New 250GB hard drive - your opinion

[N00b]

Except for one Samsung, all drives that broke down on me for the last years (in servers as well) were Maxtor or IBM. Some of the IBM were of the last few series they made, others were just really old (like a 810 MB 2.5" drive yesterday, that had been running constantly for about 8 years).

A 810 MB 2.5" drive, bought 8 years ago? You gotta tell who your dealer is. I've been desperately looking for that kind of capacity to put into my laptop.

 

[Frank]

It was in a large industrial machine, and the production date is 1999. It costs about 10,000 Euro to have it replaced by the manufacturer. We told the guy we would have done it for half that, or even less if he was persistent.

 

[poopypoo]

this thread topic has been beaten to death already, but i'm still inclined to go with brand names when browsing HDDs. sometimes a company like Seagate may lag behind in performance or features, and then I can be tempted to buy a WD (wheen theirs were fastest) or Samsung (when theirs were quietest) or perhaps in the future, an Hitachi. But unless the constant read/write times are significantly different, I'm not taking chances with my data, and I go Seagate. You pay a slight premium but, well, not even federal customs agents (or airport security or whatever the eff it was XD) could stop my sata 7200.9 from making it to China in working condition, though they did try -- apparently with a crowbar.

FWIW -- never ever check a desktop PC on a flight -- if you can't carry it on, don't bother! ;p

 

[Rys]

And I'll throw my hat into the "Maxtor are fine" camp. I run two 300GB DM10s in the box I'm using to type this and I think they're great, no issues.

 

[Frank]

A 810 MB 2.5" drive, bought 8 years ago? You gotta tell who your dealer is. I've been desperately looking for that kind of capacity to put into my laptop.

Btw, I checked the production date of the drive, and it's July 1998. But it seems the guy got a reasonably fair deal after all, as it turns out replacing the drive by the manufacturer is only about $1000.

 

[pascal]

Just finished the installation of Seagate 160GB 7200.9
It is fast and furious

But now I believe I have a problem with my PSU. When I try to move some 20,000 files the PC turn-off after some time. I have to unplug the power cord and plug again after 10 seconds (capacitors) and start again.

 

[swaaye]

I had a brand new IBM Travelstar that came with my Dell die within 2 days. But, I've been running one of their first 2.5" 7200RPM 60gigs for over 2 years now. And I have a working Deathstar!

So ya eh who knows eh.

 

[BRiT]

I had a brand new IBM Travelstar that came with my Dell die within 2 days. But, I've been running one of their first 2.5" 7200RPM 60gigs for over 2 years now. And I have a working Deathstar!

I have 2 working Deathstars (60Gig 7200rpm) in a raid-0 array. They've been working solidly for 5 years. Yet, I've had 4 Maxtor 250gig drives die aftering being in use for a single year to year and a half. The Deathstars (primary OS, apps, games, development on main system) have seen far more use than the Maxtors (archival of tv-series, write once read many).

 

[pascal]

I installed a new PSU and the new Seagate 7200.9 SATA is working great.
It is much faster and makes less noise than the older HDD