I *heart* IBM Hardware

Post #74,670 by deSitter 1/15/03 4:16:00 PM Reply	I heart IBM Hardware Two Travelstar drives, 80Gb total. Total bad sectors: Zero. -drl
Post #74,717 by tonytib 1/15/03 7:49:14 PM Reply	You heart Hitachi Global Data Storage IBM's HDD division is now part of Hitachi.
Post #74,724 by deSitter 1/15/03 8:02:07 PM Reply	Astounding, No? It's a fanstastic thing - they give up a business they could basically monopolize! I would never buy a hard disk that was not endorsed by IBM. I cannot express how good their hardware is. They set a standard and force people to live up to it out of pride, by giving away one fundamental thing after another. -drl
Post #74,727 by orion 1/15/03 8:09:52 PM Reply	I must admit I never had a hard drive with the letters IBM on it crash on me, or develop bad sectors. At least not in the normal use. My son knocking over my IBM Thinkpad 560X laptop is another matter, it developed bad sectors after that, but I cannot blame IBM for the actions of my son, the destroyer of operating systems and hard drives! :) [link\|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey\| New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
Post #74,753 by a6l6e6x 1/15/03 10:07:51 PM Reply	And have no recollection of 20 MB CMI drives used in PC-AT.. in 1984. CMI, no there's a name you don't hear anymore, :) but IBM picked them as a vendor. Disk capacity would vanish on daily basis. Alex "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."\t-- Mark Twain
Post #74,764 by orion 1/15/03 10:44:21 PM Reply	Full hearted devices, took up a whole drive bay made grinding noises like you would not believe. MFM IIRC, RLL was used later. I remember a lot of people trying to RLL a MFM drive to get more sectors per track, etc. Then the whole hard drive went south. Then "Stacker" came out before Microsoft pirated it in MS-DOS 6.0 as DoubleSpace. [link\|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey\| New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
Post #74,829 by deSitter 1/16/03 6:40:57 AM Reply	Remember that well We had a software contract with IBM at the time. We ran through 3 disks in 2 months - they had a design flaw in the head positioning mecahnism - magnetic material would be knocked off the platter by the head and accumulate on the head motion bar, occluding the optical registration marks and making it impossible to locate the head at the correct cylinder. I hardly count that against IBM. Who else was offering machines with hard disks at that time? Don't think the original Mac had one.. (BTW I thought it was Seagate - almost knocked them out of business.) -drl
Post #74,886 by inthane-chan 1/16/03 11:08:40 AM Reply	For the record. The original Mac (Mac Classic) ran off of a floppy drive + 128mb RAM. Barely. Any deity worthy of a graven image can cobble up a working universe complete with fake fossils in under a week - hey, if you're not omnipotent, there's no real point in being a god. But to start with a big ball of elementary particles and end up with the duckbill platypus without constant twiddling requires a degree of subtlety and the ability to Think Things Through: exactly the qualities I'm looking for when I'm shopping for a Supreme Being.
Post #74,905 by orion 1/16/03 12:49:06 PM Reply	The First Mac ran off of a 800K Floppy Disk and 128 Kilobytes of RAM, no hard drive, not even a SCSI (Not until the Mac Plus, IIRC). I am sure you meant to put in there 128 kb instead of mb. 128 mbs was more than hard drives of the day could store on them. :) The "Fat Mac" or Mac512K offered 512 kb of RAM, then the Mac Plus came along and changed everything with SCSI ports, 1 mb of RAM, etc. Later in 1987, the Mac SE came out (I own one) and had an internal expansion port, something the Mac really needed to be taken seriously in the corp environment. How else could they drop in a Network card? Something that Apple didn't copy from Xerox, was the built in networking, at least not until later. [link\|http://pub75.ezboard.com/bantiiwethey\| New and improved, Chicken Delvits!]
