Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
I have heard a number of stories about Seagate's drives being fast, but having problems losing sectors outside of this list. It seems that most current hard drives very rarely loose sectors unless there is a significant defect and the drive is not going to last much longer. On the other hand I hear that it is not uncommon for a Seagate drive just to loose a few sectors here and a few sectors there. It is as if most drive manufactures find the limit of a particular manufacturing process and then back off of to the point where no data will be lost under normal use. Then Seagate comes along and tries to push the envelope a little more than anyone else on a particular process to get a little better density on those high end SCSI drives. (Higher RPMs usually mean lower density.) With predictive diagnostics and sector remapping, this shouldn't be too much of a problem, but I hear not all controllers (like SimBios) properly handle sector remapping. In a big file server with lots of little files, occasionally having two files share the same sector and overwriting each other is not too big of a problem. But when running a large DBMS system with hundreds, if not thousands of disks, a slip sector can cause many a bad hair day. (Please take note these are stories that I hear not first hand experience.) > On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Walter Luffman wrote: > > > Let me see if I have this straight. At various times Western Digital, IBM, > > Quantum and Maxtor have all produced drives that are lemons. These makers > > have also produced some very good drives. Is that about right? > > > > Okay, who has horror stories to tell about Seagate and Fujitsu? > > I've heard nasty stories about Fujitsu, but I had 2 of them (IDE) in my > 486, and they outlived the power supply in its tower case. :) > > Regarding Seagate, I've had problems with them developing lots of > badblocks. In the two systems I had functioning as servers w/ seagate > drives (SCSI) they both began dropping blocks within 1-3 years. One of > those has a fairly hard-hit RAID w/ 4 IBM drives the array. None of those > have failed yet (after 3+ years) > > All of the new systems I've built in the past year or so (around five) > have IBM drives now. None of those has had any problems at all, and some > of them are servers with constant load. > > -pete
RE: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
I think that most of the manufacturers mentioned before (WD, Seagate, Quantum, Fujitsu, IBM) had lemons, as well as good models and all improved the technology during the years. I just remembered that WD had for a while issues with UDMA transfers - I think they corrected it by now - but it does worth double-checking ! Maxtor drives are pretty good - most of the drives I'm using are from Maxtor. 3 yrs warranty (which I think it's a quasi standard by now). However, for higher end I'd choose IBM (having to pay the "luxury hard-drive tax" for their products). Before buying I'd check the speed, sustained and burst transfer speed, access speed, warranty, MTBF. If risk of data loss is unacceptable, there is RAID (software, as well as SCSI)... I'd stay away from IDE RAID - not (so well) supported and if you'd bleed if you lose data, then you might want to pay more and get the real thing (SCSI) ! Just my 2 cents ;-) Hope it helps ! Oleg On Friday, April 27, 2001 1:43 PM, David E. Fox [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: > > Whoa, do you think I should move to IBM drives now? > > Maxtor IMHO still makes good drives. But I went for a > 30 gig IBM Deskstar last October. > > > David E. Fox Thanks for letting me > [EMAIL PROTECTED]change magnetic patterns > [EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk. > --- >
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
> Let me see if I have this straight. At various times Western Digital, IBM, > Quantum and Maxtor have all produced drives that are lemons. These makers > have also produced some very good drives. Is that about right? Most likely. I have no direct experience with WD or Quantum; my brother had a 10GB Quantum IDE that went south within 6 months after purchasing it, but he was able to get a replacement. I've had Maxtor drives for years - I recently retired a 345 meg (!) Maxtor drive after seven years of service. You wouldn't be able to tell (apart from the low capacity) that it was used. :) In other words, zero bad sectors in 7 years of moderately heavy use. My other Maxtor (still used) is a newer 1.6 gig; it has developed one or two bad sectors over that time (I got it in 1996) unfortunately. It does have the unfortunate tendency to lock the computer up completely if one reads/writes into the bad sectors. > Okay, who has horror stories to tell about Seagate and Fujitsu? (I've never > used Fujitsu, although I put one into a machine I built for my nephew and > AFAIK it's still working fine. The only Seagate drive I've