The computer market is declining the last year or so - and many of the laptops are switching to SSDs. The volume hard drive business has a questionable future. At best, it will be stagnant.
I don't know if you are right but IMHO the opposite might be true. SDD's are far smaller and considerably more expensive thus requiring larger external drives. Further, our digital storage needs are expanding exponentially as we add movies, music, books magazines, podcasts, videos, photos, etc. and the backup of all of these. Cloud services are taking up some of this but are also expensive for both storage and bandwidth. I believe we are going to see an increasing need for larger and larger drives. Remember also, as we get older, have families, and live longer our personal digital library will continue to expand greatly.
Well bully for Seagate. I switched from Seagate to Western Digital drives about 15 years ago, and have not looked back. I have NEVER had a problem with ANY of my WD drives. I currently have two WD My Book 2TB drives daisy chained to my iMac's firewire 800 port, a 2 TB My Book connected to my wife's iMac, and use assorted 1 TB Passport drives for off-site backups. No problems.
Well bully for Seagate. I switched from Seagate to Western Digital drives about 15 years ago, and have not looked back. I have NEVER had a problem with ANY of my WD drives. I currently have two WD My Book 2TB drives daisy chained to my iMac's firewire 800 port, a 2 TB My Book connected to my wife's iMac, and use assorted 1 TB Passport drives for off-site backups. No problems.
Regardless of how many as you say "product generations" have transpired, Western Digital drives have never failed me in that time, which is the point. Extremely reliable. I have no reason to try a Seagate drive, regardless of how many product generations.
Regardless of how many as you say "product generations" have transpired, Western Digital drives have never failed me in that time, which is the point. Extremely reliable. I have no reason to try a Seagate drive, regardless of how many product generations.
But my point is that fifteen years is a long time. In comparison, fifteen years ago, Apple was selling fruit colored computers running on an operating system that needed to be kicked to the curb, and people had jumped ship during that era. They're a completely different company now.
Thanks for those links. I've also read about holographic storage (wiki)
To HDD's are dead. Heck, SSD's are dead to me, after I installed a SSD PCIe for OSX, Applications and my home drive. In Aperture, I'm using a managed library; don't even need the previews as the full-res photos are instant. Check this out:
Thanks for those links. I've also read about holographic storage (wiki)
Holographic comes in and out, I think it's been worked on for two to three decades, it seems to get hung up on something that prevents it from going mainstream. I think HVD was commercialized, but it was only for super high end use, and as a replacement for tape backup.
To HDD's are dead. Heck, SSD's are dead to me, after I installed a SSD PCIe for OSX, Applications and my home drive. In Aperture, I'm using a managed library; don't even need the previews as the full-res photos are instant. Check this out: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R960/
960GB, $ 2080
480GB, $ 950
240GB, $ 520
120GB, $ 358
(darn, where's the fixed width option in this new Huddler Tech crap?)
"Sustained Data Transfer Rates of up to 762MB/s read and 763MB/s write"
I've seen that before, I like dealing with OWC. If I wasn't planning to switch to an iMac, I'd consider it. My Mac Pro pumps out so much heat and it's an original model, I'm planning to get the next revision of the iMac as an upgrade on both fronts.
I understand your point. My point is that I have never had a Western Digital drive fail me, and have no reason to even try a Seagate, regardless of their current situation. Now maybe if they offered an inexpensive thunderbolt drive...
What's with all the discussion on drives? LaCie makes enclosures, that's the part a drive goes into. Their enclosures are garbage. I have seen at least a dozen fail. They fail so fast, the drives never get a chance to fail.
Seagate will dump LaCie's decent styling in favor of cheap plastic. Install their drives. And, wonder why yet another acquisition did nothing for the bottom line. At which point the suits will label it a successful defensive acquisition.
But my point is that fifteen years is a long time. In comparison, fifteen years ago, Apple was selling fruit colored computers running on an operating system that needed to be kicked to the curb, and people had jumped ship during that era. They're a completely different company now.
Reality is that Seagate were crap 15 years ago and they are crap today. NOTHING has changed since then except they seem to have got worse.
Western Digital have been consistently reliable drives for that 15 years now as has been ZBernie's experience as well. If that's been his experience and Seagate has given him no reason to go to them is there any reason not to continue with a brand you trust over a brand that in the past has given nothing but issues?
Seagate's server drives are alright but their consumer drives suck especially the Barracudas which are rebadged Maxtors which I would rather have my eyeballs ripped out my nostrils rather than use.
15 years is a long time to go back wards. How can a company be that bad and yet be trusted to keep their data? I'm taking the HDD out of my MacBook Pro and changing to a Western Digital now that their 1TB drives are a decent price.
