[ale] OT: HW failure

[Mike Panetta]

I personally have had the most problems with Fujitsu and IBM.
I have had both IDE and SCSI Fujitsu drives go bad within months
of buying them.  I even had one Fujitsu SCSI come from the
factory brand new with several megs of bad sectors (it was a 4GB drive).
The IBM's I have had problwms with are the infamous "Deathstar" drives.
I have had problems where if they were not paired up with the correct slave
the MB would not recognise them at all.  And if you paired them with certian
slaves and you enabled UDMA, your data would slowly get shredded over time,
but the drive it self was clean after a surface scan.

On the other hand I have had the best success with Seagate SCSI drives.
My wife even spilled a winecooler on one while it was in operation (don't 
ask...)  and after a quick wash of the controller boards in mildly soapy water 
and a short term bake of the boards at around 200 deg in the oven, the drive
still works perfectly.  And I got it as a referb, so who knows how much life it
had origionally.  Oh, and all the data was still intact after that incident too!

Other then the Fujitsu's I would say I have never had any problems with SCSI
drive just randomly failing.  Atleast not before 3 years of continuous use.  I think
you basicly get what you pay for when it comes to drives.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Calvin Harrigan <charriglists at bellsouth.net>
Sent: Dec 23, 2003 9:02 PM
To: fzamenski at mail0.mx.voyager.net, Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts <ale at ale.org>
Subject: Re: [ale] OT: HW failure


Funny you should mention that, I've had similar experiences with WD.  Returned 
a 1.6 Gig 6 times!  Sold it the last time.  This was all within 1 year.  I 
have sworn off WD's.  I'm sure someone can bring a similar argument for just 
about any other brand.  In drives that I have used I would rate them in the 
following order from most reliable to least.

Quantum (Conner?)
Seagate
IBM
Samsung
Maxtor
Fujitsu
Western Digital


One last note, heat seems to kill a lot of drives.  Make sure that your drives 
are properly ventilated, you know, not stacked one top of each other in a 
regular Mid-Tower case.  I've measure 130 degrees in that space between the 
drives.

Calvin...

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