Buying A Hard Drive (reliability)

aquaticaquatic
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
***Sidenote: I am paranoid about buying hard drives! I bought an IBM 45GXP. I never got into the class action lawsuit thingy because I bought it from MadLogix. Who is responsible, and can I ever get my stuff back? When TechTool Pro did "directory optimization" it revealed what I think is the 45GXP hard drive problem, since whenever an app like Data Rescue searches the hard drive, it crashes around 10%. Even hangs OS X! So it must be hardware. MadLogix has been less than helpful and if I could I'd sue them. NEVER buy from MadLogix, they suck!



I am thinking about buying the Western Digital 120 Gig hard drive for $99 with a $30 rebate, which I found on <a href="http://www.dealmac.com."; target="_blank">www.dealmac.com.</a> Great site! I was wondering, does anyone here own Western Digital hard drives? How is the reliability? I am going to put everything on this hard drive! Are Maxtor or Seagate more reliable? Are there any hard drive brands out there known for reliability? Perhaps even IBM, if they learned from their 45GXP event?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    mac the forkmac the fork Posts: 722member
    I've been lucky with the Seagate drive in my PC, and the Maxtor in this iMac isn't bad either. Actually, the only drive that has failed on me was a very old full-height 5 1/4" 1 GB Cor-Bit. Drive failure, or more commonly, data corruption can be devastating, so make sure you have an archival device too.



    [ 08-28-2002: Message edited by: Mac The Fork ]</p>
  • Reply 2 of 14
    capt. obviouscapt. obvious Posts: 345member
    [quote]Originally posted by Aquatik:

    <strong>***Sidenote: I am paranoid about buying hard drives! I bought an IBM 45GXP. I never got into the class action lawsuit thingy because I bought it from MadLogix.



    MadLogix has been less than helpful and if I could I'd sue them.</strong><hr></blockquote>

    Similar story: Bought an IBM - what, umm...75GXP from OWC. Never worked right, and about 9 mos ago got sick of it, called OWC. They suggested a variety of tests, took a long time to complete, as it involved backing up many gigs, reformatting, filling, backing up, etc. This was due to the PowerLogix upgrade card I'd added - had to be sure it was the drive.



    Anyway get done w/ all this, get back w/ OWC, they say, hmm, it's a drive problem - call IBM.



    Boom.



    So, scurrilous vendors aside, I'd love to know if IBM has redeemed themselves in terms of quality (and if they'll redeem my 60-gigger0. Was always a big Quantum fan, in the SCSI days - they're no longer an option, are they?



    Problem is, I've heard good and bad about every make of drive there ever was. Seems you either have a problem or you don't, and if you do, it sours you on whoever you bought it from.
  • Reply 3 of 14
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    I got a 75GXP 45GB about 2 years ago, from buy.com and apart from the fact that I could only make one partition with drive setup (would never recognize the second if there was one), i have never had even the slightest problem with that drive.

    It's fast and it's silent and very reliable so far.

    (in a Beige G3 tower).



    Two friends of mine (PC users) got the same drives from a local reseller and they too never had the slightest problems.



    G-news
  • Reply 4 of 14
    bodhibodhi Posts: 1,424member
    Seagate



    Seagate



    Seagate



    A little more expensive but worth it.
  • Reply 5 of 14
    brianmacosbrianmacos Posts: 548member
    [quote]Originally posted by Bodhi:

    <strong>Seagate



    Seagate



    Seagate



    A little more expensive but worth it.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I agree!!! Seagate is the brand to buy no IMO.
  • Reply 6 of 14
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    I have two Seagates and two Western Digitals currently All of them are less than a year old. I recommend both brands. The only problem with reliability is that by the time your very reliable drive fails, the reliability of the new drives from any particular company could be dramatically different.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Good points. Yes, Seagate looks good, but they ARE expensive. I was wondering about the 120 Gig Western Digital drive. For $99 I can't pass it up. I am going to college this weekend. Does anyone have this drive, and can you fill me in on your experience? Thanks.



