13-03-2003 07:13									#1
	IBM, Seagate, or... Increase the size of your Attachments

something else? What hard drive brand has the best reputation for reliability?



And what brand would you buy?

	13-03-2003 07:16									#2
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i only buy Western Digital.

i've never had any problems with them, i never HEARD of any problems with them, and their boot disk (built on Caldera Dr. Dos) makes partitioning etc a breeze.

my bud had a Maxtor that crapped out on him, and i heard that IBM had a recall or something (IIRC).

i'm sure the real techies will show their faces soon

i HATE hardware

	13-03-2003 07:21									#3
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IBM sold their HDD division.

It pretty much doesn't matter these days. Seagate used to have a reputation of being unreliable. However, since the old high-ended makers (Cheetah, Micropolis, etc.) are all gone, you don't have much of a choice.

Just check out things like MTBF (mean time between failure), tranfer rate, seek time, buffer size, etc.

	13-03-2003 07:21									#4
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Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma." This should translate into qualtiy.

	13-03-2003 07:22									#5
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger IBM sold their HDD division. It pretty much doesn't matter these days. Seagate used to have a reputation of being unreliable. However, since the old high-ended makers (Cheetah, Micropolis, etc.) are all gone, you don't have much of a choice. Just check out things like MTBF (mean time between failure), tranfer rate, seek time, buffer size, etc.

UR, Cheetah is a Seagate disk drive.

	13-03-2003 07:23									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma." This should translate into qualtiy.

Not necessarily. It depends on how they set their standards. You can achieive sigma by either improving quality, or dropping standards

	13-03-2003 07:35									#7
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UR, I don't think that is how Six Sigma works. It is a program that origninated with Motorola, I believe, that teaches the use of statitistical methods for controlling processes. The design part is where the design is intended to achieve robustness - six sigma, not the traditional three sigma.

Perhaps others more familiar with Six Sigma could fill us in on the methodology.

	13-03-2003 07:50									#8
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--"And what brand would you buy?"

What are you after, and how much can you spend? ATA, SATA, or SCSI? Is heat a problem (ie. are you already overclocking)?

Personally, I'd probably go with the latest Seagate Barracuda drive, just because they're pretty quiet. Not the top of the performance charts, but I don't do anything that requires the kind of disk I/O that would make me notice the difference.

--"Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma.""

On which drives? Their consumer and enterprise lines will not be the same. I'd expect them to do this for their SCSI line, but doubt they do it on their IDE line right now (seeing as how they've dropped the warranty coverage to 1 year like basically all of the drive manufacturers have).

Wraith
It said, "Insert disk #3," but only two will fit!

	13-03-2003 07:52									#9
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I am familar with 6 Sigma, after just completing a course of Quality Planning for my MBA degree.

It is a goal for statistical process controls in place. But SPC's are just tools that compare what you are making and what you should be making. In other words, if you make the goal bigger, it's easier to kick the ball in.

	13-03-2003 08:10									#10
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Seagate and Western Digital are among the best.

I haven't had any bad experiences with Samsung hard drives, and they tend to be extremely quiet.

I shun Maxtor.

but: check out anandtech.com, they tend to have good reviews for this stuff.

	13-03-2003 08:10									#11
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IBM drives SUCK. Don't ask me how I know this.

	13-03-2003 08:11									#12
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Not better or worse than other brands, in my experience.

	13-03-2003 08:35									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Wraith --"And what brand would you buy?" What are you after, and how much can you spend? ATA, SATA, or SCSI? Is heat a problem (ie. are you already overclocking)? Personally, I'd probably go with the latest Seagate Barracuda drive, just because they're pretty quiet. Not the top of the performance charts, but I don't do anything that requires the kind of disk I/O that would make me notice the difference. --"Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma."" On which drives? Their consumer and enterprise lines will not be the same. I'd expect them to do this for their SCSI line, but doubt they do it on their IDE line right now (seeing as how they've dropped the warranty coverage to 1 year like basically all of the drive manufacturers have). Wraith It said, "Insert disk #3," but only two will fit!

Wraith, Design for Six Sigma is required for all design centers. Six Sigma itself is required for every director and above.

All I suggest is that this has to translate into higher quality than one would normally achieve. Whether it is higher than other drive company's products depends on their own design and manufacturing quality requirements.

	13-03-2003 08:54									#14
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quote: Originally posted by Promethus IBM drives SUCK. Don't ask me how I know this.

I agree, they are freaking HORRIBLE. We've had them die all over the place.

Go with the Seagate.

	13-03-2003 08:57									#15
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I wouldn't recommend Seagate... bad memories

If you can, go with Serial ATA.

