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IBM DeskStar 75GXP Hard Drive Failures?
Posted by
Cliff
on Thu Oct 04, 2001 02:07 PM
from the you-might-want-to-skip-this-product dept.
from the you-might-want-to-skip-this-product dept.
Sean Kelly asks: "Like a lot of other people, I went out and bought myself a nice 60GB IBM DeskStar 75GXP (ATA100, 7200rpm) hard drive to put in my sparkling new computer. Boy was that a mistake! A few months after I got the drive, it failed with horrific grinding and clicking noises, plus random data loss. So I RMA'd the first one and got a 'SERVICEABLE USED PART' replacement from IBM, which died of the same death after another few months. Not getting the hint, I RMA'd that one. Last week, I got the refab. drive back from IBM and it has already died, in less than a week! This time I did some site searching and found many people are having problems with this drive. Sites such as The Inquirer, Hexus, Tech Report, Hardware One,
Sysopt, and even this PCWorld have dedicated articles, forums and user reviews to these failing and defective drives. From what I can understand, IBM is not publicly acknowledging that they screwed up here. How many other people out there have had their 75GXP (or 60GXP) drives fail? What size were they? What part number? What did IBM do about it? It is my opinion that IBM should do something about this, since I've seen an unnaturally high number of complaints about this drive now that I started looking for customer feedback. Also, here is a letter I sent to IBM explaining my frustration with them. It has more information in it."
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No problems here (Score:2, Interesting)
Initially a problem, but not anymore (Score:4, Insightful)
I've got to wonder if the problem isn't the drives necessarily, but bad handling... Mine were both OEM, only a static bag, no padding otherwise when I received them, so I'm wondering if shipping is doing something nasty to the drives, or if some other problem NOT related to the manufacturing is the cause. Granted, I could be dead wrong, but the second drive, (45GB models) has been absolutely perfect.
I just hope now that my drive-karma holds
Parent
"the problem isn't the drives, but bad handling" (Score:5, Informative)
"I've got to wonder if the problem isn't the drives necessarily, but bad handling..."
Bad handling is DEFINITELY an issue. Many people buy OEM bare drives that come from the manufacturer in bulk packaging. The people who package them and send them to you obviously have no computer knowledge, or thay wouldn't be working in a shipping department. (Computer knowledge means never having to say "Paper or plastic?")
Studies have been done of the acceleration (deceleration) caused by hitting a drive on a hard counter. A small bump of a metal drive on a hard counter can be 70 Gs. When you think about it, it makes sense. The drive is traveling at perhaps 1 foot per second, and then it comes to a complete stop in less than a thousandth of an inch.
The solution is to buy retail-boxed drives. Wait for a sale if the price is a problem.
The damage done by a bump is usually not evident for months until the drive fails. Apparently a drive will get a small mechanical irregularity, and then slowly chew on itself until failure.
By far the most common cause of drive failure is vibration or movement of the case while the drive is running. If you put a tower case on the floor, and the floor moves a little every time someone walks near, expect problems. If you put a case on a concrete floor, but it is often knocked during the day, expect failure. If a computer is on a table that moves a little while you are working, it may not last long. This failure mode is dependent on how much movement about the axis actually happens, of course.
Drives are built to handle a lot of Gs when they are not powered, but when they are running they are very vulnerable.
Inadequate power is also a reason for drive failure. Put a drive on its own power supply connector.
I've had good luck with considerable quantities of Western Digital drives. Good support, also. I've had bad luck with Quantum, Seagate, and Maxtor.
Whew! I didn't realize I knew much about this until I started typing.
Secrecy destroys democracy: What should be the Response to Violence? [hevanet.com]
Parent
Re:"the problem isn't the drives, but bad handling (Score:3, Informative)
Also, about Maxtor, I've had nothing but good luck with their drives (as well as WD's, as you noted too), and bad luck with Seagate drives (never tried Quantum, so I can't say one way or the other). The one thing I like about Maxtor is their RMA/return/replacement policy-- you give them a valid credit card number, they put a hold on your account for the price of the drive you're supposedly returning, and they immediatly ship out a replacement drive the next day (before you've even shipped back your defective unit). You have 30 days (I believe) to return the drive before they ding your credit card for the price of the drive.