Post #74,889 by a6l6e6x 1/16/03 11:18:45 AM Reply	Slim pickings on CMI drive, but here's some: IBM\ufffds original hard drive for the AT had a 40-millisecond average seek time and held 20 megabytes. That drive, built for IBM by a company called CMI, was unreliable. IBM eventually switched to a different supplier, and CMI went bankrupt. Most clones contain reliable drives that go faster (28 milliseconds) and hold more (40 megabytes and beyond). [link\|http://www.gis.net/~poo/27ibm.html\|Link] for the above. Also, [link\|http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw/j-hist.shtml\|CMI Model 6426-S Hard Disk Drive]. This is the item that almost single-handedly ruined IBM early in the Personal Computer age. CMI was the only company at the time that could produce a drive that would meet the then almost unimaginable specifications for seek time that IBM had required for a hard drive for their new (at the time) IBM 'AT' computer. The drive was fast alright, but had a hidden flaw... The drive gained its speed by using a rotary actuator to move the heads rather than the more traditional stepper motor. This required that a 'servo' track be written on one of the disk platters to provide the information that the drive logic used to center the heads on the selected track. What quickly became apparent soon after the computer went in to production, was that the drives had a operational life of about three months! A flaw in the drive circuitry gradually erased the servo track, causing the drive to be unable to position the heads accurately which either began to corrupt data, or one day the drive would just refuse to function. Frantic (and very expensive) efforts were made to do 'damage control' on the situation, and IBM replaced thousands of these drives only to see the replacements start to fail as well. This whole fiasco severly damaged the reputation of both IBM and the 'AT' computer, and it was some time before either fully recovered. Nearly all of the CMI drives were eventually recalled and replaced, (with drives from a different manufacturer and somewhat relaxed specifications) and the entire lot of drives were eventually thrown on a barge and dumped in the ocean off of the Florida coast in order to create a foundation for a new submerged reef. To their credit, IBM did try to fix the problem. Alex "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."\t-- Mark Twain
Post #74,945 by deSitter 1/16/03 5:17:33 PM Reply	Re: Slim pickings on CMI drive, but here's some: Wow, that's new to me. This is a completely different issue than the one with the Seagate drives. In fact I'm sure I've never heard of CMI (not the same as CMS, a third party supplier of PS/2 SCSI hardware). Our ATs were delivered in early 1985 - when did the very first IBM AT ship? We used our AT as a network server way back then - a real, original IBM NETBIOS network. -drl
Post #75,004 by a6l6e6x 1/16/03 9:52:06 PM Reply	First ATs were shipped in 1984. So you may... have been lucky. Working for IBM, I had a pre-release version w/CMI drive. Alex "No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."\t-- Mark Twain
Post #75,017 by deSitter 1/16/03 11:08:45 PM Reply	You could hear.. ..the gentle whirring of the stepper motor as it moved the head around. It was certainly a Seagate drive. Funny, I can almost imagine the layout of the AT mobo, not having seen it in 17 years. -drl
Post #74,728 by admin 1/15/03 8:10:02 PM Reply	Re: I heart IBM Hardware IBM hard drives are pretty much despised on the hardware sites I've been reading... Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #74,734 by deSitter 1/15/03 8:25:46 PM Reply	Can't possibly be based in reality I can't count the number of IBM drives that have passed through my hands. Except for one I dropped, they've all been more or less flawless. So what are they bitching about? They only come in black? In a way, every drive is an IBM drive. They pioneered magentoresistive heads. -drl
Post #74,744 by admin 1/15/03 9:06:50 PM Reply	Guess you never had a 75GXP Which are notorious for failures... they were hit with a class action suit over them, and the 75 series was likely the cause of the HD division's sale to Hitachi. [link\|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5871\|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5871] - Hungarian plant closed due to 75 series quality control. [link\|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=2789\|http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=2789] - 120GXP drives should only be on 8 hours per day [link\|http://www.storagereview.com/map/lm.cgi/survey_login\|http://www.storagere....cgi/survey_login] - reliability database. The IBM drives that they have collected enough results on so far have percentile scores of 63, 22, 14, 8, and 4. (percentile score meaning the drive has a better reliability reported than eg. 63% of the other drives in the survey) Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #74,745 by deSitter 1/15/03 9:15:59 PM Reply	Wow - one got through Eventually of course GMR will be the standard. One reason IBM has a good reputation for hardware is conservative design. Looks like this one didn't follow that pattern. Nevertheless, I now admit IBM has made at least one bad family of drives. -drl
Post #74,746 by admin 1/15/03 9:17:24 PM Reply	Actually it was two. The 60GXPs were bad as well, just not AS bad. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #74,934 by tonytib 1/16/03 4:02:15 PM Reply	Actually, IIRC the problem was glass platters not GMR heads. Glass is used is most (all?) laptop drives, but IIRC 60GXP & 75GXP were earlier adopters of glass for desktop drives. Tony
Post #74,943 by deSitter 1/16/03 5:12:26 PM Reply	Re: Actually, IIRC the problem was glass platters Interesting - of course glass is a strange solid - more like a liquid really. Probably a basic materials oops during design. -drl
Post #74,747 by Another Scott 1/15/03 9:19:25 PM Reply	I've got a 60 GB 75GXP at work. The first time I defragged it it made a horrible clanking noise and I was sure it was going to die in the next few minutes. I posted [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=15789\|here] about it (I still haven't installed the Seagate replacement.). But that was well over a year ago now.... It's been fine and subsequent defrags have been quiet and uneventful. I keep an eye on its S.M.A.R.T. parameters with [link\|http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php\|SpeedFan] and so far it looks fine. But the 8 hours on-time and so forth do cause me to worry about the reliability of drives these days. Cheers, Scott.
