Renzatic on 31/3/2009 at 00:19
I can't keep the things going for more than 6 months before they crap out and die on me. If it weren't for 'ole reliable, a 30Gb WD IDE drive I've had since like 2001, I'd have been up a nasty creek without a wooden stick thing many a time. As of writing, I'm waiting patiently (dreading) for my computer to do yet another hard lock and piss me off to the point of extreme violence.
Now on to my question, vague as it is. Are SATA drives low quality pieces of suck in general, or are there weird power issues I'm unaware of that can cause them to croak over that don't effect IDE drives? I mean it ain't like I push the things. My current drive is just a little 80 gigger I barely keep filled beyond half capacity. I bought it last October, and at 5 months, it's lasted about as long as the other 4 500Gb drives I've been circulating in and out of my computer for the last couple of years. Things are starting to get on my damn nerves.
I've got my replacement in the mail, but I know I'm gonna be going through the same shit again in another few months. Anyone have any pieces of wisdom they can share? I sure could use them right about now.
Microwave Oven on 31/3/2009 at 01:30
I've had lots of problems with SATA drives as well, and as best as I can determine, its their power supply connector. Or data connector. Or both. I can't pin it down exactly. All I know is that if I have a drive that's dying in my PC, and I stick it in an external enclosure (which has beefier connectors) the drive goes back to working normally.
Now, I haven't used proper scientific methods for these tests, all I'm saying is there is a correlation between what my drives have been plugged into and how they work.
Of course this is all just speculation. Maybe it's something to do with the motherboard or PSU. But my suspicions remain, especially in the light of the fact that I have 2 5-year-old SATA drives that have a standard 4-pin molex power connector, and they haven't even given me a hiccup once.
steo on 31/3/2009 at 02:14
What brand of HDDs are you buying? Avoid Maxtors at all cost. I gather samsungs are good though.
ChickenMcOwnage on 31/3/2009 at 02:22
We buy a lot of HDDs, but have had very few problems with SATA drives (about equal to the number of problems with our IDE drives).
I recommend only getting Western Digital or Seagates.
Briareos H on 31/3/2009 at 07:40
Maxtor drives are rebranded Seagates with a little firmware tweaking. Never had any problems with those brands. WDs are supposedly a bit slower but aren't known either for dying suddenly. Hitachi deskstars are the ones to avoid like the plague.
Matthew on 31/3/2009 at 09:20
My 3 Hitachi Deskstars on the other hand are just under three years old and still (hopefully) running fine.
Adam Nuhfer on 31/3/2009 at 14:07
I haven't seen any difference in failure rate between the various IDE and Sata HDD I've installed over the years. All mfgs at one time or another have a certain model run that is problem prone with reliability problems. To avoid this problem I do various research on the hardware I'm looking to get before I buy it.
I've built high end rigs for various folks over the years with HDD from various mfgs. IBM HDD was my first choice in days gone by. Alas, Hitachi bought/took over IBM's hard drive division in 2002. Since that time, I've found it's tough to beat a Western Digital.
Renzatic on 31/3/2009 at 14:30
I've been using WDs for the last few, and they die on me just as quickly as any other brand. The weirdest thing about the whole ordeal I don't go through the usual dying harddrive routine. I never get any knocking, or weird thrashing, or any of the other taletell signs. I'll just wake up one day and discover random hard freezes are now a new part of my life.
I've thought about it being the SATA connectors before. They're chintzy flimsy things, and I've seen them slip out of their own accord before. On this current drive, I'm using a tight right angle connector and have it hooked to the PSU through the molex dongle. Judging from whats going on now, it hasn't made a bit of difference.
Long story short, since this has happened about 5 times now, I'm thinking it might be because of some external issue that I'm missing out on and not a case of really shitty luck. I just have no idea what it could be. If it's something like a power issue, it isn't effecting anything else in the computer.
At least I can take one good thing away from all this. It's made me really anal about backing my stuff up.
Bjossi on 31/3/2009 at 17:46
There is one more thing to consider about failure rates; very "dense" hard drives. Seagate's 1.5 TBs drive is a dodgy one to me because that level of data density will dramatically increase the possibility of failures during reading or writing due to the extreme precision needed compared to equally big drives with smaller storage capacity.
Though it probably shouldn't be much of a problem if the temperatures are relatively stable around the hard drive, even less so if the storage medium in question is based on a more efficient technology for reading and writing data (solid-state drives come to mind).
bikerdude on 31/3/2009 at 18:25
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I've been using WDs for the last few, and they die on me just as quickly as any other brand.
I've found Seagate to be the best in terms of speed, reliability and price (£35-40) - I'm currently using a pair of 320Gb ST3320613AS, these are 1/3 height drives, ie even thinner than normal drives...!!!
These give me over 110Mb/s per drive and over 200MB Raid-0 transfer, and I am considering buying another 3 to see if i can crack the 6Gbit/s (600MB/s) barrier.
They are extremely quiet, producing less than 20dba of noise, they are only barely audible when being hammered. They are also very cool running, never getting over 40c.
I had these drives for over 6 months & 2500hrs thus far running time.