About the concerns regarding proper handling, you're right about OEM drives, but this guy returned his drive 2 or 3 times, and you'd think the guys running tech support/RMA would have some training on how to handle the drive (if indeed that's the reason the drives are failing). Of course, it could have been any of the other (correct) causes of failure you listed (PC on floor, lots of walking; PC on concrete, tips over or is jarred alot; etc).
If someone can shed some light on the manufacturing processes of Maxtor and WD HDD's, I'd be thankful for the enlightenment though-- I'd hate to be seen as talking out of my ass.
Re:Use drive drawers that have 2 fans. (Score:3, Informative)
I do this with every new system I build - you can get nice IDE trays for like $40 with dual fans.
Both my main servers have Deskstar RAIDs [slashdot.org] and ALL are in trays with dual fans 300W PS or better. Still having troubles with them.
I'll never buy Deskstars again - but the Ultrastars have been great.
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Interesting)
Oddly enough, we keep getting the same 80GB Maxtor drive as a temp replacement from our dealer, and last time it came here it was full of Porn, DiVX, and MP3's.
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Funny)
Here are some quotes from what I found at storagereview.com:
"I bought 2 of these drives and have had 2 disc failures, hey at least they're consistent!"
"7 defective 75 gxp's out of 6 in 9 months , draw your own conclusion..."
Re:No problems here (Score:3, Funny)
7 out of a total of 6 dead?? And the conclusion I am supposed to draw is that one of them failed so badly in a giant ball of flame that it is like it died twice???     ;)
On the other hand, my 75GXP 75GB seems to be fine.
I can't get at it right now to see if it was made in Hungary or it is the suspect part number dtla307075.
Re:No problems here (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, I upgraded my main system earlier this year...replaced a 5.1GB Western Digital with a 45GB 75GXP. Since the processor also got upgraded from a 450-MHz K6-III to a 1.0-GHz Athlon (and an appropriate motherboard and memory), the power supply got beefed up from a 250W Deer to a 330W Enermax (with dual fans and the 4-pin P4 power connector, though that sits unused). I've not had even a hint of trouble from the drive (other than run out of space :-)...added a 100GB Western Digital alongside it to fix that).
Parent
Re:Initially not a problem, but not anymore... (Score:3, Informative)
Mine are pretty good (Score:4, Informative)
I've had problems with other drives before because of a power supply which was slightly too low voltage -- it seems a few drives are overly sensitive to minor voltage drops.
Oh the humanity (Score:2, Informative)
I am sorry to hear about your data loss, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
May I humbly suggest that if these data are indeed of such importance, that 4 mm DAT, CD-RW, Zip disks, or even the lowly 1.44 MB floppy are suitable backup media?
Fulminating about lost data due to the failure of a mechanical storage system, and vague threats of class-action lawsuits, are in my experience goods ways to get large manufacturing organizations to put your letter in the deep freeze for about 10 years.
sPh
Re:I am sorry to hear about your data loss, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:I am sorry to hear about your data loss, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
You are bound to lose *some* data, unless you are running raid of some sort.
Re:I am sorry to hear about your data loss, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I also can't wait to pay more for the DAT drive than I'd pay just to buy another harddrive and mirror it.
Zip drives are only a minor step up from floppies, and you'd end up spending $7500 on the zip disks alone! BTW, the Click-of-death is widly overblown IMHO. Unless you happened to get one of those defective drives or you play rugby with your zip drive the media isn't going to fail any faster than a floppy (although that's not exactly a ringing endorsement)
At least CD-R (or even CR-RW) is fairly viable, if a little harder to automate (you can't just tar the files to a device).
Parent
Re:I am sorry to hear about your data loss, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, you can. <shameless_plug> Check out cdbackup [cableone.net]. </shameless_plug> I wrote it specifically to allow for this.
Re:I am sorry to hear about your data loss, but... (Score:4, Informative)
Can you fit a 3 1/2" into a ZIP drive?
Another cause, and perhaps as likely in this particular case (it's pretty obvious pretty quick if you're using the wrong drive) is that some ZIP drives, when they fail, will chew the edges of the ZIP disk. If you try to use that disk in another ZIP drive, it will destroy the head. Add in a desperate user aiming to get data back, rinse and repeat. See some details over at Steve Gibson's grc.com.