ever owned was a I"ve owned a couple Seagates, but not in a very long time, which given the manufacturing process improvements, probably doesn't amount to that much valuable data at any rate. My first one was the ubiquitous ST-225. That one lasted 13 months before it went dead. I replaced it with an ST-238 which lasted a little while - but in 1991 I got a PB (ick) computer with an ST-1441 (I think - 120mb) and that drive was the pits. It didn't survive two years without developing serious problems. FWIW - back around the time frame of the MFM/RLL drives (ca. 1987) there was a DOS utilities guy, Paul Mace. He made a set of disk utilities comparable to PC-Tools/Norton Utilities. Anyway, he once made the comment that the average lifespan of a hard drive was 18 months. :( > Walter Luffman, [EMAIL PROTECTED]Medina, TN USA > Diabetics are just sweet people (Type 2 5/99, d/e/m/motorcycle) > "Sage", purple 1998 Honda VT1100C Shadow Spirit David E. Fox Thanks for letting me [EMAIL PROTECTED]change magnetic patterns [EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk. --- >
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
> Whoa, do you think I should move to IBM drives now? Maxtor IMHO still makes good drives. But I went for a 30 gig IBM Deskstar last October. David E. Fox Thanks for letting me [EMAIL PROTECTED]change magnetic patterns [EMAIL PROTECTED] on your hard disk. ---
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
Yes, IBM drives tend to be VERY good. Especially the 75GXP series. And besides, at least IBM tries to put some money back into Linux and promotion of Linux. --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Walter Luffman wrote: > > > Let me see if I have this straight. At various > times Western Digital, IBM, > > Quantum and Maxtor have all produced drives that > are lemons. These makers > > have also produced some very good drives. Is that > about right? > > > > Okay, who has horror stories to tell about Seagate > and Fujitsu? > > I've heard nasty stories about Fujitsu, but I had 2 > of them (IDE) in my > 486, and they outlived the power supply in its tower > case. :) > > Regarding Seagate, I've had problems with them > developing lots of > badblocks. In the two systems I had functioning as > servers w/ seagate > drives (SCSI) they both began dropping blocks within > 1-3 years. One of > those has a fairly hard-hit RAID w/ 4 IBM drives the > array. None of those > have failed yet (after 3+ years) > > All of the new systems I've built in the past year > or so (around five) > have IBM drives now. None of those has had any > problems at all, and some > of them are servers with constant load. > > -pete > > __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
On Thu, 26 Apr 2001, Walter Luffman wrote: > Let me see if I have this straight. At various times Western Digital, IBM, > Quantum and Maxtor have all produced drives that are lemons. These makers > have also produced some very good drives. Is that about right? > > Okay, who has horror stories to tell about Seagate and Fujitsu? I've heard nasty stories about Fujitsu, but I had 2 of them (IDE) in my 486, and they outlived the power supply in its tower case. :) Regarding Seagate, I've had problems with them developing lots of badblocks. In the two systems I had functioning as servers w/ seagate drives (SCSI) they both began dropping blocks within 1-3 years. One of those has a fairly hard-hit RAID w/ 4 IBM drives the array. None of those have failed yet (after 3+ years) All of the new systems I've built in the past year or so (around five) have IBM drives now. None of those has had any problems at all, and some of them are servers with constant load. -pete
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
On Thursday 26 April 2001 07:52 pm, Walter Luffman wrote: > Let me see if I have this straight. At various times Western Digital, > IBM, Quantum and Maxtor have all produced drives that are lemons. These > makers have also produced some very good drives. Is that about right? > > Okay, who has horror stories to tell about Seagate and Fujitsu? In recent years, IBM, Quantum, and WD have been the overclockers favored IDE drives. Mainly because they could stand up to off spec voltages and more importantly, off spec PCI bus speeds. Maxtor, Seagate and Fujitsu were the most vunerable to an oc'rs abuse. None of which applies to any Scuzzy drives, since none of them ever could handle an off speed PCI or marginal motherboard. But like most things computer (specially hardware) related, this is all subject to change on a month to month basis. AFAIK, WD was the first to fall from favor, ~ mid '98. I'd say the prize for takes a lickin' an keeps on tickin' goes to IBM .. presently ;) I'm between a rock and a hard place. Old WD 8.4, newer IBM 13.6, both or a highly oc'd system. -- Tom Brinkman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Galveston Bay Dale Earnhardt, the greatest stock car driver ever
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
