Whats A Reliable Hdd 4 Pc?

[Watchman]

Hey

I have a small problem.. I need some info on hard drives. My hard drive seems to fail every 2 years or so… this time I think it was due to a virus or something.. nno matter hoe many times I formatted and partitioned it, the Wndows 98 (I don’t want to go XP) setup crashes halfway through… .. so looking for a HDD now.. its basically for my dad’s PC so don’t need anything more than 20GB, but I figure I’ll go for a 40 cos that’s the lowest you get now.. I want one that’ll last more than just 2 years….. plus the price factor also matters…

So how much would a VERY reliable one cost? And what is the make?

How much would the cheapest cost? What’s the make?

And whats the best compromise of both cost and reliability?

Thanks guys…. A quick reply is appreciated cos I’m thinking of buying the HDD tomorrow afternoon, most probably at Unity Plaza..

Fuzzo, you seem to be working in this line? Coments? 

[fuzzo]

most of the dealers only give 1 year warranty on HDD but in reality vendors like seagate give 5 years warranty on their drives. i believe hitachi and maxtor give iether 3 or 5 cant remember. give me a call if you are going tobuy tomorrow.. i'll refer you to a dealer or distributor that can give you atleast 3 years warranty...

[Watchman]

most of the dealers only give 1 year warranty on HDD but in reality vendors like seagate give 5 years warranty on their drives. i believe hitachi and maxtor give iether 3 or 5 cant remember. give me a call if you are going tobuy tomorrow.. i'll refer you to a dealer or distributor that can give you atleast 3 years warranty...

thanks man! how can i contact you? i dont exactly have your number...

[Watchman]

thanks man! how can i contact you? i dont exactly have your number...

MADZ, i hope you wont be cutting out the number if Fuzzo puts it up here.. thanks...

[Pericles]

Ask the sales guy what the MTBF is I haven't used that since I was back in school

MTBF : Mean Time Between Failure. Wonder if the new generation of sales guys know that

[fuzzo]

my no is 0773110521

[The Don]

Hey

I have a small problem.. I need some info on hard drives. My hard drive seems to fail every 2 years or so… this time I think it was due to a virus or something.. nno matter hoe many times I formatted and partitioned it, the Wndows 98 (I don’t want to go XP) setup crashes halfway through… .. so looking for a HDD now.. its basically for my dad’s PC so don’t need anything more than 20GB, but I figure I’ll go for a 40 cos that’s the lowest you get now.. I want one that’ll last more than just 2 years….. plus the price factor also matters…

So how much would a VERY reliable one cost? And what is the make?

How much would the cheapest cost? What’s the make?

And whats the best compromise of both cost and reliability?

Thanks guys…. A quick reply is appreciated cos I’m thinking of buying the HDD tomorrow afternoon, most probably at Unity Plaza..

Fuzzo, you seem to be working in this line? Coments? 

Hi,

There is no doubt that Fuzzo is the resident expert in all matters PC hardware especially when it comes to providing buying tips.

I just thought I would add a thing or two because a few moons back, just out of school and nothing else to do apart from about 2-3 hours of lectures a day I used to go help a friend of mine in Unity Plaza who used to have a shop so I've had some insight into how the system integrator business in SL works,

These are my personal experiences, and things might have changed since a bit of time has passed.

Sri Lanka has this problem of being hot and humid, and it makes a hell of a lot of difference to the life of the HDD under what circumstances it is used, such as if you have air conditioning.

I think heat is the primary factor for the high level of problems with bad sectors we used to have with seagate desktop drives thosedays, because I have seen seagate drives perform brilliantly in offices etc. with airconditioning. The beauty of the seagates they often fail in stages, such as they will start to develop bad sectors and then those sectors will spread, thus you can pick out when the drive is starting to fail and do a back up and save most of your data.

With Western dirigtal drives its the electronics which go most of the time, where the boards fail and the HDD does not get detected by the Bios.

With IBM drives you have all sorts of problems some being board faliures and I have seen the bearings cease on a few ones as well. They also run a bit hot like Seagates.

Quantums and Maxtors seem to be the disks that have the least problems with the development of bad sectors thus their problems are predominantly with their boards.

