On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Dale <rdalek1...@gmail.com> wrote: > walt wrote: >> On 09/24/2009 12:29 PM, Dale wrote: >> >>> USB. There is another idea. Ooops, out of USB plugs too. Crap, I >>> can't put in a drive without buying something to plug it into. LOL I >>> do have USB 2.0 on here. I have to have 2.0 for the printer but my >>> camera has to have 1.0. Weird I know. >> >> There are so many interesting posts in this thread I don't know which >> one to reply to :o) Just FYI, USB 3 has just been ratified, so we can >> expect ultra-fast USB-3 drives in the (near?) future, which should be as >> fast or faster than SATA-II. >> >> The point I really want to make is regarding your question about which >> disk drive to buy. I have drives from three different manufacturers at >> the moment, and they are all superb and incredibly cheap -- but that low >> cost comes at a price (does that make any sense?). >> >> I've had to return two drives in the last three years or so because of >> catastrophic failure while still under warranty (amazing!). In both >> cases the replacement drives have been absolutely perfect for years now. >> >> In other words, disk manufacturers have apparently decided to abandon >> strict quality control in favor of low price, and seem happy to replace >> failed drives as a substitute for quality control. It must be a >> profitable >> strategy because they all seem to be doing it. But be prepared for drive >> failures from *every* manufacturer -- and then buy whatever is on sale >> for >> the lowest price. >> >> >> > > One thing I have noticed about hard drives in my experience. When you > plug that puppy in and power it up, let it run for a good long while. > Overnight is good, a few days is even better, a week or more is even > better still from the mechanical point of view. I remember this from > when I rebuilt my Moms old motor in her car years ago. It said in the > book and from several mechanics, once you crank it, run it for at least > 30 minutes and at different rpms. The longer the better. It should get > to its normal temperature before even thinking about cutting it off. Do > NOT cut the engine off unless it is really serious. The first few > minutes that a motor runs is crucial. If you start it and just run it a > couple minutes, it won't ever be the same. I was also told that driving > it is really good. > > I also remember this from way back when I was working on puters. I got > a new job when winder 3.1 came out. Anyway. If a electronic device can > survive the first couple to six months of usage, they usually last a > while from the electronic point of view. That is short of spilling your > beer in it or it getting hit by lightening or something like that. I > have two 80Gb drives right now. One is a Maxtor and the other is a > Western Digital. I bet there is a few people on this list that hate > each one because they had one that failed. I haven't had any trouble > with mine at all. They all fail eventually tho. I just hope one of > mine fails when there is nothing important on it is all. ;-) > > Still comparing all the options. I got to start looking for a good SATA > drive now. Just when I had a decent IDE drive all picked out too. LOL
When you look at hard drive reviews, they tend to be either 5 stars ("Perfect! Never a problem after 10 years!") or 0 stars ("Horrible, died after 2 minutes! I got 2 more and they did the same thing!" etc). I don't think there are a lot of ways for a hard drive to go bad without it being catastrophic. Maybe bad sectors... but I consider that catastrophic because they always seem to spread like cancer. If there is one bad sector on a drive, I simply can't trust it. That being said, I've had lots of hard drives from many brands and the best combinations of price/speed/reliability I've had is Samsung. I'm using 6 of them right now and after 2+ years of 24/7 usage none has died yet. I'm sure someone here will have a horror story about a Samsung drive to add to this thread. :)