Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Reschke on August 18, 2009, 08:36:51 PM
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It has been a couple of years and I am trying to finish up my latest system this week if possible. So if anyone would like to recommend something other than WD RAPTORS I would appreciate it. With all the recent acquisitions of different companies....Seagate and Maxtor come to mind I am sort of at a loss. I know I only want SATA...do not want SSD drives yet.
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Ok...so what don't you like about the Raptors aside from the fact that they are a bit over priced?
What size drives are you looking to purchase? How many drives? What's your budget?
You absolutely do not want Samsung, Hitachi, IBM, Sansui, Panasonic...etc...if you don't like WD then your choice is Seagate/Maxtor (decent drives).
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Personally I've had very good luck with my WD sata drives, but I didn't buy raptors.
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Raptors have a higher than normal failure rate among hard drives. IMO, SSD aren't quite there yet. And to get a decent one you gotta shell out some cash. Tomshardware.com has some hard drive benchmarks. I'd favor drives with 5 year warranties over the 3 year types.
The philosophy I have behind hard drive is not "if it will fail," but more of "when will it fail." Knock on wood, in the last 13 years, I've suffered one hard drive failure on my main computer. And that was circa 1997. I generally do not like to keep hard drives in service for more than 3 years. At least on my main rig. Frequent back ups multiple times a year on various types of media is always important. Don't be one of those people that rely only on an external hard drive as a back-up means, its still a hard drive and it will eventually fail (either the drive fails).
Check reviews, benchmarks and prices. You'll find the best one. Personally, I've use Maxtor and now Seagate drive for 10 years. After they've met their service life in my main computer, they either become hand me downs for friends/relatives or in server boxes. I've got a 9 year old Maxtor 6.5gb in a linux box right now.
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Don't want a Raptor simply because of the price versus performance; it also isn't that I don't like WD drives because they have worked great for me and I have had some that lasted 10 plus years. I just want some good recommendations on reliable manufacturer these days because once IBM sold their drives out to whoever they did those drives went in the toilet fast than a load through a goose. I don't see a need for terrabytes of storage but for the price you can't simply go wrong with more storage.
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Any Western Digital AALS. These are Enterprise drives. Very good timings, 32mb cache and 5 year warranty. The WD6401AALS (640GB 610 formated NTFS) will run you about 75 dollars. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=AALS&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Description=AALS&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&Order=PRICE)
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If you go with a Seagate, I would suggest getting the "NS" drives. As those are rated as server class drives they tend to be a bit better than the "AS" or "SV" drives. They cost a bit more.
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I think this (ST31000340NS) is what you want but maybe you can shop around and find a better price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148278
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I understand getting the AALS or the NS drives for the main HD for any system, but if someone is just looking for a 1 to 1.5 TB internal drive to store movies and such, is the extra $ worth it? Of course I have a customer that sent me these 2 links as what he is looking at:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4853015&sku=TSD-1000EAVS (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4853015&sku=TSD-1000EAVS)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4138742&sku=TSD-1500AS (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4138742&sku=TSD-1500AS)
Any pros/cons/recommendations?
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I understand getting the AALS or the NS drives for the main HD for any system, but if someone is just looking for a 1 to 1.5 TB internal drive to store movies and such, is the extra $ worth it? Of course I have a customer that sent me these 2 links as what he is looking at:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4853015&sku=TSD-1000EAVS (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4853015&sku=TSD-1000EAVS)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4138742&sku=TSD-1500AS (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4138742&sku=TSD-1500AS)
Any pros/cons/recommendations?
The first drive has a 8mb cache the second has a 32mb cache... larger cache, faster the drive. As stated above I like the AALS Skuzzy likes the Seagate's. Brands to me are like Chocolate or Strawberry ice cream, we all have a preference.
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You absolutely do not want Samsung, Hitachi, IBM, Sansui, Panasonic...etc...
if you don't like WD then your choice is Seagate/Maxtor (decent drives).
not to side track...........
but from my 20+ experiences with computers and HD's...... I have never in my HD experience had not one single Hitachi HD fail me whether it was an IDE or a newer SATA I or SATA II.....
while at the same time I have lost / or had failed me at least 1 HD of the following makes: Western Digital, Maxtor, Seagate some of them I have had fualter on me more than once...... I guess to each their own..........but any other left over or OEM HD's that are left in the current 6 PC's in this household will most definitely be replaced with a Hitachi guaranteed.....
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but from my 20+ experiences with computers and HD's...... I have never in my HD experience had not one single Hitachi HD fail me whether it was an IDE or a newer SATA I or SATA II.....
LOL...you want the box full of Hitachi "deathstars" that I have sitting in the basement of my office building (2.5 and 3.5 inch)? That's just the ones we haven't thrown out in the past 3 years...in that same time period my department has had to replace maybe 50 of the other brands combined...sorry man...but Hitachi drives haven't proven reliable squat in my experience. Most of those drives were out of IBMs and HPs...if that's an indication.
But then I just fried a 5 yr old Maxtor 80GB IDE in my linux box last month (24/7 in a poorly vented Gateway didn't make it happy) ;)...replaced it with a 4 yr old Seagate. I still have 2 Seagate 80GB IDE drives that I know are at least 5 yrs old (because I was the one who ordered the original systems) in my wifes old system.
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could be that they were blems ( sometimes called 2nd's or didn't meet the topshelf quality inspection when coming off the assembly line ) to begin with if they came in prebuilt systems......