Chubby Vic wrote: > Whoa, do you think I should move to IBM drives now? > > I hear that they are good but I did not know that about the > Quantum ones!---Whoa. > You guys are killing me! Maybe I have just been lucky. I have run Conner, Seagate, Maxtor, WD and IBM drives for the past ten years. The only drive I ever had die was a Seagate 340 meg drive (I think lightning had something to do with that) To its credit, it lived long enough after the strike to allow me to get the data off of it, albeit slowly. The rest of the drives regardless of manufacturer never gave me any problems. (noise level maybe) Yes, I no longer use a great deal of the older drives, they sit on a shelf and I'm sure they would work flawlessly if reinstalled, but there isn't much utility left in an 87 meg drive these days. I have followed this thread out of curiousity and I have read the prior thread by the infamous Civileme regarding the WD/Mator timing problems and I'm sure that when all of the planets are alligned just right there is a sincere issue there. I have several scavenged systems with 1.6g WD drives and 1.275g Maxtor drives in them and I haven't had a problem -- Like I said, maybe I have just been lucky. Anyway, aside from Avg. seek time and MTBF, I don't really differentiate between brand names. Yes, all things being equal, I prefer the IBM drives. But whether that has to do with actual harware quality or a skillfully designed ad campain, I can't tell you. I think the real issue for Mandrake is whether there is a difference in how 8.0 treats (or sees) the drives from different manufacturers on install. Whether there is an actual difference in the way the drive firmware is responding. (I know nothing about this except from the threads discussing swapping drives to get 8.0 to install) I can't really see any logical reason the OS should care or be finiky about one drive or the other. I'll leave this issue for the powers that be who know far more than I to determine. There are always two sides to a story. With regard to this issue, this is mine. -- David Rankin Nacogdoches, Texas
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
Let me see if I have this straight. At various times Western Digital, IBM, Quantum and Maxtor have all produced drives that are lemons. These makers have also produced some very good drives. Is that about right? Okay, who has horror stories to tell about Seagate and Fujitsu? (I've never used Fujitsu, although I put one into a machine I built for my nephew and AFAIK it's still working fine. The only Seagate drive I've ever owned was a 20MB MFM unit in a second-hand XT clone; I never did manage to kill it, but toward the end of its *very* long life it started developing bad sectors at an alarming rate. But then, I'm only 51 and I seem to have a few bad sectors myself.) -- Walter Luffman, [EMAIL PROTECTED]Medina, TN USA Diabetics are just sweet people (Type 2 5/99, d/e/m/motorcycle) "Sage", purple 1998 Honda VT1100C Shadow Spirit
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
Whoa, do you think I should move to IBM drives now? I hear that they are good but I did not know that about the Quantum ones!---Whoa. On Thursday 26 April 2001 05:02 am, so spoke [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > Quantum and Maxtor are now one, though you can still differentiate which > drive line belongs to who because the line names haven't changed. I hear > good things about both of these lines now, but my memory is still scared by > both. Even though I use IBM drives now, I still remember the stickion > drives that you had to beat on in order to get them to spin up. I also > remember those drives that had a faulty ground finger, so the spindle would > build up a static change and then discharge across the platters. When it > comes to Quantum, the memory of those winning drives that where not too > reliable is still very vivid in my mind. Also, some of my coworkers still > complain that they are partially deaf from those drives. You should have > seen the chuckles that I got out of one of my co-workers when I told him > that Quantum was advertising quite drives. I'm still too afraid to buy one > of these mostly do to how long they sold cruddy, whining drives. (Then > again they used to always be the low bidder.) > > I also have a Maxtor. I have been using computers with Maxtor drives ever > since my dad brought home a 286 with a full hieght 5 1/4 Maxtor drive. > (The drive started off as a business drive, but the computer it started off > on got retired.) The drive then moved on to a 386. The drive must of had > been in use for over 10 years and in that entire time, only few few > clusters went bad, taking out the display for my eighth grade science > project that I had labored many hours over. Since then I have almost > continually have had a Maxtor drive in one of my computers and I have never > had a problem. I remember a couple of years back I know someone that > worked for