Intel Recall on 6-series, Cougar Point SATA, Sandy Bridge Chipset Recalled

[aaronspink]

Funny, I thought it was WD and the crowd-sourced hysteria over head parks on their Green drives (which turned out to be a heap of crap anyway, which was why the company was denying there was a problem in the first place).

Um, there IS a problem with the head parks on WD. Anyone with any brains sets the park timeout to its highest value as a first step after power on. The default value WD ships with is far too short and results in lots of bad interactions with background software that use the drives (linux, various windows utilities, etc).

 

[aaronspink]

Yup I don't like that they did that which is the only reason I haven't bought one yet. I figure I'll let all the drives with the pre-fix firmware clear the channel before picking one up to try out as I start to plan an upgrade to my WHS v1 machine. I believe only Samsung and WD have 667 GB platters and WHS v1 doesn't like the advanced format of EARS line of WD drives and I don't want to do the whole jumpering thing.

Still really tempted by the Samsung drive right now as they are going for 80 USD on Newegg right now.

Regards,
SB

IIRC F4s are AdvFmt drives as well.

 

[Sxotty]

I think that might be human nature.

But really AMD and Intel seem to be on top of their serious errata. Another one that comes to mind is how Toyota seemed quick to admit that their cars had defects in some controls.

That NVIDIA debacle might be the worst cover up in recent memory. My sister went through about 4 7900M GS replacements and Dell ended up just giving her a new notebook model. I also have a friend with a 7900M GTX that died from artifacting. That seems to me like a high failure rate. No experience with GF8M failures tho.

Actually ATI's GDDR5 issues have been annoying and they never admitted anything. Occasionally their cards and notebook products using GDDR5, from 4870 to Juniper AFAIK, occasionally had memory corruption. It may be related to GDDR5 manufacturer, video BIOS, and something in the drivers but it's not clear. There are some huge threads on some forums discussing this.

Swaaye you are completely wrong about the non desktop related issue. I have no idea where you got that idea. I don't want to derail this thread with it, but please do not perpetuate such misinformation.


Anecdottal evidence means nothing. I have never had an Nvidia product fail ever. I have had 3 AMD cards fail. I have had intel chipsets fail, a fujitsu and toshiba HDD. So what does that mean? Nothing. Other people have different luck. It is rare for us (random folks) to actually know the failure rates with any sort of accuracy. And you know there is bias towards products being broken as people who are upset their video card broke are more likely to post than those that are happy with a working one.

edit: And obviously there were issues with the nvidia bumpgate stuff I am not saying there wasn't. At the same time my laptop did not break that was one of those which may have been effected meaning HP and nvidia did not want to deal with it. I was lucky I guess.

 

[Blazkowicz]

the seagate 7200.11 was quite notorious, I did lose community data to it - first time I had it backed up to my personal hard drive before doing the firmware update, it worked but still crashed a while later.
next time we had a 7200.11 backup drive (!), updated and still running but a backup script woes made us lose data by overwriting the backups - I regretted not bringing my own drive again.

so here's the drive from hell - I would trust a 7200.12 though, as I know well every vendor fucks up at some point.

 

[swaaye]

Swaaye you are completely wrong about the non desktop related issue. I have no idea where you got that idea. I don't want to derail this thread with it, but please do not perpetuate such misinformation.

About the GDDR5 issue? All I know for sure is that there is most definitely some sort of issue there and it happens with some notebooks and some desktop cards, and that it has been happening with various GDDR5-equipped cards since 4870. I've been following this for most of this year.

Primarily related to this ongoing thread (this problem has been around since late 2009, essentially all of the 5870M/G73's lifetime)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/515309-how-fix-your-gsod-blues.html
Which got me searching for more info and I found various articles and more giant threads about it.

If you mean the NVIDIA stuff, well I just assumed that the failures I know of for the GF7M chips were related to bumpgate, especially considering that the class action suit includes them. Screen corruption deaths in every case. I haven't had any desktop NVIDIA boards die. Actually none of these have been my personal hardware so I'm not on a personal revenge mission here lol.

the seagate 7200.11 was quite notorious

I steered clear of those because of how many returns were mentioned in the Newegg reviews. A friend of mine has a trio of them and one did die recently but like Sxotty says, "anecdotal!"

I've been avoiding the WD 2TB drives with the bad rap too. The 4kb sectors WD20EARS one I think it is.

 

[Sxotty]

About the GDDR5 issue? All I know for sure is that there is most definitely some sort of issue there and it happens with some notebooks and some desktop cards, and that it has been happening with various GDDR5-equipped cards since 4870. I've been following this for most of this year.