Holographic comes in and out, I think it's been worked on for two to three decades, it seems to get hung up on something that prevents it from going mainstream. I think HVD was commercialized, but it was only for super high end use, and as a replacement for tape backup.
Interesting, that HVD (wiki). Thanks. Though still a moving part; I'd like things to be Solid State, so we can get rid of fans and noise.
I've seen that before, I like dealing with OWC. If I wasn't planning to switch to an iMac, I'd consider it. My Mac Pro pumps out so much heat and it's an original model, I'm planning to get the next revision of the iMac as an upgrade on both fronts.
I thought about an iMac as well, but couldn't stand the glossy screen so got a Mac Pro. Again. Love the fact that they keep the box looking the same, Through the years, I created a small museum of these boxes now. Agree on the noise; after installing that SSD PCIe I thought I might as well take all HDD's out, but I need the storage. NAS is of course an option which I could tuck away somewhere else, but decided to dig a hole in the wall of my study and I put the MP in the adjoining room. Silence at last.
Seagate drives themselves aren't too bad - but as external drives on a Mac, they have maddening problems of going to sleep, even though I don't want them too. I want the drive to spin ALL the time, because I need you ALL the time. Hate getting beachballs because of Seagates bad Mac support. Seagate drives just don't respond to OSX drive settings. Hopefully, LaCie will give them some OSX know-how and not lose their superior enclosure designs. Seagate's external drives are generally in super-cheapo enclosures that you can't take apart and upgrade the drives. I mostly use Seagates as extra internal drives in my big media PC that has many drives bays and is hooked upto my tv.
Reality is that Seagate were crap 15 years ago and they are crap today. NOTHING has changed since then except they seem to have got worse.
Western Digital have been consistently reliable drives for that 15 years now as has been ZBernie's experience as well. If that's been his experience and Seagate has given him no reason to go to them is there any reason not to continue with a brand you trust over a brand that in the past has given nothing but issues?
Seagate's server drives are alright but their consumer drives suck especially the Barracudas which are rebadged Maxtors which I would rather have my eyeballs ripped out my nostrils rather than use.
15 years is a long time to go back wards. How can a company be that bad and yet be trusted to keep their data? I'm taking the HDD out of my MacBook Pro and changing to a Western Digital now that their 1TB drives are a decent price.
I don't know how our experiences on this can be so different. I've never had problems with Seagate internal drives. I switched to Seagate on the recommendation of a friend that does a lot of tech support when they switched to fluid bearings, they switched earlier than most and haven't lost a drive out of the dozen or so I've bought since then. I'm not exclusive though, but I've been happy with their performance and reliability.
I've seen problems with Seagate and WD external drives though, I don't trust either of their enclosures. The drives inside were always fine.
I don't know how our experiences on this can be so different. I've never had problems with Seagate internal drives.
Too many variables I'd guess. Different temperatures, batches, humidity, atmospheric pressure, workloads, computer models and so on will affect drive models in a variety of ways.
SSD reliability is more predictable in this regard. I've used all sorts: Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, WD and I haven't seen any consistent failure rate in any of them, just an odd drive failure now and then.
I thought about an iMac as well, but couldn't stand the glossy screen so got a Mac Pro. Again. Love the fact that they keep the box looking the same, Through the years, I created a small museum of these boxes now. Agree on the noise; after installing that SSD PCIe I thought I might as well take all HDD's out, but I need the storage. NAS is of course an option which I could tuck away somewhere else, but decided to dig a hole in the wall of my study and I put the MP in the adjoining room. Silence at last.
I'm surprised no one has started offering an anti-reflective replacement screen.
My concern with a Mac Pro was about the heat and power consumption, not the noise. With a workstation under my desk, heat billows up the edge, I'd still have to move the tower to remedy that.
Comments
I don't know if you are right but IMHO the opposite might be true. SDD's are far smaller and considerably more expensive thus requiring larger external drives. Further, our digital storage needs are expanding exponentially as we add movies, music, books magazines, podcasts, videos, photos, etc. and the backup of all of these. Cloud services are taking up some of this but are also expensive for both storage and bandwidth. I believe we are going to see an increasing need for larger and larger drives. Remember also, as we get older, have families, and live longer our personal digital library will continue to expand greatly.
Well bully for Seagate. I switched from Seagate to Western Digital drives about 15 years ago, and have not looked back. I have NEVER had a problem with ANY of my WD drives. I currently have two WD My Book 2TB drives daisy chained to my iMac's firewire 800 port, a 2 TB My Book connected to my wife's iMac, and use assorted 1 TB Passport drives for off-site backups. No problems.
Mac storage provider?
15 years ago? As in 10 product generations ago?
Regardless of how many as you say "product generations" have transpired, Western Digital drives have never failed me in that time, which is the point. Extremely reliable. I have no reason to try a Seagate drive, regardless of how many product generations.
