Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Hard drive RPMs and data speed.

[Volker Armin Hemmann <volkerarmin@googlemail.com>]

Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 16:00:09 schrieb Michael Mol:
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
> 
> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 15:17:45 schrieb Michael Mol:
> >> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
> >> 
> >> <volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> >> > Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 13:51:47 schrieb Michael Mol:
> >> >> Just don't buy a SAMSUNG drive. I know, I know, everyone has
> >> >> their pet "Don't Buy Hard Drives Made By $x" experience.
> >> >> 
> >> >> Here's mine.
> >> >> 
> >> >> I bought a 1TB SAMSUNG drive for cheap from Newegg at a Black
> >> >> Friday
> >> >> sale a couple years ago. It failed on me. Around the same time,
> >> >> I
> >> >> identified some flaws in the firmware which I considered
> >> >> severe[2].
> >> > 
> >> >  Model=SAMSUNG MMCRE64G5MXP-0VB, FwRev=VBM1901Q,
> >> > SerialNo=S0FDNEAZ600013 Model=SAMSUNG HD502IJ, FwRev=1AA01109,
> >> > SerialNo=S13TJDWQ346413 Model=SAMSUNG HD753LJ, FwRev=1AA01113,
> >> > SerialNo=S13UJ1CQB07158 Model=SAMSUNG HD502HJ, FwRev=1AJ100E5,
> >> > SerialNo=S20BJDWS913888 Model=SAMSUNG HD103SJ, FwRev=1AJ10001,
> >> > SerialNo=S246JD1Z910209 Model=SAMSUNG HD103SJ, FwRev=1AJ100E5,
> >> > SerialNo=S246JDWSA20722
> >> > 
> >> > Oh, yeah it was THAT 2tb drive with the smart bug.
> >> > 
> >> > Which was solved with an easy to do firmware update.
> >> 
> >> I checked at the time. There was no firmware update, and, to my
> >> knowledge, there never was for the drive model that failed on me.
> >> Shortly after my second drive failed, Newegg discontinued selling
> >> model. (The most I remember about the model number can be expressed as
> >> a regex: HD10.*UI. I don't remember the firmware revision.
> >> 
> >> It was the combination of historical problems, personal incidental
> >> experience and terrible customer service that led me to swear off
> >> SAMSUNG drives. Take away any one of those issues from my experiences
> >> at the time, and I'd consider buying another drive from them.
> >> 
> >> You've got six working drives of various sizes, models and firmware
> >> revisions. Good for you. I've got a still-functional 40GB IBM
> >> DeathStar. (It's not powered up right now, but it never failed on me
> >> after five years of use.)
> > 
> > and I had 5 death stars failing on me.
> 
> My point is that the numbers aren't what mattered here. My point is
> that SAMSUNG sold me a shoddy product, replaced it with another
> instance of the the same shoddy product, wouldn't replace it again,
> and never addressed a detailed technical report of a systemic problem
> in the same. Bad tech, bad customer service, and it looked like this
> was a more common scenario than among other manufacturers. All of it
> boiled down to a nasty case of being a bad candidate for spending time
> and money.

Samsung replaced my two drives (one 500gb drive from a known shady series and 
the SSD when the firmware overwrote itself) without any fuss.

Of course, I included the results of their check tool. No problem.

> 
> Did IBM refuse to replace your failing drives? 

no, but 5 out of 5 died and took tons of valuable data with them.

That is the worst case scenario. All other harddrives had no problems at all. 
Different mobos, PSUs - nothing changed the fact that all death stars I ever 
owned died violently - except the last one, because I sold the computer it was 
built in in time.

> Did you include
> detailed technical information that should have allowed them to
> resolve issues leading to those drives' failures? For me, SAMSUNG's
> behavior in the customer service department indicated that I wasn't
> likely to get good service in the future, and the rapidly-failing
> drives (combined with my analysis of the SMART output and the history
> of SMART problems with SAMSUNG drives) indicated to me that I'd need
> to use that customer service department in the future if I bought more
> of their drives.

there was one smart related problem with Samsung in the last year. With their 
2tb drives. Samsung released a firmware patch after they were informed of the 
problem.

Apart from that Samsung drives just work for me - and the people around me.

I also had no problems with drives getting replaced - but the replacing was 
always the problem of my trusted hardware dealer. That is why you buy hdds 
from a trusted, local guy. The rest was the problem of Samsung. They can't 
wiggle out of Germany's warranty laws ;)

> 
> So you've got six working drives, and a drive that works now that you
> patched the firmware. Congrats on choosing a model for which a
> firmware patch was made available (unless that was just luck...).
> Also, good luck if you have a failing drive that was sent to you by
> RMA. It's been a few years; if you're lucky, they may have cleaned up
> their act.

In fact there were two: a 500gb from a known series, and the SSD. Both got 
replaced because both failed in the warranty period. They had no chance but 
had to replace them. It went quickly and without any fuss. I did run their 
check tool and reported the results. No more questions asked. Here is the old 
one, thanks for the new one.

Western Digital - two drives. They worked. They were lousy, noisy, lame, hot, 
but worked.

Seagate: now 3 drives, 1 had to be replaced. It was pretty much dead on 
arrival, with a severe spindle defect. All three worked just fine until I 
replaced them

Toshiba&co have to check my Dell Poweredge what drives are in there...

IBM all death stars I ever owned failed except the last one - which was given 
away (and failed with its new owner). Which is the worst possible outcome. No 
customer support can outweight such a disaster.


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