[SunRescue] Re: Hard drive manufacturers

[Paul Khoury]

-----Original Message-----
From: J. S. Connell <ankh at canuck.gen.nz>
To: rescue at sunhelp.org <rescue at sunhelp.org>
Date: Thursday, April 20, 2000 2:15 PM
Subject: [SunRescue] Re: Hard drive manufacturers


><rant force="20%">
>
>IBM is my absolute favorite brand of hard disks, IDE or SCSI.  I've not
>only never had one fail, nobody I know has had one fail, either.  (This
>also means I have no idea what their RMA procedure is like.)
>
I've had problems with some of their Travelstar drives, but since it
was part of my ThinkPad, it was a warranty return.

As for buying drives from Fry's (california), CrapUSA, etc, if the
drive failes beyond the 30 day guarantee from the vendor, too bad... =(


>Quantum would be my runner-up choice for IDE; I've never used their SCSI
>disks.  I've had to RMA perhaps two drives, and both times it was painless.
>
Quantum?  Like IBM, they seem to only service drives for resellers/OEMs, not
end users.

>Seagate is my second choice for SCSI, but I personally wouldn't touch their
>IDE drives.  I've RMA'd enough Seagates over the past five years to stock a
>small country[1], and with the exception of Archive -- er, wait, Connor --
>no, Seagate now -- Python tape drives[2], I've never had a problem.
>

Yeah, Seagate and especially Conner IDE drives are trash IMO.
With the experiance I've had, Western Analog comes in next.

>Maxtor IDE drives scared me off.  After having three fail in eight months,
>I've refused to touch them since, although friends tell me they've had no
>problems with Maxtors made in the last two years or so.
>
Yeah, I've heard about that - kinda iffy for me,  some models are better
than others in terms of reliability.


>Western Digital has to take the prize for the absolute worst track record
>in the industry.  _Every_ _single_ WD drive we've ever had has failed --
>and every time we get one replaced, the replacement fails too!  We've got a
>box somewhere with a dozen WDs we just couldn't be bothered to RMA
>(and from a previous poster's comment, it'd be a waste of time to do
>so now anyway).  We never had problems getting them RMA'd, but the failure
>rate makes them a waste of time.  A friend who runs a huge co-lo firm also
>abandoned WD for IBM for the same reason, and has an even bigger box of
>"can't be bothered to RMA it" WDs; he's also never had an IBM fail.
>
Hey, if he doesn't want the drives, I'll take them =)

Yeah, I have a 6.4GB that I need to send in for RMA.
Their website is so stupid, they ask you to put in a diagnostic code from
their cheesy software so they can make up an RMA number.  The drive doesn;t
even detect anymore...


></rant>
>
>--Jeff
>[1]Not my fault -- blame the incompetents who'd, e.g., stack two hot
>Barracudas right on top of each other with _no_ cooling and watch the
>drives cook each other.
>
LOL
I heard from a friend there was a Quantum drive never released that was hot
enough to fry eggs, literally.  How credible that is I don't know.

At least they weren't Cheetah drives...


Paul