You mean Hitachi, right?

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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