Hard drive HELL

[mbarton]

I have been having absolutely horrible luck with hard drives lately.

It seems when the technology went from 5400 to 7200 and from smaller capacities to 160gb and up, that's when the reliability problems started?

Or am I dreaming?

My most reliable drives have been some older 5400 40gb drives from Maxtor (believe it or not).....they're hanging in there.

I've had 3 hard drives go bad in the past several months -- all 160gb.

2 Western digitals (both new) and one older Maxtor.

What is the consensus on reliability these days? Seagate? Hitachi? maybe some "off" name I'm not familiar with?

I need something for my media PC that can do 160gb or more and KEEP RUNNING!

What's annoying is that I also turn this PC on and off as needed.

[cid]

I suggest a Seagate Barracude Hard Drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148445

That seems to be the best deal around. I am about to pick one up for myself.

[techgnome]

Barracuda ++!

I've had miserable luck with Maxtor.... I've had better luck with WD's Caviar and Seagate's Barracuda... I doubt I'll stray much from those if I have a choice.

-tg

[mbarton]

Yeah I bought a barracuda last week and so far so good -- western digital has been a nightmare for me lately.

Alright, another barracuda it is. It seems to be the word with PC techs as well -- go seagate.

Thanks.

[Lord Orwell]

i have a 500gb seagate. Came with a 5 year warranty and i needed it. Lasted about a month. Just long enough for me to migrate every piece of data onto it. Replacement one seems to be working fine.

You need to do some serious googling on any drive you decide to buy. Maxtor (i think) had a factory that was putting the wrong firmware on the drives and there have been a lot of drive failures. Plus new 2tb models have been released and this is most likely going to result in a huge recall eventually.

[mbarton]

I should try and find (good luck) new in box <80 gb drives that run at 5400.

I have several that WILL NOT die.

Seems to me the higher platter speed and mega storage numbers really were a sacrifice to quality.

My major work computer doesn't even use 15gb.

And for media, 160gb or more, think I'll try the seagate drives designed for TIVO. (they were 5400).

[Jenner]

Yea, I got a trio of 40gig drives that will not die, they're all 7200rpm WD though. I still use one on occasion since it has a FAT32 filesystem for doing BIOS upgrades.

My main computer has several 250gig 7200 WD drives and I'm very happy with it. I've had them in there for a few years now.

[Lord Orwell]

I should try and find (good luck) new in box <80 gb drives that run at 5400.

I have several that WILL NOT die.

Seems to me the higher platter speed and mega storage numbers really were a sacrifice to quality.

My major work computer doesn't even use 15gb.

And for media, 160gb or more, think I'll try the seagate drives designed for TIVO. (they were 5400).

designed to be slower and quieter and cooler. Tivo doesn't vent well enough to keep two drives cool.

[mbarton]

Can't believe it -- it happened again -- brand new from tiger direct 29 days ago -- a seagate barracuda 160 gig.

disk read error.


Listen, who knows of something that has a design for durability?

Aren't there offerings from seagate and wd that are priced twice as much that you can count on?

I'm through with these &^*^$ 60 dollar drives.

Only thing I can think of is this backup software I have (second copy) which backsup only the new files every time I use it -- this PC isn't even on but 3 or 4 times a week -- weird.

[techgnome]

Find out what ToughBooks (from Panasonic) are using...

-tg

[mbarton]

need a desktop drive -- think I'll try samsung this time -- hell I've tried everything else.

also saw some new maxtor diamondmax on ebay and I've excellent luck with
those -- they end up going bad after several years but not in 29 days!

I've been going through drives right and left -- mostly wd caviar and the seagate barracuda.

[mbarton]

would really like to hear about the "off" brands from any users --

samsung
fujitsu
hitachi
??

[techgnome]

need a desktop drive -- think I'll try samsung this time -- hell I've tried everything else.

also saw some new maxtor diamondmax on ebay and I've excellent luck with
those -- they end up going bad after several years but not in 29 days!

I've been going through drives right and left -- mostly wd caviar and the seagate barracuda.

Oh, yeah. d'uh.... that won't work then huh?

-tg

[Lord Orwell]

would really like to hear about the "off" brands from any users --

samsung
fujitsu
hitachi
??

those are rebrands of maxtor,wd, and seagate

[mbarton]

Looks like this may possibly be a Windows problem this time.

Disk read error.

Running chkdsk, fixboot and fixmbr right now -- seatools diagnostics says drive ok.

Brand new XP install -- only have had the PC on a half dozen times.

This PC is for playing audio only, so if the drive is ok, I'm going to try nlite and make a stripped down version of xp -- maybe it will be more reliable.

May even use linux and a linux wav file player.
Doesn't ubuntu have it's own media player?

[mbarton]

I wonder what would be a good "minimal" operating system for a PC that is used ONLY
to play WAV audio files?

NOTHING else -- no internet, nothing.

An nlite XP? (because I do like media player)

Any particular Linux distribution?

[Jenner]

Heck, if that's all you're using it for, I'd recommend Mandriva Linux and VLC media player.

[Lord Orwell]

if its a weak system, there is always damn small linux. if a gui is optional, you could even do dos. creative released dos-based media player software.

[stanav]

How about win2k? It's compact, fast and reliable and very much compatible with any software that runs on XP boxes (except MagicJack)

[Lord Orwell]

i hadnt read all of this thread until just now so...
if you are continually having hard drive issues, make sure the drive itself is not getting hot. Run a s.m.a.r.t. monitoring program and keep an eye on temps. You may be burning the drive up. I also once had a molex pin loose and my hard drive kept shutting down.

Even if you have a bad sector, windos can mark it and skip it from now on. Just don't do a low-level format, EVER. It erases the factory-marked bad sectors and you can end up losing data.

[mbarton]

I think this drive is fine -- XP just won't boot and I've seen a ton of other folks with the same problem -- disk read error.

Did recovery, chkdsk, even seagate seatools -- you name it and no change.

Fortunately I use second copy to back up.

Oh well. Just ordered a western digital, at least they have a great turnaround with their
warranty service.

I'm playing with ubuntu for the first time.

Very interesting -- I see I can add real player to it -- perhaps more reliable?

[mbarton]

One more question -- sorry,this post is all over the place.

Of the popular Linux distros (excluding damn small linux) which would be the best choice for just playing audio files and nothing else on a PC?

Something lean and mean. (mandriva and vlc as suggested?)

I'm using Ubuntu right now and it's kick ass, has it's own rhythmbox player included....but it does have a lot of applications I don't need. (although I'm happy with it -- not even the slightest burp with it's audio playback).

DSL seems a bit scary so maybe a good compromise between DSL and Ubuntu?

[Lord Orwell]

there is a version of ubuntu designed for older hardware. All the linux installs come with preinstalled apps though but you can uninstall them with the package manager in ubuntu anyway.

[storm5510]

I suggest a Seagate Barracude Hard Drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822148445

That seems to be the best deal around. I am about to pick one up for myself.

I just got a Seagate 500 GB SATA Barracuda a couple of weeks ago. It's been great. No issues here. I have a fairly new motherboard and CPU also. Perhaps you're having some sort of hardware issue on the main board somewhere?