Well, personally I've banned Seagate SCSI drives.

Post #15,807 by Andrew Grygus 10/30/01 9:15:44 PM Reply	Well, personally I've banned Seagate SCSI drives. A few years back I was using them on behalf of a software VAR that speced them. The computers they built, plus the ones I built, had a 50% hard disk failure rate within two years. Fortunately many of them had RAID. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #15,831 by Meerkat 10/31/01 12:32:43 AM Reply	I've had trouble with Seagate IDE, too Nearly lost a sizeable chunk of important stuff (Mp3s, so very important!) due to a 20gig Seagate drive that starting getting upset within its first six month of life. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #15,834 by Andrew Grygus 10/31/01 12:38:58 AM Reply	To long ago to be relevent now . . . . but the early 3-1/2" Seagate drives (40-Meg, I think) were so bad we could bearely get computers out the door before they failed. Left a bad taste for Seagate, but every some years, when there's a hard disk shortage, I try Seagate again - always, it seems, to my regret. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #15,837 by tonytib 10/31/01 1:16:23 AM Reply	Frankly, they've all had problems Right now, I'm PO'd at Quantum/Maxtor because I had two Viking SCSI drives die on me. I've also had Conner, Seagate, and Maxtor drives die in the past. My last drive was a WD because Fry's had a great deal on it and I haven't had a WD drive die, only act odd (2G WD worked great as slave, never would work as master). Of course, since I see what goes into these drives.....well, maybe I shouldn't trust ANY mechanical drive! Tony Currently writing a disk drive inspection tool manual
Post #15,850 by Andrew Grygus 10/31/01 7:45:57 AM Reply	Yes, WD drives often act odd. I remember 5 years ago, they were incompatible with OS/2. Don't know why, but OS/2 just wouldn't install and run on a WD drive (multiple examples). These days we run Fujitsu and IBM for IDE, IBM for SCSI (but none of those glass platter jobs that are the subject of this thread). Have had failures of both, but very few. Unfortunately, Fujitsu is getting out of the desktop drive market by the end of the year (retaining their server drive business). [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #15,926 by a6l6e6x 10/31/01 5:24:00 PM Reply	Too bad about Fujitsu is getting out of the drive business. I have a Fujitsu (1 GB) running over 6 years in wife's machine. Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Post #15,931 by pwhysall 10/31/01 5:40:55 PM Reply	On Fujitsu Unlike all the other drive manufacturers, they don't have a "it's fucked, send it back to us" warranty; your warranty is with whomever you purchased your drive from. This royally sucks. Especially when you have a system obtained from god knows where. Yes, I've had a knackered Fujitsu drive without any means of knowing where the drive was purchased from, ergo no warranty. Sucks. Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #15,939 by Meerkat 10/31/01 6:21:20 PM Reply	I like Fujitsu's error handling... ...in so far as I've had a 2 gig Fujitsu drive that sounds like it's about to go belly-up (the dreaded Clunk Of Impemding Death), but it's been like that for almost three years now. In a Linux box that, until recently, ran 24 hours a day. Yes, the data was regularly backed up and the box wasn't absolutely critical (web server, cache, and DHCP for the house I was living in). Who knows if the drive will work after its couple of months in storage, but I'll guess I'll find out in a couple of months :) On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #15,957 by Andrew Grygus 10/31/01 9:13:35 PM Reply	I had a 6-Gig in \\\\Rhino . . . . that wasn't shut down for several years. Then I did an upgrade or something and it was off for a day. When turned back on, it would spin up, not quite make it's RPMs and shut down. I jacked the power on and off a couple dozen times and it finally made it up and running so I could copy everything off. started it up and shut it down another 50 times or so and it was all better - no problem. Some people were warning companies that planned to shut all their computers down 31 Dec 1999 and bring them up on 2 Jan 2000 about this. Apparently drives that never stop can get sticky in the head landing zone. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #15,987 by Meerkat 10/31/01 11:26:48 PM Reply	In a similar vein... ...I reduced the incidence of the Clunk Of Impending Death by turning power management off, and leaving the drive spinning all the time. On and on and on and on, and on and on and on goes John.
