Thoughts on the IBM 13G Deskstar? 44
darkangel asks: "My hdd finally died today. I'd been having all sorts of trouble with it for quite some time. It was a Seagate 4.3 gig EIDE. So I'm going to get a new one, hopefully one that is more reliable. My first choice is a 13gig IBM Deskstar. Does anyone have one of these? How reliable are they? Any comments would really be appreciated. Please email me! "
Re:HDD makiers (Score:1)
Quantum stuff varies in quality from the unusable (e.g. Bigfoot) through the decent (e.g. fireball; I have several at home) to the "I could never afford that". ;)
I've heard very good things about IBM, though.
--
Why not go for a 27 gig Maxtor cheap (Score:2)
Mirroring is *not* backup (Score:1)
backup means a copy offsite and safe. Mirroring is very nice but not a good idea for a backup strategy.
Re:Mirroring is *not* backup (Score:1)
you're missing the point. With that much storage, it's easy to accumulate a LOT of data that's important/hard to get.
My experience... (Score:2)
They're all pretty decent for a desktop drive. Personally I reccommend Seagate for SCSI (got a pair of their 10000 RPM drives in RAID1 and they scream) or WD.
I've had a few WD's die on me (probably past their MTBF) but WD has been nothing but the best in customer service. One died on me a day after warranty and they extended the warranty on a dead drive 2 weeks so I could get it shipped to them for replacement. In my home computer I've got 3 WDs now and an HP writer. Kinda full there
One thing I've noticed about the recent trend in HUGE CHEAP drives... Where's the backup strategy? Some friends of mine recently bought the 27G (I think) Maxtors... 27G is nice, don't get me wrong, but the home user isn't exactly the type of user to buy a backup strategy capable of handling that much data... when it *does* go south, they're gonna be plenty pissed.
I hope you haven't forgotten a backup strategy.
Andrew
Fujitsu (Score:1)
A couple of weeks ago I went and bought a 17G with ide for $170 for the sole purpose of storing mp3s. After 275 tracks of cdparanoia and lame it is 9% full...
Offtopic: Recommendations for external SCSI? (Score:1)
Is there any specific reason to go for external SCSI? I'm more interested in minimizing seek times than I am in huge storage, so I'm currently leaning to the IBM Deskstar 9LX, but I've seen cool things like the PocketHammer which might give an edge.
Another question: my IDE controller is unhappy (Score:1)
hda: status timeout: status=0x80 { Busy }
hda: drive not ready for command
ide0: reset: success
Eventually the time spent "not ready" gets to be minutes at a time and the system becomes useless; also I hear some extreme seek noises like it's bumping its heads against the case or something. But I don't know if IDE drives can actually do that if they're given out-of-range sector commands or whatever. The drive is not overheating; the case has a serious fan blowing air right on it and the drive is only a tiny bit warmer than room temperature. Anyway after a few days of this abuse (over several weeks - I had the system powered off a lot due to not being able to solve this problem) the Seagate died; the BIOS wouldn't detect it anymore on boot. Since it was nearly new I returned it and got an IBM 20 gig drive instead. But I'm getting the same errors and noises. I have tried a 2.0.36 kernel, 2.2.13, and 2.3.24 (or was it 34? the latest as of a couple weeks ago anyway). The 2.3 series kernel actually detected the controller properly; the others said it was an unknown controller or something like that but it worked about the same regardless of which kernel. I'm afraid to keep trying to use it because I think the problem caused some kind of physical damage to the Seagate drive.
Any clues?
stick with IBM or WD (Score:1)
You want reliability? (Score:1)
Re:HDD makers (Score:1)
Seagates that I've owned have never impressed me, IDE and MFM, no SCSI yet. I've avoided 'em since my 545Mb IDE started squealing 5 days after I got it.
Maxtor drives have always worked well for me, I prefer them when I can get 'em. I've got a pair of 120Mb IDE's that have been running 8 hours a day on average since I got 'em, never had the first problem with 'em.
my personal experience.... (Score:1)
the only drive make i've personally had problems with is western digital. i had a 2.1 GB drive from them that was flaky from day 1 and several friends and coworkers have had WD drives go south on them. even recently they had a bad batch of drives that had to be recalled.
every drive maker has a non-zero failure rate, though, so it's a matter of how low it is and how well they'll treat you if something goes wrong. in my experience and from what i've read elsewhere, IBM is as good or better than anyone else in both regards.
tim
Re:HDD makiers (Score:1)
I bought myself a 13gb Fireball KA recently though, and I love it. I'm only running it on an ATA33 controller, but it's pushing 20mb/sec on writes in bonnie. hdparm -t gives similar results. It made a BIG performance improvement over my old 5400RPM Seagate. I don't notice it swapping now. Definitely recommended from this corner.
Re:My experience... (Score:1)
to be fair these were very cheap CDRs for their time, (at 7.50 each back in the day) and they spent any time out of the drive in a verticle rack on my desk (lit by a halogen overhead lamp).
