How Old is Your Working Hard Drive?

[Maleko]

I have an external Maxtor which Ive had years, no probs.

Got a Seagate in me bros, which has been fine for a few years.

Got 3 WD's in mine, had them about 1-2 years, no probs.

But ive had endless problems with internal Maxors, at home and at work, I only ever use WD now.

[spacesurfer]

Look at the trend. People claim to have bad experiences with their Maxtor but according to 10 people, it last > 5 years, compared to 8 people for WD.

Now, statistically speaking, the different between 10 and 8 is probably not significant and both are neck and neck, but it sure is interesting.

The more people take the poll, the better the results will be.

Edited July 11, 2006 by spacesurfer

[Delprat]

The more people take the poll, the better the results will be.

Is this sentence scientifically proved ?

I were thinking of something like the monkeys typing randomly on typewriters. They have a chance (very little) to type an already existing novel.

Same thing for polls : you can imagine that you asked *only* not-representative people, even if you ask more than three hundreds millions : it is exactly what happened when GWBush was elected the first time (only a few citizens of Miami District made the difference, making the entire country unrepresentative a posteriori)

And this example is definately not an exception...

++

PS: When i posted, i made a mistake : the drive i believed to be a Seagate is in fact a Samsung.

[gamehead200]

I have what seems to be a drive manufactured by Conner. Those 202MB still work pretty well!

I've also got a bunch of Quantums and Maxtors that still work.

[WolfX2]

the internal maxtor 16GB on this computer i'm using right now is about 4 years old, and still alive and kicking B)

[spacesurfer]

The more people take the poll, the better the results will be.

Is this sentence scientifically proved ?

Yes and no. Yes, the more people take the poll, the results will better represent the population (if people are being honest).

That's how the effectiveness of medications are **proven**. You can't test it in everyone so you test it in a sample. And of course, not everyone will respond compared to a placebo. But if the statistical difference is significant using various statistical tests, then the assumption is made that in the general population the medication will be effective.

Of course, this is no scientific poll anyways so you can view the results however you wish to.

Anyway, the intention of the original statement wasn't implying that we were proving anything but that if we could get more votes, we can better extrapolate to the general population what their experience has been with their hard drives.

hehe.

[Aegis]

I have 2x74GB WD Raptors that are less than a year old.

[ripken204]

I have 2x74GB WD Raptors that are less than a year old.

lucky

[jaclaz]

In my experience it is not the "brand" that matters, but rather the "series" or "model" of the drive, I have had some Maxtors failing in under 1 year and some other model are more than 7 years old and work perfectly.

Same thing happened with both WD and Seagate.

I did not have a significant number of Samsungs, the few I had started delivering problems after approximately 5 years of service.

Another factor that dramatically affects life of HD's are:

1) whether the PC is always on/switched off and on more than once a day, spin up spin down can really kill motors and bearings

2) whether power surge protection, and/or UPS is installed and efficient

3) GOOD cooling, is ESSENTIAL, with appropriate space all around the drive and significant airflow, use an app like HD tune:

http://www.hdtune.com/

to check for temperature, a drive that exceeds 45/50°C has a lot more probability to fail than one that "lives" at 40°C

jaclaz

Edited July 12, 2006 by jaclaz

[Delprat]

The more people take the poll, the better the results will be.

Is this sentence scientifically proved ?

Yes and no. Yes, the more people take the poll, the results will better represent the population (if people are being honest).

That's how the effectiveness of medications are **proven**. (...)

People testing medications are choosen (that is, they do not ask random persons at the corner like in this poll, or like in the elections). And once a test was made, it is made again. As time goes with more and more different medicaments, we see more and more evidences of ineffective ones...

You misunderstood my previous post : more people doesn't mean more representative.

Anyway, the intention of the original statement wasn't implying that we were proving anything but that if we could get more votes, we can better extrapolate to the general population what their experience has been with their hard drives.

You're true about the 'original intentions', but you did colored your sentence as if it were always true. And obviously, MSFN members are not representative of hard drives users, thus more answers will not allow a better extrapolation...

Anyway, to know the reliability of a hard drive, there is something called MTBF, computed in a way used day by day, and most probably representative (more than the poll for sure : imagine that protocols used for MTBF are also used before allowing a car, a truck or a plane to be used...)

++

[spacesurfer]

Ok, my drive is dead for good. Recovery software wasn't able to recover my lost data. I think I was responsible for its demise - when I got a new case, I tried to force it in the bay and really rammed it in there. It happened twice so I physically damaged it.

But, it died without warning. I was not experiencing any problems before it just died.

Anyway, I decided to get this one to replace it: Maxtor SATA II 300 GB

Let me know what you all think.

[Shindo_Hikaru]

i have 3 100 meg western digital HD, still work like a champ, however i do not use them except to hold sensative txt docs, in a safe. Currenlty have Western Digitals. Have DOA maxtors and seagates in the past or oddly once a had a maxtor with a missing controller board and a seagate with two missing IDE pins from factory.

[Camarade_Tux]

An old one, in an HP computer, DELL did not even exist at that time. It think it was a maxtor, and it was bought in 1997.

(also has a 500MB IBM harddrive on a computer running windows 3.11 and it is being used on a daily basis -> my dad's office in fact)

[spacesurfer]

You guys probably heard that Seagate acquired Maxtor.

[Nerwin]

I Have a WD thats about 15 Yrs old , I think, but not sure (Still Works, I brought it to school and hooked it up to a pc and it still works)