Most reliable drives ever?

[Combat squirrel]

General desktop harddrives, we all know seagates are generally the most reliable ever, but my cautious friend is umming and arrrring as to which ones are, can we get some posts in here confirming what im saying, 5 yr warrenty and a good track record, so folks whats the most reliable HD ever?

 

[semi-pro waster]

An 8 year old Maxtor 6gb.

There is no way to say that a hard drive will not fail but last time we had a poll on this Hitachi, Seagate and Samsung all came out pretty well if memory serves. However the poll doesn't take into account relative quantities sold of course but as a rough idea it isn't too bad (Seagate are the biggest manufacturer overall I believe, particularly now they have bought Maxtor).

 

[Nick1881]

I replaced my old machine earlier this year, it had been running a 30Gb Seagate since about 1999, and a 120Gb Maxtor from about 2000-2001. Never had a problem with either.

Got 2 Seagates and a WD now, all seem great.

 

[Borden]

All the maxtors i've ever owned have failed

I once got a 300GB western digital which was DOA, didn't put me off though as i now have three more of them. They're still good drives.

My seagates are still going strong, mind you i've only had them a couple of years. The 5 year warranty is also a bonus.

 

[Slackworth]

I'd recommend either WD or Seagate mainly but we don't really have that many problems with any of them.

If you want something that is definitely that little bit more reliable then check out the WD xxxxYS/ABYS or Seagate STxxxxxxxNS drives as these have longer testing periods and more general features.

 

[Justintime]

Samsung has a low failure rate at work and in my builds, reliability-wise i'd say Samsung - Seagate -WD and definetly Seagate for SCSI. Tend to run away from Maxtor, not sure now since Seagate took over.

 

[Dingleberry88]

I have an old 5400RPM 15GB Quantum Fireball that's still going strong.

 

[sunama]

I'd recommend either WD or Seagate mainly but we don't really have that many problems with any of them.

If you want something that is definitely that little bit more reliable then check out the WD xxxxYS/ABYS or Seagate STxxxxxxxNS drives as these have longer testing periods and more general features.

The problem is that the Seagate NS drives are almost twice the price of their ordinary counterparts. For businesses, to spend twice the price might be worth it, but if its just for a home computer system, I honestly cant see the point to paying the price premium.

We mustnt forget that it is very important to back-up important data, on a regular basis.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

we used to use maxtor all the time but thier recent drives have been too dodgey. now useing samsung drives and not had any failures yet.

stay away from ibm deathstars.

 

[sunama]

stay away from ibm deathstars.

You mean the IBM 75GXP drives of 5yrs ago? The drives that you couldnt buy now as they have long been discontinued?

 

[fobose]

Seagate. I have now had 7 and none of them have died on me.

 

[n30_mkii]

After being in the IT Business for a number of years, the general consensus between most IT departments is roughly, Western Digital followed by Seagate if you are looking at standard desktop drives, but then SCSI is a whole different kettle of fish again....

 

[MeatLoaf]

Ive never had one drive die on me

Ive had maxtors, WD, hitachi and samsungs of late

 

[smids]

Samsung haven't been the in the business long enough for anyone to say they are reliable. In fact, from the poll I ran, they scored pretty badly considering that others like Seagate have been producing drives for about 20+ years now (and actually invented the desktop drive).

Seagate are the biggest and oldest manufacturer. I own about 12 seagate drives, 1 which is 10 years old, has been dropped and still has no bad sectors and works fine (though the 128KB cache is a little limiting!). I've never had a failure from them thusfar. They really are outstanding drives. I own 2 NS drives too, which are in my home server. 4 320GB's in a RAID5, another 6 in computers dotted around the house.

Only ever had one WD fail on me and that was a raptor (150GB) from the first batch which had a number of failures (poor head quality or something).

Never had any other drive die on me. I own another 4 hitachi's, 3 WD's (though owned about 7 over the years), a Quantum, Fujitsu...you get the picture.

I have to say I place complete faith in Seagate first and foremost, Hitachi (excellent drives), IBM (despite the one bad batch and now owned by Hitachi) or Western Digital. All are excellent choices.

Maxtor Enterprise drives are second to none. The Atlas range is amazing. Their desktop drives have suffered heavily over the last few years and I hope Seagate have improved their quality.

 

[Justintime]

Samsung haven't been the in the business long enough for anyone to say they are reliable.

Are u kidding? I've had Samsung hdds since 2GB was considered excessively huge They might not have been around as long as others but they're no newcomers. We've still got some of those 2gb dinosaurs and they still work just as well as when they were new, a bit noisier as all drives tend to go but work nonetheless.

 

[Father Ted]

Going by my experience at work WD are definitely not the most relaible. We have a user base of about eighty PC's. The majority of then are fitted with WD's.
Over the past six months we've had five fail.

 

[ByteJuggler]

You mean the IBM 75GXP drives of 5yrs ago? The drives that you couldnt buy now as they have long been discontinued?

Yes, the latest generation Hitachi Deskstars are really good from my experience and not Deathstars anymore by any stretch of the imagination. Not sure if they're quite as reliable/good as the Seagate's, time will tell...

 

[schumi84]

I had a couple of 40GB IBM Deskstars and a Maxtor 40GB (cant remember the make) that all failed.

The IBM ones failed within a few months, so when i got the replacements back i sold them straight away as didnt want to risk them going wrong too.

Can't complain about any of my 3 Seagates at the moment, the older SATA I drive is a bit noisy when accessing but very rarely use it now as have my other 2 drives in RAID 0 that has everything on.

 

[fumbles]

Had the following:

IBM, WD, Seagate, Maxtor, Toshiba.

The IBM is the only that is a bit dodgy, seven years old, can't complain about that.

Rest never had a complaint

 

[smids]

Are u kidding? I've had Samsung hdds since 2GB was considered excessively huge They might not have been around as long as others but they're no newcomers. We've still got some of those 2gb dinosaurs and they still work just as well as when they were new, a bit noisier as all drives tend to go but work nonetheless.

That's not exactly how I meant it - I mean their range has not been a main focus of their company. Samsung have been doing electronics gear for ages, but companies like Seagate etc and built on the HDU industry. They are effectively newcomers considering only recently have they become much more prominent in the industry and the fact the companies they compete against are actually just HDU manufacturers.