Hard Drive reliability data? Which HD ???

I remember back in the day [Dell] we usually found out which HD's were reliable the hard way.

is there a site somewhere that has an ACCURATE [statistically valid] view of field failure data on popular desktop and/or server hard drives?
I went to the reliability survey section of storagereview.com but don't find it to be valuable because of the methodology. basically I think a lot of people check in there to vent, and once you get into submodels in a family the coherency of the data is not reliable IMHO [if you know better, correct me]

anyway... 60gb or above, i don't care... 7200rpm or above,. I don't care, big buffer or small, I don't care, i just need something that has a fighting chance!

i must say, my humble little Quantum fireball drives keep going and going and going and going... but they are antique at this point

thankx!
z

 

I'm a fan of Maxtor a Western Digital myself!!

And as Halo said...I had one Maxtor drive go out on me but their warranties and customer support are so good they immediately took care of me and I would think twice about buying another!!

Roger

 

We have had one Maxtor go, 3 months after the warranty, and one WD SATA drive go after about 14 months. The warranty service from WD was excellent, and I had another drive cross shipped and in my hand in less than 48 hours. Seagates are very appealing with the 5 years of warranty, but last week I bought a WD 250 gig, SE16, SATA II drive($97.00). So, now we have 3 comps in the house running, 7 WD drives, the oldest about 6 or 7 years old.

 

I guess each will have his favourite make of HDD. Mine is Seagate. Their reliability has been nothing short of excellent (touch wood). From the Quantum to SATA. About 12 HDDs over the last 5 years or so.

I would also have to strongly agree with the statement that the customer support is the deciding factor. I found Seagate's support to be top notch.

They are extremely helpful and happy to answer all pre sales enquiries (which are not handled by brochure readers but by the techs themselves)

Cheers

 

In terms of longevity, there really isn't much of a difference between all the major brands.

They all get good and bad reports. (Years ago IBM had a problem with it's 20 GB drives, but it's not a common occurrence)

Any mechanical part can fail, but modern drives are extremely reliable.

I've seen all of the major brands last a very long time, or fail soon after purchase.


Whichever brand I went for, I would check that it had at least a 3 year or more warranty.

 

The only make I would steer away from (wholly personal) is IBM. Their Deskstar models or 'Deathstar' as forums nicknamed it at the time, was one of the worse ever made. Ever since that time, I will not buy or use IBM.

Cheers

 

IBM don't make desktop drives any more. They were taken over by Hitachi.

 

Yes, I am aware of that Insomniac but my phobia has carried over to Hitachi even though it is 'probably' unfounded.

Cheers