Re:IBM Deskstars rule! (Score:1)
as for WD, they buy platters from IBM (at least for "enterprise storage") infact they just built a plant here in Rochester a block away from IBM's platter manufacturing facility.
The deskstars are just incredible... but seem to me to be a bit hard to get ahold of... and expensive when you can. I would have prefered them to the Barracudas I put in my last machine, but I couldn't get any.
Re:I would recommend Maxtor.... (Score:1)
I recently had my computer overheat (closed up office on a summer day combined with dual 350's and not the greatest internal cooling). I had two hard drives in it at the time: a 3GB IBM that came with my computer's father (I did a brain upgrade) and a 7GB Maxtor. The maxtor had the better cooling of the two and the IBM was sandwiched between a cdr and a tape drive in a 3.25 bay. After rebooting from the crash the IBM was still kicking and good to go. The maxtor was fried (all it did was make a rather pathetic whining noise). Needless to say when I went out and bought a new HD I got an IBM (13.5GB 7200rpm IDE for around $140 w/ shipping and such). If maxtors are really just re-branded IBMs now then good for maxtor for finally selling good stuff. Me I'm sticking to what I have had good experences with and that is IBM.
--chris
Re:My experience... (Score:1)
Re:Mirroring is *not* backup (Score:1)
Had okay luck in general... (Score:1)
Anyway, haven't used that drive, but I've used plenty of IBM drives, with no real problems. Been happy.
As pointed out, don't forget a backup strategy.
Re:Straight from a data recovery tech: (Score:1)
When I first heard his explanation, I didnt believe him. I thought that the inertia of the spinning drive would keep it moving fast enough to provide the lift needed for the head to get to the landing zone. Im still not convinced, but he has seen the inside of more drives than I have.
I happen to have a head assembly from a WD drive in my desk drawer. Yes the arms are metal, however they do have a bit of flex to them. I have an old 100 meg drive that I may take apart later today just to see the platters spin up with the cover open. Doubt Ill see much but it should be fun. I always take stuff apart when it breaks, and have seen the innards to some interesting electronics.
Here is a reference from storagereview.com, I think that you might be interested in their explanation:
http://www.storagereview.com/guide/guide_actuat
Here are a couple of choice bits quoted from their site:
When the platters are not spinning, the heads rest on the surface. When the platters spin up, the heads rub along the surface of the platters until sufficient speed is gained for them to "lift off" and ride on their cushion of air. When the drive is spun down, the process is repeated in reverse. In each case, for a period of time the heads make contact with the surface of the disk--while in motion, in fact.
That pretty much supports the assertion that the heads are flying over the surface of the disk. Furthermore, it counters the claim that simply touching the platter while it is in motion will rip the head off of the mounting arm.
Of course they go on to say:
...When the power is shut off, the electromagnetic force from the voice coil abates, and the spring yanks the heads to the landing zone before the platters can spin down. Other disks use a different mechanical or electronic scheme to achieve the same goal. This means that modern hard disks will automatically park their heads--even in the event of a power failure--and no utilities are required.
Read the entire article to get the overall context. Very informative.
So, it appears that power failures dont matter nearly as much as he thought they did. In the past perhaps they caused some problems, and he is still operating based on older knowledge. That doesnt surprise me because he deals mainly with older drives.
-BW
Straight from a data recovery tech: (Score:2)
1. Stay away from drives made in Turkey. He noticed that on average Turkish made drives had higher rates of failure.
2. Dont trust a drive for longer than 18 months for critical data. Sure, I still have 6 year old drives spinning merrily away. However he said that the bathtub shaped failure curve starts ramping up at that point. Supposedly all of the tech at the shop swap out their old drives every 18 months.
3. Get SCSI if you can afford it. The construction tends to be a bit better on the higher end drives.
4. Use a UPS. Apparently sudden power failures can cause the head to tap the platters because they lose the lift provided by the rapidly rotating surface. Not good for the tapped sector, and can lead to catastrophe.
In terms of brands, he said that IBM was making some pretty nice drives. On the other hand, he has seen so many failures from every brand on the market that he believes that all hardware sucks. I guess its like determining which flavor of Windows is the best. After you work on each of them for a while, NT seems better than the others but it still annoys the hell out of you.
Personally, I like IBM drives and would go for it. Ive done tech support for hundreds of boxen and havent had too many problems with IBM drives. Of course YMMV.
-BW
OEM view of IBM drive reliability (Score:2)
Laptop drive reliability is a big deal, and by far the most expensive problem to deal with in the field. The opinion of Dell's engineers on this topic was that IBM is in a class by themselves. (This would be the TravelStar 2.5" series rather than the more ordinary destop DeskStar 3.5" drives.)
The peripherals team spent a lot of effort to qualify even one vendor (Fujitsu) that was able to get their drive durability and reliability up in the same neighborhood as IBM's. Even then, the opinion of those doing the testing was that although the Fujitsus (after having them make many modifications) were acceptable, they still were'nt as good as the IBMs.
This datapoint is about a year and a half old now, but many of the technologies are the same in both series of drives, and in fact, we may one day see new technology in laptop drives first because that market is less cost-sensitive.
