Any difference in hard drive brands?

[momditty]

We're thinking of upgrading our 160GB internal HD to a 300 or 320GB. We found a Western Digital 320GB for $220, Maxtor 300GB for $200 and a Seagate 300 for $260.
Other than price which one is best? Is there anything special we need to know about putting one that big in? Thanks.

[truelyme]

I suspect you will have as many answers on this as there are opinions.

For my own preferances, I prefer the WD's. While I own all three brands you have mentioned (though not in those sizes) what I have found by experience is this.

Maxtors are cheaper drives for the most part and aren't supported very well by a manufactures web site. What is important by being able to go to the makers website is this. If you lose the software that comes with the drive, how will you be able to reinstall the mbr update necessary to advance beyond the 137 gig barrier? (One way I know to get around that is to use a program such as Partition Magic)

Seagates don't seem to do good when dealing with heat. Meaning if your drives are on 24/7 the life when compared with WD might make the WD worth the extra money. I have know many folks that have complained of early death when dealing with Seagates.

Predominately it is WDs that I use and prefer. They seem to be the workhorse that stands in there day after day under hard use. They are well supported by a manufactures website with the downloads you receive with a new drive so that if your software becomes damaged or lost you can still get those programs back again at no cost.

Once again understand this is my opinion from use and the next member may well tell you another story or preferance different than mine.

[Muffin_Man]

One thing to note about those drives is the Maxtor and Western Digitals both usually have a one-year warranty, while Seagates have a five-year. Beyond that, I agree with truelyme about the general crappyness of Maxtor drives (just went through three of them in a year, give or take). I find the overall quality of the other two to be fairly equal.

[cpugeniusmv]

I tend to go with Western Digital drives. But I also have a Maxtor drive. Seagate is notable with it's 5 year (as opposed to WD and Maxtor's 3 year) warranty.

[Krell]

I tend to go with Western Digital drives. But I also have a Maxtor drive. Seagate is notable with it's 5 year (as opposed to WD and Maxtor's 3 year) warranty.

I've just been thru 3 of every brand. What is relevant is the most gb per $, and the warranty. The warranty will not get your data back, just let you get the same amount of space or more back thru a RMA if it dies, and trust me, IT WILL.

These drives are not bad, what kills them, is P2P. P2P is harder on a drive than if it were sitting on a server in a rack somewhere.

To recap, look at CompUSA and see if they have in-store specials, like the Maxtor 250gb for $99 that I bought 2 of. Back up your data to DVD, and never bitch about it dying, never, not one single time, or I will say, I TOLD YOU SO, and taunt you severely.

Also, keep it cool, and make damned sure that your power supply has plenty of juice to run the additional drives, a psu failure can take out your drive too. You may want to consider an external enclosure, heres one I am very happy with!

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-145-656&depa=0








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[policy_editor]

alot of downloading video files and deleting them ripping movies and moving large files around without scanning from time to time for errors, and not defragging will kill your harddrive......I dont like western digital all that much and I want at least 8mb cache buffer

[CompuGeek]

I've just been thru 3 of every brand. What is relevant is the most gb per $, and the warranty. The warranty will not get your data back, just let you get the same amount of space or more back thru a RMA if it dies, and trust me, IT WILL.

These drives are not bad, what kills them, is P2P. P2P is harder on a drive than if it were sitting on a server in a rack somewhere.

To recap, look at CompUSA and see if they have in-store specials, like the Maxtor 250gb for $99 that I bought 2 of. Back up your data to DVD, and never bitch about it dying, never, not one single time, or I will say, I TOLD YOU SO, and taunt you severely.

Also, keep it cool, and make damned sure that your power supply has plenty of juice to run the additional drives, a psu failure can take out your drive too. You may want to consider an external enclosure, heres one I am very happy with!
.

To summarize, all hard drives die. Brands don't matter.


Bigger cache is good - 8 or 16 MB.
Buy a hard drive with the best $/GB ratio.
The only significant difference between brands is warranty.
Seagate has a 5-Year Warranty (http://5yrwarranty.seagatestorage.com/)



:fire

[VAMPYRE BLADE]

Seagate And Western Digital Are Very Good, Seagate Having 5yrs Warranty, Western Digital 3yrs, I Would Avoid Maxtor At All Costs, A Friend Of Mine Went Threw 4 In A Year They Just Kept Dying And They Didnt Send Him New Ones They Sent Him Remanufactured

[g-smooth2k]

I'd go with Western Digital since I had no problems to report.
Hitachi seems to be another good competitor.
Samsung is good n quiet.
Seagate is an ok a brand.

[momditty]

Thanks for the opinions. We did go with the WD 320GB and it works like a dream. We did have one little problem after putting in the recovery discs but now I don't have to worry about running out of space for awhile.

[policy_editor]

how much?? link please I need 1

[bart5986]

If you lose the software that comes with the drive, how will you be able to reinstall the mbr update necessary to advance beyond the 137 gig barrier?

You don't need anything, my friend got a harddrive with nothing but the wrapping and he has 250gb.

[truelyme]

Most drives you buy today do come with the MBR already set up. This works fine till you get something like a virus or other malware in it. Then you have to remove the MBR to get rid of that malware which leaves you back with needing to update the the file once again when you get it set back up. Most new hds come with the software necessary to do so. If it doesn't that is the value of being able to d/l the update you need from the website.

