Re: [tlug] HDD Reliability

[Stephen Lee <sl@example.com>]

Tod McQuillin <devin@example.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Ben Konrath wrote:
> > Which drives are supposed to be good?
> 
> I've also had really good luck with Seagate drives.  The latest offerings
> use fluid bearings and are dead quiet too.

patrick.niessen@example.com wrote:
> I use 3 Maxtor 250GB SATA drives with a 3ware Raid controller in my
> Backupserver.  So far no problem yet.  Some magazines have given high marks
> on reliability and performance for them - I think maxtor wants them to
> compete with SCSI drives for the entry level server segment.

I think HDD made last 2 years were really bad, right around the time
when most makers reduced their warranty to 1 year - I think I wrote
about my experience quite a while ago on this list.  I bought 7200RPM
60-80G drives from IBM, Seagate and Maxtor - 1 out of 2 IBMs failed
(wouldn't spin up occasionally, replaced under warranty), 3 out of 2
Maxtors failed (sometimes fails to spin up, SMART error, but still
usable, 1 replaced and replacement failed again, now I keep them as
scratch disks and may sell them off as junk soon), 2 of 4 Seagates
failed (strange noise, 1 died and replaced under warranty, 1 with read
errors that was cured by zero-filling the whole drive).

They were in different machines.  Could be the heat, or really bad luck,
but my bet is on the quality of the drives.

Oh, and my Linux machine has 2 Samsung 5400RPM 120GBers which has worked
24/7 for close to a year.

I should also state that warranty sucks for all makers in Japan.  The
drives you buy at Akiba are all handled by distributors, so you have to
go through the store and can't go to the makers directly for warranty
support.  Warranty from the distributors are usually 10 months to 1 year,
even on drives with 3 year warranties.  (Meaning you can take the drive
to USA and have it repaired there, but not in Japan).

So, despite my experience with Maxtor, I now use their Maxline II plus
250GB drives (ATA & SATA) in 2 machines, because Users' Side
<http://www.users-side.co.jp/> offers 3 years of warranty on them, but
shops like it is rare.  If anybody knows of other places that offerlong
warranties, I'd like to know.

Stephen