(FWIW, although hard disks died routinely in laptops a few years ago, the disk is now one of the most rugged components of the machine, sometimes able to take more abuse (G's) than the screen or PWB. Operating G's are higher now than non-operating G's were a few years ago.)
check out... (Score:2)
As for my personal experiences, my IBM 10.1 GB hard drive was dying and experience random shutdowns. I was able to pull my data off and restore from backups. IBM tech support was really helpful and I got a replacement within two weeks (it's a 14.4 GB) *grin*
_______________________________________________
There is no statute of limitation on stupidity.
Re:IBM Deskstars rule! (Score:1)
Re:IBM Deskstars rule! (off topic) (Score:1)
Re:Fujitsu (Score:1)
I would recommend Maxtor.... (Score:1)
IBM == MAXTOR (Score:1)
Re:Straight from a data recovery tech: (Score:1)
Your tech told you that? What kind of crack does he smoke? AFAIK, (from opening my dead seagateS) a head is mounted on a long metal arm. it's not getting lift from shit. Now in a zip disk this makes sense because as the speed drops the disk gets floppy, and this is why they tell you not to turn the machine off with a disk in a zip drive.
but i'd talk to your tech buddy again on point #4. Not that UPSs are bad, but still, if a head tapped the platter, that'd be a PHYSICAL CRASH, and most likely the head would get ripped off its mounting arm.
see my later post for my experiences with drives (many years worth)
Re:IBM Deskstars rule! (Score:1)
OK, my experiences...
Re:Conventional Wisdom (Score:1)
Well... I suppose I mostly agree with that.
Here're my experiences:
Western Digital
Maxtor
Seagate
Quantum
IBM
Others
what the.... (Score:1)
No wait, now that im a little saner I realise its not as it seems
Well...its still a pretty similar setup! It freaked me out at first...I thought it was a sign
I bet itll be less than a couple of years before Im like, shit me where did 13gigs go? Because right now I can assure you that when I got my 4gig I was like, aaaaah this will never run out! EVER!! And then it was as if it magically filled up with nothing....and that nothing came back afetr formatting too
I have to say Im very happy with my new IBM 14 gig baby...I clocked her at over 15 seconds to spin down after power off. ooooohhh baby you gotta love that sound!
IBM should be alright (Score:1)
On the office front, I've had a Maxtor IDE drive that began making funny noises after a while, though it never died. I had a Seagate IDE drive that ended up dying, due to "electrical failure", according to the hard drive recovery experts. Another Seagate drive died in a laptop, making bizarre grinding noises. And of course, we've probably all got a story of a Quantum drive going belly up.
Talking to other techs, I've heard mostly more bad reports about Quantum.
I got a Maxtor UDMA/66 17 GB drive (oddly, they were selling their 13GB drive for *exactly* the same price) for my home computer. While it works, my BIOS was apparently outdated, and the only way I could get the BIOS to recognize drives greater than 13 GB or so was to use Maxtor's MaxBlast utility. This actually caused me no end to headaches when I tried to install linux -- fdisk was quite unhappy trying to parse Maxtor's custom partition tables, and messed them all up.
Finally, my most recent drive was a 13GB IBM, and it has served me well (so far, knock on wood). With my Maxtor 17 gigger, that's a whopping 30 gigs of hard drive space. I can't imagine needing that much for my home computer.
- Rodionpunk
IBM Deskstars rule! (Score:1)
Since then I've recommended IBM Deskstars to everyone buying components. I've never had any problems and they are very fast drives. Also, I get them from www.tjt.com. They have very low prices and shipping and the people there are smart and friendly.
HDD makiers (Score:1)
Just my $((sqrt(9)-1)(1/100))
Mark "Erus" Duell
I'm Pleased with my IBM Drive (Score:1)
Re:Had okay luck in general... (Score:1)
Re:My experience... (Score:1)
As a home user, I have found incremental backups to CD-R to be very cheap and effective. Plus, CD-Rs stick around forever, so they're good for archival purposes too. I may not be the "average" home user, but backup onto CD-R is a viable option for most home users. On a side note, I have found Maxtor's DiamondMax HD's to be excellent, cheap storage solutions. I have a pair of 20.0 GB DiamondMaxen in a striped RAID array, and they absolutely fly. Not as good as the very best SCSI options, but the very best SCSI options are an order of magnitude more expensive.
Re:Mirroring is *not* backup (Score:1)
Regarding mirroring, it is true that now that prices are low, it make sense. However, real tape back-up should never be neglected. I have a Seagate Hornet 20Gb to do **daily** incremental back-up. I always been a fan of Travan tape. They are cheap and reliable, I've been using them since 1993 and they saved my life quite often (Ever had a bad sector exactly where your Ph.D. thesis is?). Unfortunatelly, they're also quite noisy but I do back-up at night so nobody is annoyed by the noise. For my critical files I also do regular back-up on CD. That way I can sleep at night without worrying about the safety of my data.
Just my 2 cents...
Charles