Maxtor SUCKS!

[LoneWolf]

When it comes to HDD, it could only be SG. It used to be Quantum for me long time ago. When Maxtor took over Quantum, I switched to SG and never looked back. Didn't think Maxtor was bad, but at that time I had mostly worked with Quantum and Seagate. WD has the highest percentage of failures in my experience (Anybody remember that HP, Compaq and few other vendors had to change WD PC HDDs in batches years ago?) . Additionally, all of you guys who come from Wintel or other server backgrounds would know that server manufacturers always go for Seagate.

Cheers.

Experiences from "years ago" do not always translate down the line to current performance/reliability. By the way, I do remember Compaq having this problem with Quantum, but not WD (most of the problem at that time stemmed from those horrible Bigfoot drives, which were just as vulnerable to shock as they were to head or motor failure, all stemming from those massive 5.25" platters they used).

I'll easily say I've had a better record with Western Digital drives than any other manufacturer. They're not whisper-quiet (though far quieter than Maxtor at least until Maxtor went with fluid bearings) their performances is good though perhaps not top-end (apart from the Raptor drives), and they're reasonable price. Samsung has been horrible in my experience, Seagate's been average to slightly below, and Maxtor has been middle-of-the-pack. The only poor experience I've seen with Western Dig. is their early "Expert" 7200rpm drives which were IBM designs, and were only available for about a year. WD designed their own 7200rpm Expert and Caviar drives, taking care of the issues.

Server drives are enterprise, and in NO WAY do they represent what you buy for a consumer desktop. After all, Fujitsu is a common and decent server HDD choice; doesn't mean I'd buy their desktop drives. Enterprise drives generally have a five-year warranty and the company's reputation as a business rides on them, leading to much higher quality control standards than on desktop drives. This isn't a valid comparison.

[aviationwiz]

I think I might turn into a convert. Just had a 1.5 (roughly) year old Maxtor 120GB SATA die on me, out of warrenty.

I'll be looking at a Seagate or WD next time around.

[smartin4]

Update: Out of 33 new Dell comps., to date I have had 25 different comps fails hds, in addition, I have had 3 machines fail 2 drives ea. The original drives were all Maxtor 40GB, most replacements have been WD, though I have had 2 Seagates. This is taken from an email that was sent to us by someone at Dell (we finally made enough noise that someone listened):


Dell recently discovered that there may be a performance issue with the hard drive on your system(s).



We have found that in some customer environments, certain hard drives used in Optiplex systems that shipped between October 2002 and February of 2003, or possibly in some cases April of 2003 to February 2004, may fail. Dell is continuing to investigate possible causes and is also investigating how different usage patterns may contribute to this performance issue. At this time, however, we do plan to proactively replace these drives on your systems. (Meaning that in that time frame, they had only March of '03 with no problems)



Replacing the hard drive now, at a conveniently scheduled time of your choosing, will allow your system to be maintained at the highest level of reliability. Dell does not recommend that you forego service on your affected system. The proactive approach we’re offering allows you to set the schedule. You can tell us when your systems will be available for service.



Service Options

Clinics

These are available for locations that have 10 or more affected systems. We would need a single point of contact and the tags for each location. The parts would then ship to your POC, and the tech would call the POC listed to work out the clinic details. On the scheduled clinic date(s) your POC would escort the tech(s) to each system.



End-User Scheduling

This is for locations that have 9 or less systems. For this option, we will need the individual user for each service tag. It is also helpful if you are able to send out an email alerting them that they will be receiving a call.

If you know for a fact the end-user and his/her contact information, we can place the order right away. Otherwise, we can contact him/her individually to verify the information. Once the order is placed the parts will ship to the tech who will call the end-user to schedule an appointment.

After 14 months of asking if there were any "known issues", finally someone acknowledges that there is a problem.


The rep said that they would come out & replace all the hds, even the ones we have already replaced, and that they would use Seagates to do this job. I hope someone is coming out with a copy of Ghost or something comparable, because I am not going to do backups on 33 comps due to inferior Dell products. Not to mention the fact that we cannot put that many comps down at one time due to the fact that we are in the middle of our busy season and 1/3 of these are in our shipping dept, and another 1/3 in our order management area. Definitely not a good situation.

I happen to believe that it is the fact that the small desktop case just does not offer enough airflow and these failures are more heat related than anything. I back this up by telling you all that in addition to the hd noghtmare, I just had my 5th mobo go in this same batch of machines this morning. Five mobos in the last 6 1/2 wks.

Needless to say, the way I feel about Dell right now, and to a lesser degree Maxtor:

[Shredder]

I think I might turn into a convert. Just had a 1.5 (roughly) year old Maxtor 120GB SATA die on me, out of warrenty.

I'll be looking at a Seagate or WD next time around.

I've never had any problem with any of my hard drives, mostly Maxtor and a few Seagate. If you want a long warranty service, I would get Seagate. IMO, Seagate > Maxtor > WD.

[TheWizard]

The solution to Dell: Build your own PC. It's cheaper too!