PC's that are in an office environemnt with 10+ people/cubicles are more apt to have problems more often because of heavy traffic, dust/dirt in the carpet being stomped up.. the IT's not servicing/maintaining the PC's as they should be maintained........ and a numerous other handful of situations that arise..... people hitting the wrong keys on the keyboard. installing things on the HD's that are not suppose to be there, etc....
not withstanding........ my oldest set of hitachi HD's paired are 120 gig IDE drives that have been running constantly in Raid 1 setup for almost 7 years practically non stop 24/7 outside of being shutdown for computer maintenance...quarterly (every 3 months 4 months max ) each computer is opened up, everything removed and completely gone thru cleaning out heatsinks, fans, and FOD that des not belong inside a computer case, including opening up the PSU and thoroughly cleaning it out as well ...then blowing highpressure air throughout the case to remove anything that is lodged in the crooks and crannys....
my 1st SATA I hitachi 120 gig HD's ( also in RAID 1 setup ) are nearing 6 years old and have not fluttered....no bad sectors or anything.....
I just figured that there are lemons in everything made...... I personally though have not had a lemon in any hitachi HD yet..... guess I been lucky so far ( finds some wood to knock on ROFL )
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When IBM sold it's very infamous hdd line to hitachi it was absolutely stomped by reliability problems. The 'deskstar' and 'travelstar' series were very accurately nicknamed 'deathstars' due to extremely high failure rates. I personally had both of my deathstars fail on me in 2 years usage.
Western Digital has never caused me problems and I use it exclusively now. I've had Samsungs, IBM's, Maxtors and Seagates die but never a WD.
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When IBM sold it's very infamous hdd line to hitachi it was absolutely stomped by reliability problems. The 'deskstar' and 'travelstar' series were very accurately nicknamed 'deathstars' due to extremely high failure rates. I personally had both of my deathstars fail on me in 2 years usage.
Western Digital has never caused me problems and I use it exclusively now. I've had Samsungs, IBM's, Maxtors and Seagates die but never a WD.
I've had only one Deathstar. It was a pull from a scavenged machine. I was going to use it to build a linux box. Guess what, it was dead :D
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Wish I had your luck Tequilachaser...as it is (as MrRipley pointed out) since IBM sold the rights to their hard drive line...the deathstar has been a dawg...at least in a business environment...(which reminds me, I should check the make on the last 4 450GB SCSI san drives I've had to replace :huh)
I guess we're all agreed the Samsungs are dumpster fillers too...hehehe
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Wish I had your luck Tequilachaser...
please don't voice it :lol
now watch em all go tits up and make me eat my own words......( found that wood chair I needed to knock on btw..... :D )
was thinking of getting a WD raptor for future use, until I saw Raptors have a higher than normal failure rate among hard drives.
is just hard to pick any PC part anymore with out reading pages and pages of reviews...and then it's still a gamble, having ordered a new part from newegg just to have it be DOA when it arrived........then doing RMA and etc.....
guess we all got our preferences ........ I'll stay with my unfavored hitachi HD's until I have a problem out of em......
so noone mentioned fujitsu drives.... anyone care to comment on that brand?
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I agree with you on the Raptor drives, I've had 4 of them die on me just this decade alone.
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so noone mentioned fujitsu drives.... anyone care to comment on that brand?
started using fujitsu drives years ago for upgrading laptops, decent specs and very low power requirements compared to others. never had problems with them so have been using them in desktops too, again with no major problems :aok
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Truth of the matter is, no matter what HD you chose, it could die on you in a day. As far as SATA drives go, I consider them all commodity product not to be used for data which holds any importance for you.
All my data files are stored on a SCSI based file server at home. I use the SATA drives to hold all nonvolatile data, such as the OS, and Programs.
I have suffered failures of every brand of IDE/SATA drive ever put on the market. One of my SCSI drives in my file server is now 15 years old and still running (24x7) like a champ. I'll swap it out this year, just because it is a high risk for failure.
Now, I absolutely do not like a couple of companies at all. Hitachi as all their drives are based on the old IBM Deathstar technology. WD is the other company I do not like. Their roots are based in the Tandon drives. The best hit-n-miss drives ever made. Inconsistency was Tandon's strength and from what I gather WD is still doing that proud. WD has always excelled at commodity, but not so much in quality.
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LOL...any of you guys ever see Western Digital's old assembly plant in S.D.??? If you ever did, you would have never bought a WD drive...I used to drive by it every day to and from work. People would stand outside in their white coveralls and hair caps to smoke. Aside from the "industry standard" failure rate at the time, if you did a sector test of their hard drives, you would find somewhere near 10% of the drive had bad sectors on it... :huh (that was back when the 250MB hard disk was considered big).
Still I've had a lot of luck with them...1 failure in the past 10 years and that was on an old 40GB IDE.
Anyone remember the old Micropolis drives? Talk about dumpster fillers...holy cow, I don't remember a single drive lasting more than 2 yrs max.
As for the Fuji drives...I think they're dumpster fillers too...kinda hit and miss on them. Didn't Fujitsu at one point make "deathstar" based hard drives? I could have sworn IBM gave them licensing rights to their hard drive technology...been wrong before.
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Well I just ran out and picked up a Seagate 1TB AS series drive just to get my new build up and running. I should have it completed by the end of the day...as long as work that pays the bills doesn't interfere...:D