Parent
Maxtor (Score:4, Informative)
Another victim of the "Deathstar"... (Score:5, Informative)
I guess they decided there were enough problems with the 75GXP line that they sent me a 60GXP. I haven't heard of any problems with the 60GXP line, and to boot it's much quieter than my old 75GXP -- I can't even hear it seek unless I listen very closely.
Try StorageReview.com for more information (Score:5, Informative)
Case in point, some of their readers are currently running an unofficial survey [storagereview.com].
Hit SR's search for more info (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a fixture over on storagereview.com (you can type it in, I'm not a goatse.cx person). User complaints about the GXP-series have been a literally unceasing topic of discussion since very early this year. The 75gxp is now an assumed unreliable drive - to the point that a single thread about ongoing good experiences with them only garnered a half-dozen replies (one of them mine. I have two 75GB 75gxps that continue to function in a RAID0 array).
I believe SR is now being
The 75GXP has been discontinued. If you send in your failed 75GXP today, in all likelihood, you'll get a 60GXP back. 75GB 75GXPs don't have an equivalent size in the newer 60GXP product line. I have no idea what IBM does for those - they were significantly more expensive.
Finally, IBM's DFT utility [ibm.com] for Windows and Linux, if you'd like to test out your own 60- or 75GXP. From time to time it is able to correct misbehaving drives' problems, but just as often, if you're to the point of needing to use it, you might as well call in your RMA.
Parent
Heat (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Heat bad (Score:3)
Certain lots apparently very bad (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently got to experience the latter, when I got a machine with six of these disks as a RAID. To date, FIVE of the disks have had to be replaced, thanks God that did not include the system disk...
Is It Manufactured In Hungary? (Score:4, Informative)
I myself have had a failed IBM hard drive. It was defective upon shipping, and had it replaced immediately with an advance RMA. The replacement failed on me about a month later, and I didn't qualify for an advance RMA because I already RMA'ed it once (even though the first one didn't techically fail on me, it was DOA). This was a 10GB Deskstar 14GXP (I think).
So during the excruciating one-month replacement, I bought a Maxtor drive, and now use it as my primary drive (I'm not trusting my third IBM replacement). The Maxtor's a faster drive anyway, so I'm not complaining. I'll just stay clear of IBMs for a while.
Re:Is It Manufactured In Hungary? (Score:3, Funny)
Drives too fast for the electronics? (Score:4, Interesting)
ad4s1g: hard error reading fsbn 76293856 of 26874736-26874751 (ad4s1 bn 76293856; cn 8073 tn 63 sn 37)
followed by:
ad4: DMA problem fallback to PIO mode
So far the 60GXPs that I use have had no problems (knock on wood). I've seen at least once source that suggests that the 45GB versions of this drive are the most suseptable to having this problem. I suspect there was some poor quality control on these drives and some very marginal hardware was released onto the world (bad IBM, bad!), but that's more of a feeling since I don't have much evidence to support the claim.
Re:Drives too fast for the electronics? (Score:3, Informative)
- Jul 31 08:53:53: ad4s1 bn 76293856; cn 8073 tn 63 sn 37
- Jul 31 08:53:59: ad4s1 bn 76293856; cn 8073 tn 63 sn 37 -- Fallback to PIO mode
- Jun 2 03:30:00: ad4s1 bn 76389888; cn 8083 tn 87 sn 57
- Jun 2 03:30:02: ad4s1 bn 76389904; cn 8083 tn 88 sn 10
- Jun 2 03:30:02: ad4s1 bn 76389920; cn 8083 tn 88 sn 26
- Jun 2 03:30:02: ad4s1 bn 76389920; cn 8083 tn 88 sn 26 -- Fallback to PIO mode
Unfortunatly PIO mode is unacceptable, so we always bump the drive back up to UDMA100 mode when it does that. This isn't comprehensive, but it is all of the instances we still have in the logs. Notice that the failure blocks are always near the end of the disk (I think...the math is a little weird at times with all of the funky drive/controller modes).The designer of this HDD (Score:2)
Vibrating drives good for relaxation... (Score:3, Funny)
I still have some unique and important data on it (the drive, not the chair), so I am concerned that this unorthodox use of the drive may lead to problems. I may even start doing backups.