    As for MadLogix/IBM you're damn right I'm soured on them. IBM, perhaps not. But MadLogix should at least respond to my emails. I have written quite a few over the course of the past YEAR and a HALF! I have had this old, useless Alien 45GXP collecting dust, hoping someone will replace it and hopefully pay for DriveSavers ($800 last time I looked, that's painful!) I really want to get my stuff on there back Prosoft engineers (Data Rescue) were quite responsive. It seems Data Rescue can't account for hardware failure, it hangs even OS X. I have to pull the FireWire cable to get it to stop spinning the drive (that worries me considering it's likely IBM's flaky hardware) They said this is an OS issue, also. Weird.
  • Reply 8 of 14
    brianmacosbrianmacos Posts: 548member
    Western Digital is also a good brand to go with. For that price you can't really make a mistake. Go for it just have your stuff backed up for a while just incase and it's smart just to keep stuff back up on a regular basis any ways.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    s2s2 Posts: 11member
    I've had good luck with Western Digital, the price is and availability is usually good. I have a 2.5 year old 18 Gig /7200 rpm and a fairly new 100 Gig, they seem reliable so far.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    marcusmarcus Posts: 227member
    Seagate Barracuda IV. No more to be said.



    Marcus
  • Reply 11 of 14
    kennethkenneth Posts: 832member
    I ordered the Western Digital 120GB 8MB cache (model WD1200JB) from newegg.com for $166. I checked with tomshardware.com before made my decision on this drive. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> I used the Maxtor DM Plus 45 Series (46.1GB model: 54610H6) and it started to make some weird noise, I sent it back and they gave me their DM Plus 60 Series drive (60GB model: 5T060H6). It runs fine although I read from MacInTouch.com readers said it is a bad drive. Anyway, I put that 60GB drive as an external FW drive now and bought the IBM Deskstar 120GXP drive (40GB model: IC35L040AVVN07) on July and it sometimes gives me weird noise from the first day, especially waking the drive up from sleep. That's the reason I ordered the WD 120GB drive since the IBM drive is going back for repair/exchange. All these drives are being used on the iMac Rev. A



    I love hard drive from Quantum, too bad they are now under Maxtor. My Quantum SCSI drive inside my Performa 6116CD is still running good.





    Kenneth
  • Reply 12 of 14
    majukimajuki Posts: 114member
    The problem with the IBM GXP drives, esp. the 75 GXP was that they used glass platters to record the data. This is what originally allowed them to be one of the first with 75GB drives. However, glass is more fragile than metal, hence all of the problems. Personally, I had three of them in my G4 (transplanted from a PC after about three months) until I phased them out with WD 120GB drives over time. (I removed two in early January and I just removed the last one when I did a clean install of 10.2.) I did not have a problem with the drives, but one of the two I sold in January broke in shipping. For this reason, I would recommend against the IBM GXP series drives.



    Personally, my favorite drive company right now is Western Digtal. I've never had a problem with any of the drives, and their warranty program is good. I've known some people who've had problems with them, including a guy who had 5 WD drives (older &lt;1GB models) fail on him with the fifth actually catching on fire when it happened.



    I would recommend against Maxtor, because their drives seem to be geared towards 'home' user usage. People who only have their computers on for a few hours per day never seem to have problems, but people who use them constantly may run into reliability problems. I have had two Maxtor drives fail on me. To Maxtor's credit, I would have to say that they have a very good RMA service program, and, if your drive goes bad, it will not be a hassle getting it replaced. Also, the prices on Maxtor drives tend to be some of the cheapest around if you're concerned about price.



    Basically, you should do some research and find a brand that works for you. People swear by their brand of hard drive, so you'll see different responses as to which drive is right for you. I would search around to see which companies have good RMA policies (I know Maxtor and WD do). Also, be sure to always backup important data.



    [ 08-30-2002: Message edited by: Majuki ]</p>
  • Reply 13 of 14
    thereubsterthereubster Posts: 402member
    I have to concur Its Seagate only for me esp. I the Cube the ATA IV is the quietest 7200RPM drive around
  • Reply 14 of 14
    futuremacfuturemac Posts: 242member
    i went from maxtor to western digital drives, the wd drives are QUIET...so quiet that when i first installed them i had to look to make sure it was on.



    hard drives are cheap



    get at least TWO drives say 1 internal, and one external. use the 2nd drive to back up your main drive in case of problems.



    bACKUP DAILY...



    ALWAYS assume you will at some point lose data...



    that backup drive has been a lifesaver for me.



    i like the wd with the 8 meg cache but am looking at those fast seagate drives.
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