# Best, *RELIABLE, non-IBM* IDE HDD?

## wishkah

Hi.

I'm really angry right now. Just a few minutes ago, my 60 gig server HDD crashed. All four IBM drives I used in my server in the last year just died after a few months. Hope they fry in hell. IBM gave me replacements, but not for my data. I'm gonna sell the replacement drive over eBay (poor sucker who buys it, harhar)

Ok, now my question: Which is a RELIABLE (read: earth-quake-proof) IDE HDD with around 60-100 GB storage? I don't care about speed, 7200 is too fast, 5200 rpm is more stable - a big on-drive-cache would be cool. Please gimme a hint, I was reading that Maxtor is quite reliable, is that true? Which model should I buy?

Thanks

Edit: After my rage calmed down, I did some research: What do you think of the WD 800JB with 8mb cache? Is it reliable, can it be trusted with my data? It's fast, and that's not my top-priority, but I'm willing to spend some more bucks as long as it just WORKS (damn you, ibm)...

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## skunk

to my old (~6 years) desktop system i've changed a fried cpu, sound card, nic and 128mb ram, but the 2 maxtor hd (1 is ~2 years younger) are still working and never gave me any problems even with the very intensive use i've made of it

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## ProtectionFault

Yes, the Maxtor HDD's are very rilable...

I've never had problems using the discs.

Suggest you to buy the 120Gb Model with 8Mb Cache (7200rpm)   :Very Happy: 

I'm using them too.

They're running 24/7.

For pricing look at this.

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## creese

I've had three of three maxtor 60gb drives I bought die. I recommend western digital. I personally will not buy another maxtor.

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## wishkah

I'm not quite sure. These two sound both good:

WD 800JB 80GB, 8mb cache

Maxtor 6Y080P0 80GB, 8mb cache

Now, flip a coin or what? I wonder why the WD model is 10 EUR cheaper... well, since both sound good and have same performance values, I guess I'll take the WD one (/me is a poor student)... any objections?

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## chiatello

ive been using my WD 80gb special edition 8mb cache 7200 rpm for about 7 months now, it works gret

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## wishkah

Ok, i'll take the WD 80 gig 8mb. But if that fails me, I will seriously consider using SCSI...

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## agent_jdh

Seagate.

I've used a lot of HDD's in building boxes from all major brands, and the only brand I have never seen a failure of is Seagate.

Used to work a an HDD engineer at a large OEM as well, obviously I don't have the numbers in front of me but it was generally regarded that Seagate were just a bit better than everyone else.

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## ozonator

Given my experience, I'd echo the recommendation of Seagate.

In the last several years, over several dozen machines at work and home and among friends/family, I've seen failures of drives from all the brands we've used except Seagate.  Of course, I'm sure someone has a failure story (you can get a lemon from anyone), but in my experience, the Seagate IDE drives have been completely solid (and, with more recent drives, almost completely silent, too).

If it matters to you, some (but not all) of their IDE drives have 3-year warranties, (the ones with the larger cache, typically; the 120 GB Barracudas with 8 MB cache I just installed in a machine have the 3-year warranty, for example).

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## imeridian

I have five Maxtor harddrives in my fileserver and have yet to have a problem with any of them -- varying sizes from 17.2GB up to 120GB -- with corresponding ages from 1997 up to a few days ago.  

The only HD I've ever had a problem with was an 8.4GB Samsung, it literally caught on fire.

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## agent_jdh

 *indiboi wrote:*   

> I have five Maxtor harddrives in my fileserver and have yet to have a problem with any of them -- varying sizes from 17.2GB up to 120GB -- with corresponding ages from 1997 up to a few days ago.  
> 
> The only HD I've ever had a problem with was an 8.4GB Samsung, it literally caught on fire.

 

I've just had a 10 gig Maxtor die on me, old machine I'd set up for playing old Dos games like Tie Fighter.  Shame, took me ages to get it up and running.

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## krunk

Out of curiousity, what model drives where those?

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## tmsfnny

I've seen Wester Digital and IBM most recently.

The Western Digital drives, an 80gb and a 200gb special editions, both failed within a year. The replacement 200gb they sent back failed also.

I've had two IBM hard drives and used them quite extensively for three years and they're still good today. 

I think the problem with anything mechanical like that is proper ventilation. If you stack 4 high performance drives on top of each other in a steel box and run them hard without special precautions I would assume they'd fail especially fast. Especially if they are very high performance drives like the IBM's which have been known to take poorly to excessive heat. 

Most drives these days are about the same in that none of them are consistent. I'm a little surprised with the WD's, especially the bum replacement. But the IBM's have been excellent for me. I assume as long as they don't overheat their components will last a long time. I'm also using a new seagate 120, but I haven't used it enough to give any report. I do know the old Barracude IV drives were known to be really quiet but the new 7200 models are a step backward in acoustics. You might look into getting some 80gb Barracuda IV's if you can find them. 

My recommendation: Evaluate the airflow in your case. Separate your hard drives and get air flowing between them. Put active cooking directly on the drives. If you do disk intensive tasks (as it sounds like you do) you might investigate using some kind of hard drive heatsink. Even if you go SCSI you will especially need to look at proper cooling. A larger case, stronger active cooling, better spacing between drives.

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## Mr. Hahn

Seagate, it is the only choice. 

I run a Cheetah 15K.3 along with a 120GB Barracuda 7200.7 currently. Very reliable drives, fast too, and very quiet. My freaking 15000 rpm  Seagate is quieter than any of my non-seagate 7200 rpm drives running in my other boxes (ie ibm and western digital). So if you want the quietest, most realible drives, with good speed too (yeah yeah, they aren't always the fastest, but they are fast enough to not notice, heh what am I talking about I own one of the fastest period    :Embarassed:   ). Anyways, if you want a good, reliable, quiet, reasonablly priced disk, get a Seagate.

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## clubfan

Hi!

In the last 5 years one Seagate and one IBM failed in our 3 PCs. Now we have backups...

Regards,

Johannes

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## agent_jdh

 *clubfan wrote:*   

> Hi!
> 
> In the last 5 years one Seagate and one IBM failed in our 3 PCs. Now we have backups...
> 
> Regards,
> ...

 

You've touched an interesting point there.  Unless you're dealing in quantities of thousands of drives, anecdotal evidence along the lines of "I had a drive fail once" (heh, like my Maxtor comment above, I should know better), are not really much use.

And from what I've seen over time, a defective drive is _much_ more likely to have been caused by handling/shipping damage than by a genuine design/manufacturing defect.

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## s3ntient

Seagate, definately!

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## Malakin

Seagate is currently the most reliable and the quietest.

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