But my point is that fifteen years is a long time. In comparison, fifteen years ago, Apple was selling fruit colored computers running on an operating system that needed to be kicked to the curb, and people had jumped ship during that era. They're a completely different company now.
LaCie owns 11.17% of Loewe. Perhaps Seagate buying LaCie somehow became a rumour of Apple buying Loewe.
LaCie invests in Loewe
Thanks for those links. I've also read about holographic storage (wiki)
To HDD's are dead. Heck, SSD's are dead to me, after I installed a SSD PCIe for OSX, Applications and my home drive. In Aperture, I'm using a managed library; don't even need the previews as the full-res photos are instant. Check this out:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSDPHW2R960/
960GB, $ 2080
480GB, $ 950
240GB, $ 520
120GB, $ 358
(darn, where's the fixed width option in this new Huddler Tech crap?)
"Sustained Data Transfer Rates of up to 762MB/s read and 763MB/s write"
Holographic comes in and out, I think it's been worked on for two to three decades, it seems to get hung up on something that prevents it from going mainstream. I think HVD was commercialized, but it was only for super high end use, and as a replacement for tape backup.
I've seen that before, I like dealing with OWC. If I wasn't planning to switch to an iMac, I'd consider it. My Mac Pro pumps out so much heat and it's an original model, I'm planning to get the next revision of the iMac as an upgrade on both fronts.
I understand your point. My point is that I have never had a Western Digital drive fail me, and have no reason to even try a Seagate, regardless of their current situation. Now maybe if they offered an inexpensive thunderbolt drive...
Seagate will dump LaCie's decent styling in favor of cheap plastic. Install their drives. And, wonder why yet another acquisition did nothing for the bottom line. At which point the suits will label it a successful defensive acquisition.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
But my point is that fifteen years is a long time. In comparison, fifteen years ago, Apple was selling fruit colored computers running on an operating system that needed to be kicked to the curb, and people had jumped ship during that era. They're a completely different company now.
Reality is that Seagate were crap 15 years ago and they are crap today. NOTHING has changed since then except they seem to have got worse.
Western Digital have been consistently reliable drives for that 15 years now as has been ZBernie's experience as well. If that's been his experience and Seagate has given him no reason to go to them is there any reason not to continue with a brand you trust over a brand that in the past has given nothing but issues?
Seagate's server drives are alright but their consumer drives suck especially the Barracudas which are rebadged Maxtors which I would rather have my eyeballs ripped out my nostrils rather than use.
15 years is a long time to go back wards. How can a company be that bad and yet be trusted to keep their data? I'm taking the HDD out of my MacBook Pro and changing to a Western Digital now that their 1TB drives are a decent price.
Interesting, that HVD (wiki). Thanks. Though still a moving part; I'd like things to be Solid State, so we can get rid of fans and noise.
I thought about an iMac as well, but couldn't stand the glossy screen so got a Mac Pro. Again. Love the fact that they keep the box looking the same, Through the years, I created a small museum of these boxes now. Agree on the noise; after installing that SSD PCIe I thought I might as well take all HDD's out, but I need the storage. NAS is of course an option which I could tuck away somewhere else, but decided to dig a hole in the wall of my study and I put the MP in the adjoining room. Silence at last.
Seagate drives themselves aren't too bad - but as external drives on a Mac, they have maddening problems of going to sleep, even though I don't want them too. I want the drive to spin ALL the time, because I need you ALL the time. Hate getting beachballs because of Seagates bad Mac support. Seagate drives just don't respond to OSX drive settings. Hopefully, LaCie will give them some OSX know-how and not lose their superior enclosure designs. Seagate's external drives are generally in super-cheapo enclosures that you can't take apart and upgrade the drives. I mostly use Seagates as extra internal drives in my big media PC that has many drives bays and is hooked upto my tv.
I don't know how our experiences on this can be so different. I've never had problems with Seagate internal drives. I switched to Seagate on the recommendation of a friend that does a lot of tech support when they switched to fluid bearings, they switched earlier than most and haven't lost a drive out of the dozen or so I've bought since then. I'm not exclusive though, but I've been happy with their performance and reliability.
I've seen problems with Seagate and WD external drives though, I don't trust either of their enclosures. The drives inside were always fine.
Too many variables I'd guess. Different temperatures, batches, humidity, atmospheric pressure, workloads, computer models and so on will affect drive models in a variety of ways.
SSD reliability is more predictable in this regard. I've used all sorts: Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, WD and I haven't seen any consistent failure rate in any of them, just an odd drive failure now and then.
I'm surprised no one has started offering an anti-reflective replacement screen.
My concern with a Mac Pro was about the heat and power consumption, not the noise. With a workstation under my desk, heat billows up the edge, I'd still have to move the tower to remedy that.