Post #74,748 by deSitter 1/15/03 9:27:59 PM Reply	About 8 hours.. I'd be amazed if this advice wasn't given in lieu of having an immediate warranty replacement available. I just can't believe IBM told its customers - "Sorry, the MTBF of your drive has gone from 20000 hours to 8. Thank you for choosing IBM!" -drl
Post #75,496 by dmarker 1/19/03 10:19:05 AM Reply	My experience with Seagate & IBM 3.5 in drives is that ... I stopped buying Seagate after cooking a 30GB one, same amachine had a 60GB IBM. Today I won't buy any other brand. Also applies to 2.5 - I have a Fujitsu & it is ok but IBM ones are my preferred. On my current servers at home I have 8 IBM drives & 2 seagate plus 1 IBM SCSI 33GB. Cheers Doug
Post #75,506 by Andrew Grygus 1/19/03 11:29:46 AM Reply	You mean Hitachi, right? Seagate's first generation 3.5" drives we could barely get out the door before they failed. Since then, my experiences with Seagate have been few, but not real good. During a drive shortage a few years ago I used a bunch of Seagate SCSI drives and had 50% failures within 2 years. Something just struck me. Seagate sells a huge number of drives, supposedly dominating the market. I see the insides of a lot of PCs, brand name and unbranded. I rarely see a Seagate drive. Where are they all going? My best low failure experience was with Fujitsu, up until they exited the low end drive business. Soon after that, the batch of 20-Gig IDEs with chips with bad heat transfer compound started dropping like flies. I've got 6 of them right here waiting for RMA action. I've had normal failure rates with Maxtor and IBM (now Hitachi) drives. I don't use Western Digital at all because they are a maintenance hassle. WDs are jumpered differently for Single and Master, so every time you change a PC's configuration you have to remember to pull out the drive and change the jumpering. I just don't need that. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #75,511 by pwhysall 1/19/03 12:07:14 PM Reply	I see a lot of PCs and a lot of disks. As you know. Worst disks? Maxtor. No question. I RMA more of these than any other. Next up, IBM DeskStar drives, and Fujitsu. I don't care how good Fujitsu drives are - their stupid warranty arrangement (which makes it extremely difficult to RMA a drive) means that I hate them. Seagate and WD are on a par for reliability, and also oddly enough for having the most straightforward RMA procedure. For SCSI disks, I'm currently seeing low failure rates on Quantum Atlas and Seagate Cheetah disks. The IBM SCSI disks are just as crap as their IDE ones. Interestingly enough, a lot of the big disk manufacturers are, at least for IDE drives, dropping their warranty periods to 1 year. WD aren't doing this. I guess I'm buying WD at home next time. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Blog]
Post #75,522 by Andrew Grygus 1/19/03 1:54:08 PM Reply	Fujitsu RMA problem. I hear that was a European situation. I had no RMA problems at all with them here in the U.S. under their "no questions warranty". As for Western Digital warranty, take it from them: Western Digital has adopted a new warranty policy effective October 1, 2002. Western Digital WD Caviar Special Edition hard drives are covered under warranty for a three-year period. All other Western Digital products will be covered under a standard warranty for a period of one year. Products purchased before October 1, 2002 are covered under the product's original warranty, unless otherwise noted on the retail packaging. Maxtor created the three year warranty, and they were the first to bite the bullet and rescind it. Everyone else followed in both cases. Certain distributors in certain countries are "enhancing" the one year warranty, but it's the distributor's warranty, not the drive maker's. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #75,520 by deSitter 1/19/03 1:32:39 PM Reply	Re: You mean Hitachi, right? Good point about the Seagates - I haven't seen one in recent memory, and I sure am not buying them. As you know, I love those old Fujitsu "Afrika Korps" 1-2gig SCSI drives - as long as you remembered to turn on write caching! A machine with several of those (Netware 3.12 server) weighed a fucking ton. Imagine an IBM PS/2 Model 95 server with six of them - what a beast. It weighed at least 50 pounds - like picking up a sack of concrete - a mini mainframe. -drl
Post #75,599 by dmarker 1/19/03 11:26:58 PM Reply	Re: You mean Hitachi, right? - No!! Fujitsu 2.5 in drive I think you guys having trouble with IBM drives must be getting them from a different plant to mine. The stories I am hearig hear just don't gibe with HK experience - IBM 3.5 are king & same for 2.5. RE the title --- we can buy Fujitsu branded 2.5 in disks here !!! I prefer IBM TravelStar but the fuje are ok as well. Cheers Doug
Post #75,600 by bepatient 1/19/03 11:38:25 PM Reply	fujitsu has better shock rating... ...thats why they get used in the portable mp3 players over the bimmers You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #76,923 by broomberg 1/25/03 12:46:29 PM Reply	Seagate == Enterprise I seem to recall they got out of the low end business a while ago. I have lots of them in the 72GB fibrechannel and above range.
Post #76,967 by tonytib 1/25/03 7:49:59 PM Reply	No, they still make low end drives But I suspect that the profit margins are higher in the ESG. And they do have a history of innovation in SCSI drives, such as the first 10K and 15K drives. Tony

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