Post #15,993 by tonytib 11/1/01 12:24:43 AM Reply	On some newer drives, not a problem because they aren't parking on the disk anyway...doing that wastes too much valuable data space (bragging rights?). Most people were surprised Fujitsu quit the desktop space - IBM had publicly predicated that they'd be one of the survivors, along with IBM (another company with deep pockets), Seagate, and one (maybe two) more companies. Maybe part of the answer is that Fujitsu's been hurt a lot more than IBM in the recent downturn. It actually looks like the drive industry could be having a mild upturn -- we've seen renewed interest in our products for the disk drive industry, and some salesmen from other companies have said the same thing. I'll really believe it when we get some decent sized orders. Question: what's the only industry stupider than the HDD manufacturers? Answer: the DRAM makers! Isn't selling for 50% below cost a great idea? Although it looks like Intel and AMD might come in second with their price wars, along with some of the dot bomb business models. Tony
Post #16,057 by inthane-chan 11/1/01 1:40:48 PM Reply	AMD v.s. Intel. Actually, in Intel's case, it makes perfect sense. Intel has a crappy product (AMD 1.53ghz processor, called a "Athlon XP 1800+" matches the performance of a 2ghz P4 and sells for less, because AMD can't get no respect.) but buckets of cash. AMD has a great product (see above) but not so much cash. Intel wants to kick AMD out of the market, before AMD can get a foothold in the more lucrative high-end processor market. Intel cuts prices to gouge out AMD's bottom line, and hopefully (for Intel) AMD goes tits up. Intel then responds by sitting on major new advances and slowing the release cycle to return to profitability. "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
Post #16,066 by tonytib 11/1/01 2:54:51 PM Reply	But it's also hurting Intel Look at how much their profits have dropped. Plus, they've been losing money big time getting into other (e.g. networking) markets -- and these markets will not support monopoly pricing (at least by the chip vendors such as Intel, although maybe by the end producers such as Cisco). In some ways, it could be worse for Intel. Intel's much higher stock price is based on monopoly margins -- and if they have a big loss due to the pricewar they started, it'll be interesting to see how investors react. I don't think AMD is going away -- if they run out of cash, I'd expect someone to pick them up, which could be even worse for Intel. If they can make it to next summer, when the Hammer comes out, Intel will be in real trouble. And I expect AMD will make it. BTW, the DRAM and HDD companies are using similar logic (Seagate, the largest HDD company, has been the worst offender with pricing below cost) -- it's called "last man standing". But, now HDD's are a commodity and I don't think they'll be able to get buyers out of a commodity mindset to increase margins again. (For one, they'd have to produce products with compelling differences -- but even then they'd have to market the heck out of it) Tony Who is helping AMD along by buying yet another Athlon from NewEgg -- and hopes that Sun will go on the war path with Jalapeno AND Motorola will finally figure out how to make G5's
Post #15,955 by Andrew Grygus 10/31/01 9:07:59 PM Reply	You are wrong - in the U.S. anyway. Fujitsu's warranty is "no questions asked". I've only sent a couple back in years, but they didn't bitch a bit, even when I sent back an Enterprise SCSI drive I stripped out of a client's machine 4.5 years into it's 5 year warranty. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #15,995 by pwhysall 11/1/01 12:39:59 AM Reply	Ahem. I've actually been through this process. I dunno about the USA. [link\|http://www.fujitsu-europe.com/support/disk/appnote/FELWarrantyStatement.htm\|http://www.fujitsu-...tatement.htm] Basically, if you're not the person who received the drive directly from Fujitsu, kindly bugger off. Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]
Post #16,071 by Andrew Grygus 11/1/01 3:32:14 PM Reply	Guess you guys just aren't in a "prime market" [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #16,082 by pwhysall 11/1/01 4:11:23 PM Reply	Yep, sucks. [link\|http://www.fcpa.com/product/prd_product_frame.html\|http://www.fcpa.com...t_frame.html] Bah. Peter Shill For Hire [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal]

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