Hardrive advice
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arad85
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My musings on hard drives: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=4055929&postcount=17
Slaphead
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Basically what Andy said in the post he linked to.
Spinning rust is spinning rust these days. There is for all intents and purposes no difference in quality of product between the manufacturers. They will all fail eventually.
As for complaints about hard drives, well google "<insert name of manufacturer here> hard disk problem" you'll almost certainly find the same number of complaints for each manufacturer.
Personally I hate Western Digital drives, love Hitachi drives, and am completely indifferent to Seagate and Samsung drives. This is based on my experiences over the years, but these days it doesn't really matter.
Spinning rust is spinning rust these days. There is for all intents and purposes no difference in quality of product between the manufacturers. They will all fail eventually.
As for complaints about hard drives, well google "<insert name of manufacturer here> hard disk problem" you'll almost certainly find the same number of complaints for each manufacturer.
Personally I hate Western Digital drives, love Hitachi drives, and am completely indifferent to Seagate and Samsung drives. This is based on my experiences over the years, but these days it doesn't really matter.
All hard drives fail. Its just a question of 'when', not 'if'.
Having said that I like the WD caviar black for performance and reliability. They have the longest mtbf of all the standard drives and the longest guarantee at 5 years. The last time I checked anyway.
WD prices are significantly higher than they were about a year ago due to the flooding in Thailand. Normal stocks are believed to be returned in the third quarter of this year which should help lower prices again.
Having said that I like the WD caviar black for performance and reliability. They have the longest mtbf of all the standard drives and the longest guarantee at 5 years. The last time I checked anyway.
WD prices are significantly higher than they were about a year ago due to the flooding in Thailand. Normal stocks are believed to be returned in the third quarter of this year which should help lower prices again.
realspeed
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I had a Maxtor hard drive that failed,they replaced it with another of higher capacity.
Incase you are not aware Maxtor hard drives do have a 3 year warrantee even though the computer may only have a 1 year warrantee.
Whatever hard drive used I ALWAYS back up to DVD first,even before putting onto a computer for editing. This way I at least still retain the original version
Realspeed
Incase you are not aware Maxtor hard drives do have a 3 year warrantee even though the computer may only have a 1 year warrantee.
Whatever hard drive used I ALWAYS back up to DVD first,even before putting onto a computer for editing. This way I at least still retain the original version
Realspeed
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Slaphead
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Just a point to note, Maxtor doesn't exist anymore, well in so far as drive manufacture is concerned. Seagate bought Maxtor, and now Maxtor is simply a brand name that Seagate uses for some of it's external drives. Crack open a Maxtor external drive and you'll find a Seagate hard disk inside.
Current major producers of 3.5 inch hard disks are Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, and Samsung. ExcelStor may still manufacture hard disks but you probably won't see many of them in the west as they are predominantly distributed in the Asian markets
Current producers of 2.5 inch hard disks are all of the above plus Toshiba.
However Western Digital are currently attempting to buy Hitachi's storage division, well they have bought it subject to various monopoly commisions giving the ok.
I remember when you could pick from around 20 different HD manufacturers. Conner, Quantum, Hewlett Packard, Sony, IBM, Fujitsu - all either gave up, or sold off their storage divisions.
Current major producers of 3.5 inch hard disks are Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, and Samsung. ExcelStor may still manufacture hard disks but you probably won't see many of them in the west as they are predominantly distributed in the Asian markets
Current producers of 2.5 inch hard disks are all of the above plus Toshiba.
However Western Digital are currently attempting to buy Hitachi's storage division, well they have bought it subject to various monopoly commisions giving the ok.
I remember when you could pick from around 20 different HD manufacturers. Conner, Quantum, Hewlett Packard, Sony, IBM, Fujitsu - all either gave up, or sold off their storage divisions.
neil_g
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Pretty much what everyone else said, hard drives fail no matter what brand.
Personally I've got a 100% good record with Samsung and seagate. Wouldn't touch maxtor (although owned by seagate mostly to gain access to some patents, maxtor is retained as the budget arm) as theyre about 90% of failures I've seen. LaCie also as their enclosures are like chocolate teapots.
Rather than brand I'd concentrate on a good backup procedure, multiple copies on multiple drives (raid counts as 1 drive) with off site copies. Avoid DVD, it's a pain in the behind for environmental issues causing rot etc. bluray is worth a look if you want optical archiving as the construction is different and less prone to environmental issues.
Personally I've got a 100% good record with Samsung and seagate. Wouldn't touch maxtor (although owned by seagate mostly to gain access to some patents, maxtor is retained as the budget arm) as theyre about 90% of failures I've seen. LaCie also as their enclosures are like chocolate teapots.
Rather than brand I'd concentrate on a good backup procedure, multiple copies on multiple drives (raid counts as 1 drive) with off site copies. Avoid DVD, it's a pain in the behind for environmental issues causing rot etc. bluray is worth a look if you want optical archiving as the construction is different and less prone to environmental issues.
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