[NBLUG/talk] Another hard disk bites the dust!!!

[Lincoln Peters]

Thanks for all of the detailed information about hard disk failure. 
Probably what I'll do is arrange for the drive to be replaced (since
it's still under warranty), and if I can scrape up the money to do so,
I'll get another hard disk of the same size and build a RAID-1 array.

On Thu, 2004-10-07 at 13:42, A.C. wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I worked for SyQuest before they went out of business, and I can 
> honestly say that I've spoken to many, many people in the same situation 
> as you.  I lost count of people who had gone through three drives in a 
> row, and were replacing their fourth.  Admittedly, this was downright 
> common with the SyQuest SparQ drives (which had an 18% failure rate 
> within 3 months), but there were many people with the more reliable 
> SyJet drives in the same scenario.
> 
> In reply to your current situation, I have seen hard drives fail from 
> every vendor, and while there are some vendors I trust more than others, 
> not a single one is immune to failure.  As with most products, hard 
> drive manufacturers gear their drives to be as reliable as possible with 
> the cheapest parts available.  They take into account the risk of 
> failure and factor the potential replacement cost into their 
> manufacturing costs.
> What that really means is that they are accepting the fact that some 
> drives will fail and trading that off for a product with a lower sticker 
> price.  Most major vendors also offer more expensive drive models with 
> longer warranty periods, but the price is usually much higher.  In most 
> cases, it's cheaper to buy the standard drive and invest in a decent 
> backup system.
> 
> OK, getting into the opinion section here:  The vendors that tend to 
> fail the least often are Maxtor, Seagate, and Western Digital, and the 
> vendors that tend to have higher failure rates are IBM Deskstar, Samsung 
> (or anything with Samsung drive heads), and any drive manufactured by 
> someone you've never heard of.  As with anything else, some people have 
> had terrible luck with one line and great luck with another (hatred 
> between Maxtor and Seagate runs deep in some places), but overall the 
> big three are about equal.
> 
> Some quick suggestions for your next drive:  The biggest thing that 
> kills drives nowadays is droppage (other than pre-existing contaminants 
> inside of the drive, which you can't do anything about).  Heat can cause 
> problems, but a failing drive itself can cause excessive heat, so it 
> goes both ways.  The best tool I have ever found for maintaining a drive 
> is a program written in assembly language named SpinRite (available for 
> purchase at http://www.grc.com or your local torrent site if you're into 
> that kind of thing).  SpinRite can tell you the internal temperature of 
> your drive, so if you're thinking heat is the culprit, this can help you 
> narrow it down.  SpinRite can also recover drives that have suffered 
> extensive damage and mark previously bad sectors as good if they prove 
> to be OK.
> 
> At any rate, best of luck, and feel free to post again if you're looking 
> for details,
> 
> A.C.
> ******

---
Lincoln Peters
<sampln at sbcglobal.net>

Ring around the collar.