I meant the non-computer issue Toyota... (though it may or may not have computer related parts).

I haven't had any desktop NVIDIA boards die. Actually none of these have been my personal hardware so I'm not on a personal revenge mission here lol.

I steered clear of those because of how many returns were mentioned in the Newegg reviews. A friend of mine has a trio of them and one did die recently but like Sxotty says, "anecdotal!"

I've been avoiding the WD 2TB drives with the bad rap too. The 4kb sectors WD20EARS one I think it is.

I was only raising the anecdotal bit b/c I try not to let it affect my buying decisions generally. Obviously if I had 3 ATI (wow I wrote AMD first on accident apparently the re-branding is working) cards fail I kept buying them. The last card I did get an Nvidia one partially b/c I was tired of my bad luck.

I do wish there was some real data on reliability. Reviews seem too quick now. In the past there were quirks of motherboards pointed out, now I rarely see that in reviews. And the motherboards I have gotten don't seem enough better than the past to warrant this change.

The seagate drives were definitely bad and seagate tacitly admitted it. Nvidia did have an issue in bumpgate. Intel does have an issue now. I bet there have been other cases that never came to light though, and others where people pretended there was a problem when there wasn't really. If there was a database that tracked failures and returns and customers were privy to that info it would be great, but we don't have that kind of information at our fingertips.

 

[swaaye]

I bet there have been other cases that never came to light though, and others where people pretended there was a problem when there wasn't really. If there was a database that tracked failures and returns and customers were privy to that info it would be great, but we don't have that kind of information at our fingertips.

No doubt. Well we know that most of VIA's Super 7 and Athlon chipsets were probably worthy of recall. Data corruption built in southbridge feature? Check! Defective AGP over 3 generations? Check!

Regardless of the fact that many of the online product reviews seem to be written by folks with questionable mental acuity, they do seem to give an indicator of quality if you see a lot of returns or DOAs. Those Seagate drives have hundreds of failure reviews on Newegg and it averages to an overall mediocre rating, for example. That's about the only source I can think of besides the occasional report from a group such as Google with the HDD reliability study.

Hard drives are a particularly difficult product to judge because they have always had questionable dependability. Even if a line is inherently flawed, it's not necessarily worse than another product! You simply can not trust any hard disk to not die on you at some point.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Aye HDD's are particularly hard to determine the source of problems.

For example, many issues with HDD failures is due to improper or insufficient packing combined with rough handling in transit. UPS especially have gotten really bad recently. And Newegg has really started to skimp on packing at times for their free super saver shipping.

This accounts for many of the drives that fail within a month or two of being received.

Installing 7200 RPM drives into external enclosures with insufficient cooling will also lead to early HDD death. Same applies for stacked HDD's in a computer case with insufficient airflow for high rpm drives.

I myself have 2 of the launch 1.5 TB Seagate drives still operating without a hitch in my computer. Reputation and internet hysteria can sometimes inflate the problems with one maker while at the same time making a worse problem at another manufacturer appear less problematic. BTW - this isn't to say there weren't problems with the 1.5 TB Seagates. There were, but mine for some reason didn't have the affected firmware. And no updated firmware was ever released for mine. Launch unit with slightly different product ID.

And when much of the reporting is driving by brand loyalty, brand reputation, and anecdotal evidence, it can be extremely hard to determine anything. For example, I myself have never had a Maxtor drive (had 6 or them at one time) last longer than 2-4 years before dying. Yet a friend of mine swore by them since he'd never had one die on him. Can either of that be extrapolated to indicate the manufacturer is particularly good or bad at making HDDs? Nope. But it does influence individual buying habits. I stopped buying them, while he continued. And in contrast to all that, I had 5 of the infamous Deathstar series of IBM drives. Not a single one of those died. One is actually still running in an SFF computer up at the ranch for one of my cousins. In fact, the only brands of HDDs where I've never had one die on me? Connors, IBM, Hitachi, and Samsung. But I wouldn't go so far as to say they are any better than WD, Seagate, Fujitsu, or any others.

About the best you can do is look for any official word on recalls or problems. And then either return the drives for warranty replacement or flast the firmware if a firmware is released that addresses the issue.

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Speaking on how things can be odd indeed, I still have an original 60GB IBM Deathstar drive that is still running and perfectly functioning. The only issue it had were about 12000 hours ago, most likely due to a power spike when the PC's PSU blew up.

Like anything else, there are always exceptions to the norm, and not all models fall into the same internet hysteria.

Though on hard drives, there are two types, those that have failed and those that have not failed. All hard drives will fail. It's not a question of if, but of when.

