storage in a server farm.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on September 08, 2009, 08:27:12 AM
Quote from: KRonn on September 08, 2009, 08:10:12 AM
What are some good backup ideas? I've tried a couple of them and there always seem to be problems. Norton Ghost I used on a previous PC, got a couple of backups, even was able to use it to replace a hard drive and ghost the new one, then Norton Ghost stopped working, wouldn't ghost or do backups.
I then went to Acronis but never really used it much. I do back up files, game saves, and other stuff that I want to save, but I'd rather not have to rebuild a hard drive from start. I have Dell and they have the original drive image so would send me a new drive, but still, lots of work, Vista updates, etc. to rebuild.
Make a Ghost image every now and then, or even the Windows Backup utility for a full backup. For the save game files and all that, you could get a USB hard drive, some of them now come with software that will autobackup whatever you tell it to.
Alternatviely you could burn them onto a DVD-RW once a month, or week. Get a mirrored RAID going, use off site backup, there are several services that will offer that soon. Storage in a server farm.
Yeah, I'll have to look into an external drive, which is probably the best idea to keep my entire hard drive for restore in case I need to. I do backup files and such to USB drives.
I had 5000 gp in diamonds at hand and decided to use 'Raise Dead' in this thread - it's has been dead only 9 days after all - to tell you I just bought an external SATA USB 'dock'. Cheap, easier than changing external HDDs, allows hot swapping, and so far seems to work OK...
And from 11 days dead, yet another resurrection!
The WD drive that I got as a replacement for the RMA'ed WD drive seems to be fine.
Now, though, my 21" CRT monitor is going bad!
Thank Hod! :cheers:
I don't think I've had a HDD failure in at least 6 years. Probably closer to 8.
Quote from: Tonitrus on September 28, 2009, 02:24:11 PM
I don't think I've had a HDD failure in at least 6 years. Probably closer to 8.
If you keep an eye on drive performance and reliability so as to replace drives before they fail, you can avoid all but catastrophic failure. I haven't had a hard drive failure on a home computer ever.
Quote from: grumbler on September 29, 2009, 06:17:22 AM
If you keep an eye on drive performance and reliability so as to replace drives before they fail, you can avoid all but catastrophic failure. I haven't had a hard drive failure on a home computer ever.
Same.
The last time I had a hard drive failure was my old 100MHz Pentium system, which I had inherited from my grandmother. That was still far enough back, though, that we replaced the 1.2GB WD Caviar with a 40GB Seagate.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on October 13, 2009, 10:58:43 AM
The last time I had a hard drive failure was my old 100MHz Pentium system, which I had inherited from my grandmother. That was still far enough back, though, that we replaced the 1.2GB WD Caviar with a 40GB Seagate.
:lol: That reminds me: I recently read that CBM at one point manufactured a hard drive for the Commodore 64/128 :blink:
Like many of the later CBM products, though, the marketing was basically nonexistent and like 5 were sold.