[shawners]

Warranty replaces it, but not the media.. Warranty wont cover the 1000's of dollars in DVD movies and music.

[Krell]

Warranty wont cover the 1000's of dollars in DVD movies and music.


Ohohahahahaah I almost fell outta my chair with that one!

heheheheeh very funny if you think about it.


Good one!




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[sebfernando]

Whatever you do dont go for maxtor brands. They are the worst harddive manufacter ever. Use to work in a hardware shop for computers. 60% Of all returned hardrives are from Maxtor, unrelialbe and extremley nosiey.

Highly recommened IBM.

[Potato]

Warranty replaces it, but not the media.. Warranty wont cover the 1000's of dollars in DVD movies and music.


... and if you have hard copies, LEGALL PURCHASED COPIES (because otherwise, the monetary value won't really count, will it?), it should only be a pain in the ass if this media is on a failed hard drive.



As for drives, I was quite unhappy with an external Maxtor I bought this past summer. I'm sure for every drive manufacturer, there are a bunch of people that have had problems with them.

[cpugeniusmv]

A series of Google searches. Interesting, but certainly nothing to soley make a decision.

IBM hard disk failure (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=ibm+hard+disk+failure&btnG=Search) - 509,000 results
Maxtor hard disk failure (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=maxtor+hard+disk+failure&btnG=Search) - 71,900 results
Seagate hard disk failure (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=seagate+hard+disk+failure&btnG=Search) - 99,200 results
"Western Digital" hard disk failure (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22western+digital%22+hard+disk+failure&btnG=Search) - 41,700 results

[Arch Stanton]

i'll vouch for your stats from google

ibm drives (i think desktop drives are now owned/made by toshiba) suck

i had nothing but problems trying to format the son of a bitches and get them to behave reliably, i will never ever touch one again

maxtor never gave me a problem
seagates were inexpensive and very quiet
i prefer the western digital

[policy_editor]

Whatever you do dont go for maxtor brands. They are the worst harddive manufacter ever. Use to work in a hardware shop for computers. 60% Of all returned hardrives are from Maxtor, unrelialbe and extremley nosiey.

Highly recommened IBM.

Mine runs fine an 80gig generic from crap I mean comp USA and my boot up is a 20gig liquid bearing hdrive that I bought 3 years ago so far not any problems........wait smoke is coming out of my computer

No mine is ok I guess I got lucky

[Zecretagent]

Do not go with Western Digital, the old HP I had has a WD in it nothing but problems. As fo the Maxtor haters, I have one as a slave for the last 3 years without a problem. Seagate seams to be at the top of the market.

[The Hunter]

I saw a lot of older WDs that shit the bed, but the problem now seems to have been fixed. After dealing with numerous brands of drives the WD now seems to be the most reliable for the doller. My next one is going to be a Seagate if only due to the warrenty.Its just a drive folks, and most of the shit you have there is borrowed. LOL. So just back it the heck up.

[cpugeniusmv]

I think the only conclusion in this thread that can be made is that there is no conclusion.

Everyone has different experiences with different brands. Roll the dice.

[The Hunter]

Aint that the truth? The other truth is back up your files, and dont ever start to think that drive is going to last forever. Shit I have duplicate sets of my duplicate sets of my install CDs. Those are backed up on a regular basis. I keep set stored elsewhere, so if needed I can get back online, quickly and easily. Drives croak, expect it to happen. Plan for it, and have all important info at hand. Dont say if it happens, but its going to happen.

[Shareaza2005]

That would suck very much to lose all the videos, music, and software that have piled up on the hard drive over the years.

[The Hunter]

What would suck is failing to back them up, after having it pounded in your head on a daily basis. All i can say is burn baby burn.

[momditty]

I got mine at Best Buy over the weekend. Check bestbuy.com. They had them for 10% off last week.

[momditty]

Thanks guys for the concern about losing files. Everything gets defragged, ran thru antivirus, spyware and backed up on Fridays.

We learned the hard way. Shortly after we got our computer, my son thought he knew what he was doing an tried to transfer all the music files (all 7500) at once. He lost them all. Now with over 40,000,
mostly ripped from albums and our cds, we don't take any chances. They're all backed up on our 300GB external HD.

[truelyme]

Aint that the truth? The other truth is back up your files, and dont ever start to think that drive is going to last forever. Shit I have duplicate sets of my duplicate sets of my install CDs. Those are backed up on a regular basis. I keep set stored elsewhere, so if needed I can get back online, quickly and easily. Drives croak, expect it to happen. Plan for it, and have all important info at hand. Dont say if it happens, but its going to happen.

That sounds like experience talking and it is dang good advice. Things tear up. They are made to do so to get you to buy more. If it is on a hard drive and you want to keep it, you best have it backed up or those 1's and 0's aren't going to do you much good down the line. Malware is another one that causes you to lose stuff.

If you value your time, your software, or data; back it up. If you don't back it up, then you really didn't care did you?

[Afn]

We're thinking of upgrading our 160GB internal HD to a 300 or 320GB. We found a Western Digital 320GB for $220, Maxtor 300GB for $200 and a Seagate 300 for $260.
Other than price which one is best? Is there anything special we need to know about putting one that big in? Thanks.
Seagate drives now have a 5 year warranty on new drives. I think Maxtor drives are poorly constructed and should be avoided. Western Digital drives are ok, but I like the Seagate drives the best.