My 20gig deskstar is fine (Score:3, Informative)
9/18/36GB 10Krpm drive recall (Score:4, Interesting)
I have about 10 of these drives, and had 1 problem (Score:4, Informative)
I use 5 75G drives (purchased in July) in a RAID5 array, and they are all running beautifully.
I use 2 60G drives in a RAID1 array (purchased in August), and both of those are fine as well.
My Windows Box (shutup!) box uses a 45G GXP (purchased in January) and it's running beautifully.
My Linux Box (ok, cheer now) uses a 45G GXP (purchased in March) also, and has no problems ('cept it gets hot, and the 1.33G Athlon fries my bacon).
So in short, when the drives first came out, it appears there were problems (and in fact PCWorld mentioned a plant in Hungary that produced faulty parts). In recent months, however, there do not appear (in my limited experience) to be of poor quality.
In fact, I would say they are exceptionally fast and quiet. I recommend them to friends (I recommend Quantum to my enemies!). And I don't have anything to do with BigBlue.
But more importantly, DRIVES FAIL! If you don't have a backup then you're none too bright. If you do have a backup, don't worry about it. IBM has a 3 year warranty on these suckers!
How unfortunate. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's irritating that IBM produced a lemon, but it's even more disappointing that they've been unresponsive to their customers. Customer service makes a world of difference, especially with commodity items like hard drives. They say that a happy customer tells five people about their experience while an unhappy customer tells twenty-five. Well, thanks to Slashdot, an unhappy customer has told thousands of potential customers to stay away from this drive. A little more responsiveness to this customer's problem would have prevented that.
In contrast, a good experience can make a loyal customer. I recently purchased a Seagate Barracuda ATA IV because of its' speed and silence. When I finally installed the drive, it started making a really irritating squealing sound. I contacted Seagate, and they quickly wrote back a helpful e-mail along with some software to fix the problem. Not only did they make me a happy customer, but they prevented me from becoming an unhappy customer and bitching to all of my friends about it. IBM would do well to take note.
Re:How unfortunate. (Score:4, Funny)
The exact threshold for this can probably be determined mathematically. IBM has clearly exceeded it. ATT certainly has... even their broadband sales people are clueless about the services they are offering.
These days, I expect aggravation, not satisfaction, from any big company. More and more of them are proving unable to answer even the simplest questions. Companies that surprise me with good service (most recently, Speakeasy) quickly earn my loyalty.
As a side rant, the bigger a company is the worse their web sites get. The biggest, most expensive sites seem to be utterly useless for anything but driving you mad, with irrelevant search results and incomplete specifications. (ATT@Home comes to mind again.)
I look forward to the day when my small company has grown up, and we can just exist without needing to really care about the quality of what we are doing. It must be a wonderful position to be in.
Parent
You're doing a couple things wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was working at IBM, I wouldn't be too concerned about your letter. You talk, but not very well. As long as you have your Swingline stapler, you're not dangerous.
You make slight, inoffensive, and -- most importantly -- ineffective threats. The world doesn't work like that. Your state has lemon laws? Exercise them! Contact your State Attorney General's office and get information or even get them working for you. Attach a copy of your correspondence with the AG.
"It seems to me that this is a scenario where a class action lawsuit..." -- I'm hearing an Andrew Dice Clay bit starting here. Put up or shut up. You think you have a legitimate case? Get your Lawyer to write to IBM. Can't afford a lawyer? You're a student. Your college has a legal aid department. Your school may even have a law department, and new lawyer grads are always looking for a way to make a name and would jump all over the chance to have this as their first big case.
No. You're an apologist, non-confrontational, don't-want-to-make-anyone-mad-here, whining loser who'll get walked all over. Don't sit there threatening to run off to Maxtor, SEND A FUCKING COPY OF YOUR MAXTOR DRIVE RECEIPT!
"Somehow right the wrongs?" Your mother still lays out your clothes each night, huh?
Some people are going to be mad at my tone. Fuck 'em. Either do things right or don't bother.