	13-03-2003 08:59									#16
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quote: Originally posted by Ned Wraith, Design for Six Sigma is required for all design centers. Six Sigma itself is required for every director and above.

Just the design? That doesn't mean a lot. You need to put it in the manufacturing plants to do any good.

	13-03-2003 09:02									#17
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We're going with the 8" Radio Shack diskette drives!!!

	13-03-2003 09:07									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger Just the design? That doesn't mean a lot. You need to put it in the manufacturing plants to do any good.

It is. Just that Seagate took Six Sigma, which is all about process control and moved it into the disc drive design. This is where Seagate is different from others even if they have Six Sigma.

	13-03-2003 09:13									#19
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6 Sigma should be both design and manufacturing. Otherwise it is no good. You can design a HDD with very tight specs, but if the controls aren't there in the plants, it still won't make a difference.

	13-03-2003 10:24									#20
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can't beat the WD SE drives with the 8MB buffers!!!!!!!!

	13-03-2003 10:28									#21
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I've been using Maxtor drives for the past six years or so. Only one failure, and it gave plenty of warning before it went (read: I was able to buy a new drive and successfully dumped the contents of the old one into it before it went).

	13-03-2003 10:36									#22
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I've owned several Western Digital drives throught the years and none have ever died on me. I did get a second hand Maxtor my father gave to me while I was in college but it died soon after I installed it. To this day I don't know if it was damaged during transport from my parent's house to my house or if the drive was on death's door step already.

IBM drives have a really good reputation for quality and speed though you have to pay extra to get them. Personnally, I don't think the extra expense is worth it unless you really need the 1-2 milliseconds faster seek time.

	13-03-2003 10:47									#23
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For IDE drives, I'd probably go with Western Digital.

I've only used SCSI for years now (currently running Ultra320 SCSI in 10k and 15k RPM drives, and I have them in a RAID 5, so I don't sweat failures), and I've never had a hardware failure on any IBM, Seagate or Quantum SCSI drive, from SCSI-2 on to Ultra320 SCSI.

The most hours I put on any drive were probably 20-30,000. Right now, between various comps, I'm running 15 Ultra320 and 2 Ultra160 drives, with between 3800 and 19,000 hours on them (the high hours on the Ultra160's, which are now relegated to an office comp). None of these, nor my SCSI adapters (all Adaptec 29xx, 29xxx and 39xxx models) have ever failed.

	13-03-2003 10:59									#24
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Probably should've dropped more info, but work beckoned.


Anyway, my Gateway is about putzed out (seems I suffer from the Slot A Thunderbird/Jabil problem). So I was going to cannabalize the good from my system and build a new one. Nothing fancy, just an Athlon XP 1600, etc.

My two 30 gigs are being maxed out now, so I was looking for an 80 gig-er to join them in the new system. I have a Western Digital, but it makes clicking noises and other things that it shouldn't be. Friend of mine has seen the same with his WD. I've had positive experience with IBM drives (by coincidence, my old Acer and the Gateway have them). Others swear by Seagate and I've just gotten bad vibes from Maxtor for some reason.


Seek times and whatnot aren't that important to me (7200 RPM's and ATA/100 and I'm fine), I just want to buy a brand that's known to have good reliability. Not looking to spend too much, so that might leave out the serial ATA right now.

	13-03-2003 11:03									#25
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If you're really concerned about reliability, get 2 drives and a RAID card and mirror them.

	13-03-2003 11:13									#26
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Hard drive space is dirt cheap so I'd go even bigger then 80 Gigs. Even the cheapy computers from the major manufacturers are now shipping with 100gig drives. I bought a Dell three months ago and they throw in a free upgrade from the 80 gig to the 115 gig drive.

	13-03-2003 11:14									#27
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RAID carding them might be over kill unless you have alot of very important data on your drive.

	13-03-2003 11:28									#28
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I just buy a much larger drive each time I want to upgrade, and image the smaller drive onto a partition.

	13-03-2003 13:09									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Kyle My two 30 gigs are being maxed out now, so I was looking for an 80 gig-er to join them in the new system.

Porn!

	13-03-2003 17:56									#30
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--"IBM drives SUCK."

You must have picked up one of the infamous DeathStars...

--"All I suggest is that this has to translate into higher quality than one would normally achieve."

It's certainly what it's meant for, but the warranty-reductions makes me wonder what else is going on. Maybe all the major drive manufacturers by knock-off Taiwanese capacitors.

--"Probably should've dropped more info, but work beckoned."

Seagate or Western Digital are good choices, it sounds like. SATA shouldn't be that much different in price, but you'll need a motherboard or a controller card that will support them.

Make sure to check out Storage Review before you buy.

Wraith
"Assassins Inc. - We aim to please"