IBM, Seagate, or...

[Kyle]

something else? What hard drive brand has the best reputation for reliability?



And what brand would you buy?

[Inverse Icarus]

i only buy Western Digital.

i've never had any problems with them, i never HEARD of any problems with them, and their boot disk (built on Caldera Dr. Dos) makes partitioning etc a breeze.

my bud had a Maxtor that crapped out on him, and i heard that IBM had a recall or something (IIRC).

i'm sure the real techies will show their faces soon

i HATE hardware

[Urban Ranger]

IBM sold their HDD division.

It pretty much doesn't matter these days. Seagate used to have a reputation of being unreliable. However, since the old high-ended makers (Cheetah, Micropolis, etc.) are all gone, you don't have much of a choice.

Just check out things like MTBF (mean time between failure), tranfer rate, seek time, buffer size, etc.

[Ned]

Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma." This should translate into qualtiy.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
IBM sold their HDD division.

It pretty much doesn't matter these days. Seagate used to have a reputation of being unreliable. However, since the old high-ended makers (Cheetah, Micropolis, etc.) are all gone, you don't have much of a choice.

Just check out things like MTBF (mean time between failure), tranfer rate, seek time, buffer size, etc.

UR, Cheetah is a Seagate disk drive.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma." This should translate into qualtiy.

Not necessarily. It depends on how they set their standards. You can achieive sigma by either improving quality, or dropping standards

[Ned]

UR, I don't think that is how Six Sigma works. It is a program that origninated with Motorola, I believe, that teaches the use of statitistical methods for controlling processes. The design part is where the design is intended to achieve robustness - six sigma, not the traditional three sigma.

Perhaps others more familiar with Six Sigma could fill us in on the methodology.

[Wraith]

--"And what brand would you buy?"

What are you after, and how much can you spend? ATA, SATA, or SCSI? Is heat a problem (ie. are you already overclocking)?

Personally, I'd probably go with the latest Seagate Barracuda drive, just because they're pretty quiet. Not the top of the performance charts, but I don't do anything that requires the kind of disk I/O that would make me notice the difference.

--"Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma.""

On which drives? Their consumer and enterprise lines will not be the same. I'd expect them to do this for their SCSI line, but doubt they do it on their IDE line right now (seeing as how they've dropped the warranty coverage to 1 year like basically all of the drive manufacturers have).

Wraith
It said, "Insert disk #3," but only two will fit!

[Urban Ranger]

I am familar with 6 Sigma, after just completing a course of Quality Planning for my MBA degree.

It is a goal for statistical process controls in place. But SPC's are just tools that compare what you are making and what you should be making. In other words, if you make the goal bigger, it's easier to kick the ball in.

[Q Classic]

Seagate and Western Digital are among the best.

I haven't had any bad experiences with Samsung hard drives, and they tend to be extremely quiet.

I shun Maxtor.

but: check out anandtech.com, they tend to have good reviews for this stuff.

[Promethus]

IBM drives SUCK. Don't ask me how I know this.

[Urban Ranger]

Not better or worse than other brands, in my experience.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Wraith
--"And what brand would you buy?"

What are you after, and how much can you spend? ATA, SATA, or SCSI? Is heat a problem (ie. are you already overclocking)?

Personally, I'd probably go with the latest Seagate Barracuda drive, just because they're pretty quiet. Not the top of the performance charts, but I don't do anything that requires the kind of disk I/O that would make me notice the difference.

--"Well, Seagate uses "Design for Six Sigma.""

On which drives? Their consumer and enterprise lines will not be the same. I'd expect them to do this for their SCSI line, but doubt they do it on their IDE line right now (seeing as how they've dropped the warranty coverage to 1 year like basically all of the drive manufacturers have).

Wraith
It said, "Insert disk #3," but only two will fit!

Wraith, Design for Six Sigma is required for all design centers. Six Sigma itself is required for every director and above.

All I suggest is that this has to translate into higher quality than one would normally achieve. Whether it is higher than other drive company's products depends on their own design and manufacturing quality requirements.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Promethus
IBM drives SUCK. Don't ask me how I know this.

I agree, they are freaking HORRIBLE. We've had them die all over the place.

Go with the Seagate.

[Urban Ranger]

I wouldn't recommend Seagate... bad memories

If you can, go with Serial ATA.