There's enough info on how to deal with big companies out there and here you are whining with an Ask Slashdot, when the story shoulda simply been "BadAss writes: The entire line of IBM 75GXP drives are defective. Avoid at all costs. I had a couple and here's how I dealt with IBM. If you have one, back up your data now and get your drive replaced."
woof.
If a mirrored drive dies in a Compaq DL360, the good drive continues the mirroring and dies as well. I know this now.
Re:You're doing a couple things wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Every support tech, customer service rep, and manager in any company you deal with will delay your service if you try to be Mr. Tough Guy.
The motto always was: "We'll help you if you help us."
Trying to act like you are king shit does absolutely nothing to further your cause. It just makes you look like an asshole...
Just talk to a support tech and say "Look, I've had this drive replaced three times. I'd like something done about it." And usually they'll do something to help you, because some of them do give a shit...
Parent
Re:You're doing a couple things wrong. (Score:3, Funny)
If he's still talking to Tech Support, he's not only wasting his time, he's showing what a mark he is. The guys in TechSupp may feel bad for him and may even go out of their way to try and help him, but that's not how things normally happen, because the TechSupp guys are too busy with the excessive workload from all the other first- and second-time callers who need help.
He's far beyond the "let's work together" stage. I'll be rational, calm and acquiescent at first, too. But he's on drive three. His data would be more secure walking through a Palestinian alley at 2am wearing a yarmulke, waving an Israeli flag and yelling that Muhammed had a thing for farm animals with cloven hooves.
It's slowly dawning on me (those Flamebait mods may have helped) that perhaps not everyone read what I wrote as intended. I thought it was pretty clear.
woof.
Disclosure ... a movie (Score:4, Funny)
Basically Demi is a cost-cutting slut in a suit.
Let's hope [this time] someone got some good sex out of all these bad hard drives...
Yes, they've been causing me grief (Score:3, Interesting)
We got two IBM 75GXPs almost a year ago and they've consistantly given us trouble. At least once a week now we get something like:
hdg: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdg: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=38535423, sector=38535360
end_request: I/O error, dev 22:01 (hdg), sector 38535360
Over and over again.
It used to be more frequent and would cause the system to completely die after a while, requiring some console-based fscking. But many months back we changed some kernel option -- forgive me as I can't recall which, though I think it was the "burst bit" or something related -- and it hasn't been completely crashing, though we still get those errors about once a week.
I've heard stories of drive completely dying, but thankfully -- knock on wood -- that hasn't happened here. Here's what our setup looks like (from dmesg):
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 6.31
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 21
VP_IDE: chipset revision 16
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd800-0xd807, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd808-0xd80f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
PDC20265: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 88
PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:11.0
PDC20265: chipset revision 2
PDC20265: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
PDC20265: (U)DMA Burst Bit ENABLED Primary PCI Mode Secondary PCI Mode.
ide2: BM-DMA at 0x8400-0x8407, BIOS settings: hde:pio, hdf:pio
ide3: BM-DMA at 0x8408-0x840f, BIOS settings: hdg:pio, hdh:pio
hde: IBM-DTLA-307030, ATA DISK drive
hdg: IBM-DTLA-307030, ATA DISK drive
ide2 at 0x9800-0x9807,0x9402 on irq 10
ide3 at 0x9000-0x9007,0x8802 on irq 10
hde: 60036480 sectors (30739 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=59560/16/63, UDMA(100)
hdg: 60036480 sectors (30739 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=59560/16/63, UDMA(100)
Re:Yes, they've been causing me grief (Score:3, Interesting)
The IBM 7200RPM drives take longer to wake up after being spun down. I seem to recall seeing similar problems under FreeBSD that turned out to be read/write operations timing out.
Is it possible that your BIOS or drive parms were set to power down the drive after some amount of inactivity? Anyone know more?
Re:Yes, they've been causing me grief (Score:3)
As seen on anandtech (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know if this works.. (Score:3, Informative)
Don't just ask who has had problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't ask a question if the results you get back won't mean much !
I too have had the problem and fixed it (Score:3, Informative)
my 75gxp 45gb (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:60GXP vs. 75GXP (Score:2)
60GXP replaces 75GXP (Score:3, Informative)
Note that the 30GB 60GXP only uses one side of one of the platters, since the 60GXP line is 20GB/platter, so in essence I got a crippled 40GB drive.