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81 Comments
- slemmons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've used Maxtor drives exclusively for about 10 years, and have never had one fail. Some of those drives were in service far longer than your average HDD would be and still worked flawlessly.
I bought a WD because I found a really nice deal on one about a year ago. That drive cratered within the year.
I'm back on Maxtor now.
Still, for the most part, hard drive failures are luck of the draw. Every company makes a bad drive once in a while, and you either get lucky and avoid them, or unlucky and hit several from the same manufacturer. - kidlinux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hey neenor, in case you havn't noticed, there are several other hard drive manufacturers in the world. So monopoly laws don't really apply because competition still exists, and in a big way.
Like.. did you even stop for a second and think about what you were writing?? - steveoa3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The FARK headline was the best
Seagate to buy Maxtor for $1.9B after instant rebate, mail-in rebate, and $15M off $75M coupon - oldgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Being the oldest one here, I've used them all in my years of building PCs and I really don't have a favorite. They all seem to work just fine. You do get a bad one every now and then.But it's not brand specific.
- avonej, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've never seen any proof from any hard drive manufacturer "fanboy" that their maker's drives are inherenetly better and more reliable than the competition. Most people base their entire opinion on companys who make hard drives on one or two isolated experiences they've had, often when purchasing from the same reseller (you don't know what happens to them at that stage, it's almost always O.E.M.).
I'm not saying that one company DOESN'T consistantly makes better drives in terms of reliability, but can any person prove this? If not, then get of your soapbox and stop pretending like you know what you are talking about, but if so, please share your information! - kidlinux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"With the hard drive boys getting scared at the rising star that is flash memory..."
Yeah, cuz I'm about to replace my 250GB drive with 3894753498 flash chips at 403958340x the cost. - miscz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Every single hard drive I've owned except one was Seagate (more than 10), mostly because they are cheapest. I love them, they are very quiet and never failed me. Some of them overheat terribly but I can live with that, my dorm is cold during winter and I apprecieate every source of heat :) Most of other drives I've seen were reliable too, but I haven't seen any as quiet as Seagate. The only brand that seems to suck from my and my friend's experience is WD, they fail often, stop responding at times and sound like if they were trying really hard to read data :p
It's not only my experience, most of the people I know like Seagate for the same reasons. - T39andcounting, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Avonej,
I tend to buy Seagate because they have the reputation for making quiet drives. I've had some nasty experiences with drives from other manufacturers that are really noisy, but Seagate seem consistently quiet. I read that this is because they tend to use a lot of sound dampening techniques with their drives that others don't use. Not sure how this effects performance, but for me the acoustics are important. - cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Those that think Maxtor is the worst, either thru past or current experience.
Would you trade all your Maxtor drives for Micropolis or Connor during thier peaks?
I would'nt. All current drive manufacturers have either gone thru a period of
less than stellar drives, or inherited that legacy from another company they
acquired. People were saying similar things about Quantum a couple of
years ago when Maxtor bought them.
Most of the Maxtor drives I've bought since the early 90s are still running, it
is only the most recent batch that seems to be giving me problems that are
worth RMAing the drives for, all the others served me quite well.
Right now I have to think twice when I see a deal for Maxtor drives, but I
thought the same about IBM/Hitachi drives a while back, and I gave them
time to improve the product so I had reason to consider using Deskstars
in the future.
I also remember when WD was a dirty word among hobbyists, and while
Seagate has generally been consistently good, they have also been
credited as consistently slow compared to the competition.
Flash and Holographic Memory offer a lot of promise, but even they have a long way
to go to catch up with the price/capacity/performance ratio of a drive I can pick up
for less than $200 USD.
@ guspaz
"WD distinguished themselves with several high end products like the Raptor. To date no other HDD company has bothered to cater to that niche market, and WD's aging Raptor is still king after all this time."
Actually, the higher density 7200rpm 16MB cache drives from WD and MXT have
pretty much caught up the Raptor in sustained transfer rate.