Model Family:     IBM Deskstar 40GV & 75GXP series (all other firmware)
Device Model:     IBM-DTLA-307060
Serial Number:    YQDYQFXD358
Firmware Version: TX8OA50C
User Capacity:    61,492,838,400 bytes

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   060    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  2 Throughput_Performance  0x0005   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0007   253   253   024    Pre-fail  Always       -       136 (Average 55)
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2711
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   100   100   005    Pre-fail  Always       -       4
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   100   100   067    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  8 Seek_Time_Performance   0x0005   100   100   020    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   093   093   000    Old_age   Always       -       54761
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   060    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1712
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   098   098   050    Old_age   Always       -       2711
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0012   098   098   050    Old_age   Always       -       2711
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   171   171   000    Old_age   Always       -       33
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       4
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0008   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x000a   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       3

 

[Grall]

Speaking of the Seagate .11 debacle, I wonder how much that magnificient cockup contributed to them losing the largest manufacturer position to WD for the first time in well over a decade. Maybe two decades or even more. They've obviously been biggest for far too long though by the time the .11 drives launched.

 

[Sxotty]

I seem to recall that maxtors actually were worse. Google had that study that showed cold not heat killed hdd remember it?

My HDD that died are numerous, but never a WD. The 18GB drive they released right before the deathstars is also still running in a PC I gave away. That HDD is definitely on borrowed time. Sorry we are getting off topic.

Is there any repository of failure info? I do agree with Swaaye that within bounds you can get an idea by reviews. If an item has a review average of 4 with over 100 reviews and a specific model has 100 reviews and is a 2 then I would worry. It is really hard to get much more info than that though.

 

[Grall]

I seem to recall that maxtors actually were worse.

I would think that all of the big manufacturers (most which are now gone, eaten up by others) were roughly equal. Claims that one or the other was much worse than the rest have in my experience only been based on anecdotal evidence, and the specific manufacturer always varied from one person to the next . Conner, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, Quantum... All of those and more have I seen named as The Worst Brand Ever over the years...

Barring for certain dud models, freight damage or bad batches of drives, it is my belief it's pretty much a non-issue which brand you pick. Of course if there's statistically accurate figures available somewhere across a lot of model series and over a long period of time, then a pattern could emerge, sure.

Google had that study that showed cold not heat killed hdd remember it?

I wouldn't be surprised if cold was worse than heat (within reason of course), due to the need for good lubrication of the mechanical parts. Cold lube typically does not work very well, and metal-to-metal contact is bad for any mechanical device and particulary a high-precision piece of equipment like a HDD.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Storagereview.com used to have a well populated user submitted reliability database, but it's been extremely lacking the past few years due to the site almost dying roughly 4-5 years ago. It's had a resurgence, but the drive reviews aren't as good or extensive as they used to be, IMO. And the reliability database of their's doesn't get nearly as many user entries as it did a long long time ago.

But back when it was actively used with many user submissions, it ended up with almost all drives being relatively equal in reliability, IIRC.

In their forums they also have (or had) some IT guys from Fortune 500 companies who went through 10's of thousands of HDDs a year. And for them, HDD failures were also fairly equal among the various vendors.

Regards,
SB

 

[Sxotty]

I thought the reason seagate was able to buy them was Maxtor was doing a bunch of silly stuff and made a few crud drives. I cannot remember specifically what the deal was since it was a long time ago. I think they were rebranding some bad drive from someone else or something like that maybe.

 

[swaaye]

I had a pair of 30GB 75GXPs for about 5 years. I think one eventually died but I can't remember what I did with the other. The drives became rather whiny late in life because of the usual ball bearing wear and I really can't stand that sound anymore.

Thread thoroughly derailed but I can't think of anything more to talk about on the main subject.

 

[Sinistar]

Every Maxtor drive I have owned ended up sounding like a 1541 trying to get past the disk copy protection. Seagate drives have never failed me.

 

[Gubbi]

Storagereview.com used to have a well populated user submitted reliability database, but it's been extremely lacking the past few years due to the site almost dying roughly 4-5 years ago.

I think they lost a lot of credibility when they lost this database in a hard drive crash.

You'd think people running a site called Storagereview would have proper backup.

Cheers

 

[Mize]

Meh, hard drives are luck of the draw IMHO.
Between home and office I've had virtually every brand fail on me at some point and I've had "terrible" drive (Deathstars) that lasted forever.

 

[Sxotty]

BTW did someone already point out the irony that intel killed all their chipset competition and now has no chipsets to sell their processors? I find it humorous.

 

[swaaye]

It is entertaining, yes.

Actually I'm fairly amazed that this kind of flaw got past their quality control.... Heads must be rolling over there.