Fry's Electronics and he said that at the time he was seeing a > lot of Maxtor drives being returned because the heads snapped off. > > With Western Digital, I have had mixed experiences. My Dad once had a 1 GB > Western digital drive on his P100 back when the P100 was about the fastest > machine around. One of the heads snapped off on the first drive within a > few months, so he got Western Digital to replace the drive. The > replacement drive suffered the exact same fate a few months after that. A > few months before my Dad bought his P100, he picked up an 850 MB Western > Digital. He used that drive for a few years and then put it in storage. A > couple of years back I decided to build a buget firewall and got him to > give me the drive. To this day it is still in use on a machine that is > left running 24/7. Something to watch out for is that not all that long > ago Western Digital had a big recall of drives. My mother had a drive that > was manufactored right after the end of the recall and I just sent it back > because it was flaking out on her and when I tested it one of my computers, > it behaved poorly. With my brother's 18 GB 7200 RPM drive he had a problem > where one of the pins stayed in the connector on the IDE cable when he > unplugged the drive. Fortunately my Dad was able to solder it back on and > my brother hasn't had a problem since. I have also been hearing that more > recent Western Digital drives have bugs when working in UltraDMA mode. > > > I personally prefer Quantum hard drives, although I have not had > > any maxtors or WD, I know about IBM and Quantums being > > good linux drives.
Re: [expert] hard drive experiences (was 8.0 final --brakes MANY applications (Software Installeris first on that list))
Quantum and Maxtor are now one, though you can still differentiate which drive line belongs to who because the line names haven't changed. I hear good things about both of these lines now, but my memory is still scared by both. Even though I use IBM drives now, I still remember the stickion drives that you had to beat on in order to get them to spin up. I also remember those drives that had a faulty ground finger, so the spindle would build up a static change and then discharge across the platters. When it comes to Quantum, the memory of those winning drives that where not too reliable is still very vivid in my mind. Also, some of my coworkers still complain that they are partially deaf from those drives. You should have seen the chuckles that I got out of one of my co-workers when I told him that Quantum was advertising quite drives. I'm still too afraid to buy one of these mostly do to how long they sold cruddy, whining drives. (Then again they used to always be the low bidder.) I also have a Maxtor. I have been using computers with Maxtor drives ever since my dad brought home a 286 with a full hieght 5 1/4 Maxtor drive. (The drive started off as a business drive, but the computer it started off on got retired.) The drive then moved on to a 386. The drive must of had been in use for over 10 years and in that entire time, only few few clusters went bad, taking out the display for my eighth grade science project that I had labored many hours over. Since then I have almost continually have had a Maxtor drive in one of my computers and I have never had a problem. I remember a couple of years back I know someone that worked for Fry's Electronics and he said that at the time he was seeing a lot of Maxtor drives being returned because the heads snapped off. With Western Digital, I have had mixed experiences. My Dad once had a 1 GB Western digital drive on his P100 back when the P100 was about the fastest machine around. One of the heads snapped off on the first drive within a few months, so he got Western Digital to replace the drive. The replacement drive suffered the exact same fate a few months after that. A few months before my Dad bought his P100, he picked up an 850 MB Western Digital. He used that drive for a few years and then put it in storage. A couple of years back I decided to build a buget firewall and got him to give me the drive. To this day it is still in use on a machine that is left running 24/7. Something to watch out for is that not all that long ago Western Digital had a big recall of drives. My mother had a drive that was manufactored right after the end of the recall and I just sent it back because it was flaking out on her and when I tested it one of my computers, it behaved poorly. With my brother's 18 GB 7200 RPM drive he had a problem where one of the pins stayed in the connector on the IDE cable when he unplugged the drive. Fortunately my Dad was able to solder it back on and my brother hasn't had a problem since. I have also been hearing that more recent Western Digital drives have bugs when working in UltraDMA mode. > I personally prefer Quantum hard drives, although I have not had > any maxtors or WD, I know about IBM and Quantums being > good linux drives.