All the other (US based) companies have long surpassed the Raptor with thier SCSI
offerings, from which they make far more money on the server side than they would
make up by offering a speed competitor to the Raptor on SATA. That may change
with SATA-2/SAS (serial attached SCSI) becoming more mainstream. - mr804, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1you guys must be young if you never had a hard drive fail.
- neenor, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Yet another example of a very large company buying another large company!
What happened to monopoly laws and competition?
Americathe world seems to think that as long as there are two companies there is sufficient competition!
Even communist Russia had more competition that American corporations! - Urgo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Maxtor has been my favorite for a long time now. Over the past ten years I've had three WD's die on me, and one have compatibility problems. Never had a problem with Maxtor (or any other manufacture for that matter). I don't have as much experience with Seagate, I just hope they don't bring down the Maxtor quality.
- neenor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0kidlinux their still two of the biggest manufacturers and the article doesn't mention a reason other than they want to be bigger!
It doesn't take long for one company to monopolise an industry as Microsoft has done and I don’t trust monopoly laws after adobe bought macromedia. Where’s the competition there? - Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0There were indeed big differences between the companies. Maxtor, for instance, DID NOT make their own hard drive platters. They bought third party and built the drives with them. Other companies like Seagate and WD did.
WD distinguished themselves with several high end products like the Raptor. To date no other HDD company has bothered to cater to that niche market, and WD's aging Raptor is still king after all this time.
Hitachi differentiated themselves by becomming the first company to produce 7200RPM notebook drives, and remained the ONLY company to do that for several years.
Seagate took a stance on the warranty issue and instituted 5 year warranties accross all drives even when the rest of the industry was dropping to one (Sorry Vannyx, you're wrong, Seagate DOES have 5 year warranties)
So, each company has done something to set themselves apart from the rest. And now there is one less company. We're now down from The Big Four to The Big Three: Seagate, Hitachi, and Western Digital. Samsung still makes hard drives but I don't think they're really on the same scale as the big three. - MrPhelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0vannyx if your data is worth 1,000$ or more you seriously need backups.
- redkat85, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I can't speak for Seagate, but I've had problems with two Maxtor drives (different resellers, for those who count such things) - but that was after a year or more of use, up to that point they seemed fine. My friends seemed to all have WD drives, so that was my most recent purchase - 1 yr mark passed last October with no hiccups so far.
- kosibar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I base my selection on trends that I see, true (avoiding DeathStar drives, for example) but overall I look at the company. I use a lot of hard drives for my business.
When a Maxtor died, I would be on hold for a half hour, but would have my replacement drive in a couple of days, then ship the dead drive back.
Seagate I have gone on their web site and gotten an RMA number right there, instructions in my email. I can order up the new drive and ship back the dead drive in the same box. I've had questions about one that was dying and got a response to my email the next morning.
Western Digital I've done online RMA's and they worked okay. I haven't used a lot of their drives, but have had two experiences with their RMA system. The first one was smooth. The second one, the replacement I got was dead when I got it. I called support and was told that I'm hooking it up wrong. I let the guy tell me how to do it - it was exactly what I was doing. After numerous trials reseating cables, checking jumpers, etc. he agreed that it was dead. I shipped it back and got another one. That one also wasn't working right. I tried it in two totally different systems and in my Mac workstation - nothing was even seeing the drive. Finally I found that if I jumpered it incorrectly I could use it. I left it at that. Western Digital charged me $40 for one of the 20 GB drives they supposedly never got back, even though both tracking numbers for the two dead drives were within a couple of days of getting the replacement, and both marked as delivered with a signature. The last replacement died a couple of months later, after the warranty had run out.
Hitachi I've never had to replace one. All I've had from them are notebook hard drives - only one has died and it was well after warranty.