I must say though compared to the number of maxtors we used to sell compared to every other brand the number of faliures we got were very few, and that says a lot I guess. Maxtor is probably not the best hard drive in the world, that requires serious debate, but it seems to work best under our climate conditions without any special enviromental conditioning.

Also I do think most hard drive faliures are avoidable. Often they are down to overheating due to lack of ventilation inside the case and unstable power supplies and power problems. I have only lost 2 hard disks up to now and one a Quantum (now Maxtor) because of a power supply error, and the second because the Samsung HDD I was using which I brought down from Europe obviously wasn't suited to our climate conditions and it was running a bit hot from the begining (and SMART was reporting this, I ignored it) very quiet drive so lots of insulation, and after few days of 24/7 operation one platter on the HDD failed. Both problems were not down to manufacturer defects, so if your HDD fails so frequently it is a good idea to check out your PSU, and the temperature inside the case and maybe give it a bit more ventilation. Also note that dust combined with moisture can cause problems to electrical components inside the computer so keeping it dust free and clean might help a bit too,

And Pericles I think the PATA (parralel ATA) HDD with the highest MTBF available is the Maxtor Maxline series aimed at the budget server market. Comes with a 5 year Warranty and the only PATA drive in the mactor range to be rated for 24/7 Operation.

Regards,

The Don

[Kim]

try Samsung. i bought a HDD last week from Barcl @ unity plaza. cost 5000/- and 2 years warranty.

fuzzo - de future microsoft sales

[Pericles]

Damn Don, thats some piece of analysis. Interesting view on heat tho. I have a Maxtor and a Quantum fireball plugged. The maxtor is definetly cooler. That fireball lives upto its name No history of problems (Well once last year on the quantum, but formating solved that, with the loss of LOADS of photos of drags and stuff. And my XXX collection )

[Watchman]

Hey guys!

thanks for the help & info on the HDD.... Don, your reply is real cool man!! i too was imagining our climate would probably not be able to handle so brands that may be seelling good in europe or america..

And Fuzzo, sorry i didint call man... i was absolutly SWAMPED with work on friday and i merely jotted down your number and was going to call before i left the office to go buy a HDD... and i came home and tried to call you but discovered that i had written down your number wrong.. had written 512 instead of 521... and was too tired to call you to thank you anyway... cos when i called my dad friday and told him i wont be able to get one he had gone to Unity PLaza himself and bought one... he said the salesman has said the 40GB maxtor was 5000... but then my dad had seen a DVD ROM and decided to teat himself to one (even though he alomost never watches movies even on my PC), and asked how much both would be.. so he had got both for 7600.. it had been from a place called IT-Land...

so is 7600 is good price for both the 40GB hard and a DVD rom? though the garuntee is only for 1 year on both items...

so once again thanks guys for the help

[fuzzo]

very nice analysys Don, i agree 100% on climate and correct power supplies playing ahuge roll in PC health.

a few years back seagate really screwed things up in SL. I remember my old company sold them with 3 years warranty and the failure rates were so high. we were honoring the warranty and then one fine day seagate changed their policy to 1 year warranty on all products including those sold. some of my dealers are still getting burned from those HDD's

we are going to do a public service announcement by INtel to make the public aware of having a proper power supply unit. the PSU that comes to SL are the cheapest possible units. they just have fake stickers on them. so don't go according to the stickers

[sharkster]

very nice analysys Don, i agree 100% on climate and correct power supplies playing ahuge roll in PC health.

a few years back seagate really screwed things up in SL. I remember my old company sold them with 3 years warranty and the failure rates were so high. we were honoring the warranty and then one fine day seagate changed their policy to 1 year warranty on all products including those sold. some of my dealers are still getting burned from those HDD's

we are going to do a public service announcement by INtel to make the public aware of having a proper power supply unit. the PSU that comes to SL are the cheapest possible units. they just have fake stickers on them. so don't go according to the stickers

fuz

the quote rajiv gave me was wit a seagate hdd...do u suggest i get sumthng else den...pc wont b in airconditionin

and ur sure he'll giv me a proper PSU yes?

[fuzzo]

how many years warranty is he giving on the hdd?

yes he will give a proper PSU.. he is one of the guys we are going to endorse..

