Harddisk Failure

[sparhawk]

I was just wondering. About two years ago (maybe 2.5) I got two identical discs from my wife for christmas. They were Maxtor 80GB disks. One of these disks broke down about half a year or a year ago and the other one broke down yesterday. Both were used in a desktop machine and the one from yesterday was put in a server about half a year ago. Anyway, my server is not heavily under stress most of the time so I wouldn't expect the discs to get overused.

This is quite strange because I had machines used for more then 7 years and some discs I carried over when I switched to a newer machine, and I never had a harddisc failure in all that time. Is Maxtor that bad or could this be just coincidence?

I guess I will not buy another maxtor anytime soon, because two discs in such a short time seems fishy to me.

[OrbWeaver]

I was jsut wondering. About two years ago (maybe 2.5) I got two identical disks from my wife for christmas. They were Maxtor 80GB disks. One of these disks broke down about half a year or a year ago and the other one broke down yesterday. Both were used in a desktop machine and the one from yesterday was put in a server about half a year ago. Anyway, my server is not heavily under stress most of the time so I wouldn't expect the discs to get overused.

This is quite strange because I had machines used for more then 7 years and some disks I carried over when I switched to a newer machine, and I never had a harddisk failure in all that time. Is Maxtor that bad or could this be just coincidence?

I guess I will not buy another maxtor anytime soon, because two disks in such a short time seems fishy to me.

Reliability is often correlated amongst drives manufactured in a single batch. If the two drives were identical and bought at the same time it is not improbable that they could both be affected by a fault.

 

Maxtor are pretty reliable in my experience, you were probably just unlucky.

[Vadrosaul]

Among everyone and every computer I know Maxtor have been the most often to fail and need to be RMA'd. Go with Seagate or Western Digital. So far WD have been 100% perfect for me.

[Demigod]

I agree. I have 5-6 year old seagate a 3 year old samsung and 1 year old seagate all still working, and 3 dead maxtors all dead within a year.

 

Edit samsung drives are quieter in my experiance, but cost more, though not as much as western digital.

Edited June 25, 2005 by Demigod

[obscurus]

I have a 9 year old Seagate that I use in an external USB enclosure to transfer files between work and home... works perfectly. My C drive is an 80GB Maxtor, I've had it for nearly 2 years, but you have me worried now... Most of my important files are backed up onto a 6 year old 20 GB Seagate - they seem to be unbreakable I have a couple of old Western Digitals that are very reliable, and several ancient Quantum Fireballs (around 200 - 500 MB average, I can't believe how much you can fit on a 3.5 inch HD these days) that are in perfect working order.. I'll be sticking with Seagate or WD for the forseable future, that was the last Maxtor I'll buy, I just hope it doesn't fail anytime soon, I have a lot of backing up to DVD to do...

Edited June 26, 2005 by obscurus

[John D.]

My cousin who has played around with different computers told me to get a Seagate when building my system. I had planned to order a Western Digital but he says that they dont work as well as they used to and he and his friends have all gone to the Seagate 7200 rpm drives.