Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Good fast IDE hard drive but cheap and BIG.

[Paul Hartman <paul.hartman+gentoo@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 7:59 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> walt wrote:
>> On 09/24/2009 12:29 PM, Dale wrote:
>>
>>> USB.  There is another idea.  Ooops, out of USB plugs too.  Crap, I
>>> can't put in a drive without buying something to plug it into.  LOL  I
>>> do have USB 2.0 on here.  I have to have 2.0 for the printer but my
>>> camera has to have 1.0.  Weird I know.
>>
>> There are so many interesting posts in this thread I don't know which
>> one to reply to :o)  Just FYI, USB 3 has just been ratified, so we can
>> expect ultra-fast USB-3 drives in the (near?) future, which should be as
>> fast or faster than SATA-II.
>>
>> The point I really want to make is regarding your question about which
>> disk drive to buy.  I have drives from three different manufacturers at
>> the moment, and they are all superb and incredibly cheap -- but that low
>> cost comes at a price (does that make any sense?).
>>
>> I've had to return two drives in the last three years or so because of
>> catastrophic failure while still under warranty (amazing!).  In both
>> cases the replacement drives have been absolutely perfect for years now.
>>
>> In other words, disk manufacturers have apparently decided to abandon
>> strict quality control in favor of low price, and seem happy to replace
>> failed drives as a substitute for quality control.  It must be a
>> profitable
>> strategy because they all seem to be doing it.  But be prepared for drive
>> failures from *every* manufacturer -- and then buy whatever is on sale
>> for
>> the lowest price.
>>
>>
>>
>
> One thing I have noticed about hard drives in my experience.  When you
> plug that puppy in and power it up, let it run for a good long while.
> Overnight is good, a few days is even better, a week or more is even
> better still from the mechanical point of view.  I remember this from
> when I rebuilt my Moms old motor in her car years ago.  It said in the
> book and from several mechanics, once you crank it, run it for at least
> 30 minutes and at different rpms.  The longer the better.  It should get
> to its normal temperature before even thinking about cutting it off.  Do
> NOT cut the engine off unless it is really serious.  The first few
> minutes that a motor runs is crucial.  If you start it and just run it a
> couple minutes, it won't ever be the same.  I was also told that driving
> it is really good.
>
> I also remember this from way back when I was working on puters.  I got
> a new job when winder 3.1 came out.  Anyway.  If a electronic device can
> survive the first couple to six months of usage, they usually last a
> while from the electronic point of view.  That is short of spilling your
> beer in it or it getting hit by lightening or something like that.  I
> have two 80Gb drives right now.  One is a Maxtor and the other is a
> Western Digital.  I bet there is a few people on this list that hate
> each one because they had one that failed.  I haven't had any trouble
> with mine at all.  They all fail eventually tho.  I just hope one of
> mine fails when there is nothing important on it is all.  ;-)
>
> Still comparing all the options.  I got to start looking for a good SATA
> drive now.  Just when I had a decent IDE drive all picked out too.  LOL

When you look at hard drive reviews, they tend to be either 5 stars
("Perfect! Never a problem after 10 years!") or 0 stars ("Horrible,
died after 2 minutes! I got 2 more and they did the same thing!" etc).
I don't think there are a lot of ways for a hard drive to go bad
without it being catastrophic. Maybe bad sectors... but I consider
that catastrophic because they always seem to spread like cancer. If
there is one bad sector on a drive, I simply can't trust it.

That being said, I've had lots of hard drives from many brands and the
best combinations of price/speed/reliability I've had is Samsung. I'm
using 6 of them right now and after 2+ years of 24/7 usage none has
died yet.  I'm sure someone here will have a horror story about a
Samsung drive to add to this thread. :)