[sharkster]

how many years warranty is he giving on the hdd?

yes he will give a proper PSU.. he is one of the guys we are going to endorse..

the quote says 3 yrs but im wonderin if it is a mistake after wat u mentiond abt them changin the length of the warranty

n he also suggestd a 300W PSU wud suffice for the dual core

[fuzzo]

seagate are back now wiht 5 years warranty. they have started to market aggessively in SL with 5 years..only issue is that dealer won't pass it on to the customer. as a safe bet, get a non seagate HDD...

[AMG]

seagate are back now wiht 5 years warranty. they have started to market aggessively in SL with 5 years..only issue is that dealer won't pass it on to the customer. as a safe bet, get a non seagate HDD...

Fuzzo!!, I recently assembled couple of pCs for me and I bought Mercury Casing with 400w PSU, How is Mercury PSU's? Are they good? I don't really know which brand is good in SL as I was out of the island for 5 years, I've been told that Mercury is good, If you think it isn't let me know so I can change it. I don't want to ruin my new CPUs, Mainboards and HDDs. Thanks in advance.

[fuzzo]

we purchased a mercury power supply last week and have sent it to the labs to check. will let you know the results when i get it.

[Watchman]

seagate are back now wiht 5 years warranty. they have started to market aggessively in SL with 5 years..only issue is that dealer won't pass it on to the customer. as a safe bet, get a non seagate HDD...

can the dealer do that? not give a waranty to the customer which the manufacturer give? isn't there some trade law saying something about it?

cos i remember hearing something like this but not with computer parts... something to do with electrical appliances i think...dont remember well though...

[fuzzo]

can the dealer do that? not give a waranty to the customer which the manufacturer give? isn't there some trade law saying something about it?

cos i remember hearing something like this but not with computer parts... something to do with electrical appliances i think...dont remember well though...

yes it's upto the dealer to pass on the warranty to the customer, we as vendors can't force them to do it. what happens is that profits on PC's are so low, this is how they cash in. they get 3 years warranty, but pass on only 1 year to customer. if anything happens after 1 year, customer has to pay and thye can claim warranty on the item. 100% profit for them

only thing vendors can do is to educate customers to ask for 3 years warranty..

[AMG]

we purchased a mercury power supply last week and have sent it to the labs to check. will let you know the results when i get it.

Thanks Machan, Looking forward to the results

[Watchman]

yes it's upto the dealer to pass on the warranty to the customer, we as vendors can't force them to do it. what happens is that profits on PC's are so low, this is how they cash in. they get 3 years warranty, but pass on only 1 year to customer. if anything happens after 1 year, customer has to pay and thye can claim warranty on the item. 100% profit for them

only thing vendors can do is to educate customers to ask for 3 years warranty..

but how can the dealer claim the warenty without having the physical HDD int heir hand.. cos if it were me, iven if its a burnt out HD i bring it home.... i already have avout 4 or 5 HDDs that dont work..

a shop tried to pull this on me saying that my MB was burnt out and it'd have to be replaced when my PC didnt boot properly... but i went for a 2nd opinion to another place and the MB was fine and booted properly .. though we never found out what was wrong initially...

[fuzzo]

most customers don't ask for the burnt part back or they may opt to give you a discount for the burnt part. that's how the dealer can claim warranty on the faulty unit..

[Watchman]

most customers don't ask for the burnt part back or they may opt to give you a discount for the burnt part. that's how the dealer can claim warranty on the faulty unit..

cheeky little buggers!!!!!

so guys, lets bring our old parts home! true we dont get anything.. but if we leave the burnt part behind it kind of encourages vendors to take us for a ride.... that way they might think giving us a 3 or 5 year warenty is better PR-wise than trying to scam a burnt part warenty out of us

[fuzzo]

other way is to know that most of the items come with 3 year warranty. so ask for it from the dealer. if they don't give it, walk out. ... and call me and tell me who is not giving it

[AMG]

we purchased a mercury power supply last week and have sent it to the labs to check. will let you know the results when i get it.

Fuzzo, Machan, Have you got the results from the lab? I'm really looking forward to the results