Author Topic: recommend hard drive (quickly), please. (Read 543 times)

Tabasco · « **Reply #15 on:** October 30, 2004, 11:34:42 AM »

I've been working 6.5 years at a place with around 300 desktop computers. The Seagates and Maxtors have been very reliable. Western Digitals have flaked out, but generally after a good two or three years of service. A few new IBM Deskstars have died suddenly in the last couple months.

Deth7 · « **Reply #16 on:** October 30, 2004, 12:40:15 PM »

28Gig Maxtor 5 years now no problems

TBolt A-10 · « **Reply #17 on:** October 30, 2004, 01:03:10 PM »

Thanks for all the replies, guys. <>

The PC is an old P2 300MHz that I "loaned" to my brother a couple years ago. Had small hard drives that he's filled up.

I decided the price after rebate on this unit couldn't be beat, & I don't have to wait for the UPS guy.

I'm glad I asked, tho. There's a lot of good input here.

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #18 on:** October 30, 2004, 01:12:18 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Tabasco
I've been working 6.5 years at a place with around 300 desktop computers. The Seagates and Maxtors have been very reliable. Western Digitals have flaked out, but generally after a good two or three years of service. A few new IBM Deskstars have died suddenly in the last couple months.

What were they symptoms of these WD failiures?

Tabasco · « **Reply #19 on:** October 30, 2004, 01:55:12 PM »

Two of the IBM's simply quit. No spinning when powering up, and the BIOS would sometimes see them, sometimes not. Probably a circuit board issue. One had a lot of important data that we sent to a recovery service (data was recovered for a hefty sum). One 120GB Deskstar was DOA.

The WD's always seem to have the same symptoms when they fail, or are about to fail, which is a loud pinging sound by the read/write arm banging around. We've had the other brands do this to, just much less often. I learned a trick when that happens that's worked a few times: put the drive in the freezer for an hour, immediately hook it up as a slave drive and get your important files off of it.

To be fair, the Western Digitals we use have been 20GB or less and used more intensively than the others.

GRUNHERZ · « **Reply #20 on:** October 30, 2004, 01:58:22 PM »

I had some WD drives crap out on me, I'd usually hear a "click wheeee" type of sound on boot up when the problems started... Sounds similar to your situation..