So I'm fine with Hitachi, happy with Seagate and Maxtor. The company that handles problems well when they come up is my favorite. - vannyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0it really doesnt matter to me when a drive looses its partitioning or all data gets erased or formatted over. because i have the tools to get the data back, even if partially corrupted. still better than having no access to the drive. I had 2 maxtor drives fail on me , the information is probably fine but i cant access the drive on any computer the bios wont see it. even tried it on a mac. Thanks ot maxtor it will cost me about 1 thousand dollars to get my data back.
- Trunk3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0In the last 10 years, I have had 2 Seagate HDs go bad. In the last 3 years, I have had at least 4 Maxtor units go bad. If proof is what you're looking for, this currently tells me all I need to know.
- dilbertmouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Hitachi purchased IBM's HD shop, now they're great!"
You're talking to a guy waho had three Hitachi's blow up on him. Then my Hitachi notebook drive (as well as that of a good friends)! Hitachi is not my friend right now. I swore by IBM's (and still do, when I find them), but Hitachi's are my enemy.
I honestly hope this merger does not effect the quality of Seagates. I've got four of them now which are serving me wonderfully. But they are one of the few I trust right now. Please don't ruin it for me... - cavicster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Many of my friends have Maxtor paper weights ... hopefully Seagate will fix this.
- andyatkinson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Here is what you need to know:
- All hard drives fail, it's just a matter of time
- Seagate has some of the best warranties in the business at 5 years (not talking about enterprise hard drives here), making your dollars go farther - buzzword, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0All I can say is I've used Maxtor drives for 15 years, and this year I switched to Seagate after having 3 Maxtor drives all less than 2 years old fail on me in the past year, aa well as two drive of friends who bought Maxtor on my recommendation.
Their quality as of late sucks, and they've lost a 15 year customer for good. Seagate drives have a 5 year warranty, I don't think they'll be extending that to the Maxtor line. - alterself, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0this just in...one crappy hd manufacturer buys another
i have had SO many problems with both seagate and maxtor (and ibm) its not even funny. (ide drives anyway)
only a few issues w/ WD's, and those that didnt work they RMA'd. - chuy74, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sweet! I made some money on this news! Go MXO
- NVaZN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Personally, i've never had a Maxtor drive fail on me, at home or in 10 years as a tech. On the other hand I've had 6 Seagate's fail on the same day, and my Seagate Cheetah failed as well after three years. I have had a few Western Digital's fail as well. In my opinion, after Maxtor aquired Quantum their reliability degraded, which kepting from buying one. I'm currently running a 250GB Western Digital for the past year and a half and it's been running well. I only wish Western Digital would make a larger version of the Raptor otherwise I would have probably bought it. Either way, it's best to go with what you've had the best experience with or ask around. This sale could be good (IBM's HD sale to Hitachi) or bad (Quantum to Maxtor), but to me lesser competition is always a bad thing. Remember when all the HD companies moved to a one year warranty on their IDE/S-ATA drives? Although now they are back to three years, what would happen with less competition?
- busfahrer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Let's just hope they'll keep developing the Atlas II line of hard drives, since it's one of the best performing hard drives on the planet, together with Fujitsu's MAU series.
- chiapet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0it would be nice to have there stock
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MXO&t=5d - Jammerdelray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0seagate barracuda's yumm
- hominid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yeah duke, as if apple makes the hard drives ...... duhhh
- vannyx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+05 year warranty anyone. Seagate still doesnt it. Maxtor how you have fallen from my good graces.
- thedreampolice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I work for a OEM we sell over 200 drives a month. I have see less than %1 fail with seagate and %35+ fail with maxtor.
- MajorOutage, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The only brand HD's I've ever had fail on me were Maxtors.
- trunkster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Seagate and Maxtor are my favs, hopefully they will combine their bests together. I've used other drives before, like Western Digital, and those seem to crash often and make weird sounds...
- Bitgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Crud. I trust Seagate less than Maxtor, the current Maxtor gen is fast and quiet. Seagate has always been the "quiet but slower in tests" company. I hate having less options to choose from too.
- aznboi04k, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0seagate > maxtor =)
- 1ivewire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0All my worst HD experiences have come with Maxtors. I don't buy them intentionally, but they come in alot of prebuilt computers. I really hope Seagate just ditches the Maxtor name and revamps all their manufacturing facilities because their drives are just subpar.
- thatsiebguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My Segates have died twice as fast as any of my WDs or Maxtors. Usually they are all within months of the warranty expiring. All they have going for them in my book are that they are quiet.
- IchiroBoston, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Maxtors are the worst, I have had so many fail within 1 year. No bad seagates here, but I always get Seagates with 5 year warranty.
- EdLesMann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Evidence that Maxtor sucks? Easy, just need to call up maxtor....I have owned eight Maxtors drives...EVERY ONE of them failed within a year. I was even warned by Maxtor that it looks suspicious that I was always returning the drives while in warranty.
My seagate drive just died after 7 years of use, Granted it was only a 6 Gig but it was enough that I ran my root partition off of it.
I always run my hard drive intensive applications (I host Linux ISO torrents) on my Samsung drives because they have been alive and kicking for 2 years so far. Not once have I had a problem.
I realize that this could still be an isolated event, but 3 years ago when I worked at CompUSA we always had people bitching about the Maxtor drives. I really do not think that I am an isolated case, as there are WAY more fanboys for just about every other brand then there are for Maxtor.
I will never buy another Maxtor. I REALLY hope this does not affect Seagate:-( ..... - dtang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0http://xeniac.com/?p=99
More details, official announcement site and seagatemaxtor.com. OFFICIAL Audio announcement as well. - yaroze, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I don't know about newer seagates,but I still have 2 ST21 (I belive thats the model) MFM driv that work when I go to fire them up.
of corse they are 20M in capacity, and 1/2 hight 5.25 form factor, and in 8088 based PC's - sunjammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I used to build computers for clients. In the past 3 years, I've seen close to a 95% failure rate on Maxtor ATA drives, some dying within 1 year. That's about 30 hard drives so far, and I'm expecting them ALL to fail by now. I stopped using Maxtor about 1-2 years ago and switched to WD and Seagate, without any problems so far.
A friend of mine owns a computer store, and he stopped selling Maxtors a year ago -- he confirmed my 95% failure rate figure on quantities of HUNDREDS of RMA drives. - masterofshadows, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I, like sunjammer, did computer repairs for a few years. All drives had a pretty high failure rate but Maxtor did have the highest followed vey closely by Western Digital and seagate. the majority of them failing within the first 3 years.
Its wrong to say anyone is all that great, but maxtor has proven it is the worst in my mind. - DewayneSmith, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Good thing I use Western Digital...
- theundone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've seen so many Maxtor's go bad it's not even funny. I just replaced a Maxtor SATA drive for a friend this week and it was less than a year old! I replaced it with a WD. You couldn't pay me to use Maxtor in one of my computers. I've been running a WD at home 24/7 for over 3 years without a hiccup yet.
- code007, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0You know I have to admit Maxtor's are great cause they are super fast drives. Then comes seagate, which they are great with making quiet and efficient drives, then probably the best value are the Western Digital, but they do tend to have hard drive failures more often.
That's good atleast that Seagate and Maxtor merged, cause know they will use the reliability of seagate to the speed improvements of Maxtor. - mrgone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Every single Maxtor drive I've ever owned (4 of them, all 20-50 gb) has developed this incredibly annoying high-pitched whine that varied from a light, constant tone to a loud, almost buzzing noise that could be heard through headphones. None of them failed (except one, that died with a power supply implosion) but they drove me nuts the whole time I had them. Never again
- disneymama, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've had 4 Maxtor drives fail in the past 2 years on my current system. One can only hope that together, these two companies can get a good product out.
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