Reliable Hard Drives...

[vrbaba]

I really want something very very reliable...As long as it start working the first time, i need it to keep working.
Looking for about 500-800GB total space.

Are there anything better than SATA drives?

EDIT: What about Raptors?? Are they better/worse/same as IDE/SATA drives?

EDIT:

Looks like everyone's experience is different and there is no clear winner. I guess it depends on ur luck how sturdy the drive u get is. I just wish there was a consistent way to build these drives so they all would perform the same.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Short answer = no.

They all fail, they all have moving parts, they all have warranties, etc., etc., etc. Even so, the failure of hard drives is really low. Get a drive with a good warranty that fits your budget, and back up your data. If up-time is what concerns you, consider RAID 1. RAID 1 with a good backup system is hard to beat.

 

[vrbaba]

what are really good drives, although i am cheapskate, I am willing to pay extra for something that is proven reliable for longer than others.

anyone have a idiot's guide to RAID? i know briefly wht it is...but i need to know the details...raid0 vs raid1... how it does backups, etc. etc.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Fullmetal Chocobo
Short answer = no.

Agreed. I haven't seen any SATA drive failures yet, but I'm sure they will come. Meanwhile, my experience is that the various hard drive types all fail at approximately the same rate. Google's recently released study of 100,000 hard drives says that the odds of a single drive failure are about 7% per year. That means that, over five years, you have a 30% probability of a hard drive failing.

You create RELIABLE drive systems by combining two or more drives in a redundant array. You AVOID DATA LOSS by keeping backups of your data. Preferably offline and offsite.

Wikipedia.org: RAID

Wikipedia.org: Backup

 

[Captante]

Everyone is correct, the failure rate for ALL hard drives is 100% ... personally I've had the best luck with Seagate & to a slightly lesser degree Western Digital.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Seagate is good as long as you avoid the 7200.8 drives (and why anyone would get one of those now is beyond me).

In fact, I'd think you'd be okay with anything except Maxtor drives. Some folks even have good luck with those.

 

[jfall]

I also recommend seagate, not to say that they won't fail.. but I've had the best luck with them overall

 

[Roguestar]

Hard drives will fail, it's just a matter of time. Get a reliable brand like Seagate or Western Digital so you don't have to replace as often, but be prepared for when you do as you don't want to be left shocked and unprepared. RebateMonger's wiki links to RAID and backup are good reading.

 

[Bateluer]

Seagate has been good to me, but I believe my two 300GB drives are 7200.8 drives. They've been operating without problems for almost 3 years now, I think, without problems.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Seagate is usually good, and Samsung in my experience. WD hates me and always failed on me

 

[Mark R]

It doesn't really make a lot of difference. All hard drives tend to have a 1 in 100 - 1 in 50 chance of breaking down each year (for the first 3 years). If you get enterprise grade SAS drives, then they are a little more reliable, but not that much.

A drive that isn't used much - e.g. only switched on 40 hours a week will last longer than one that is on 24/7. Time spent powered up and working is more important than simple calendar age.

A drive that is inadequately cooled (temperature allowed to exceed 45 C) is about 2x as likely to fail as one kept in the range 30-45 C.

The point is that all hard drives are at risk of failing. This means you need to have some form of backup - e.g. another hard drive in a removable caddy, a server on the LAN, tapes, etc. If the drive fails, then you restore your data from the backup.

If you can't afford to stop work while you restore from backup, then you can consider using RAID - this allows you to use multiple hard drives so that they appear as one - data is replicated across the drives, so that if one fails, the data can be recovered on the fly. If you are going to use RAID, you need to use RAID-1 (2 drives), or RAID-5 (expensive, 3 drives minimum).

You should also remember that RAID is only for 'uptime' not for security - i.e. RAID will keep you working if something breaks. It will *not* protect your data if you accidentally delete something, or a virus attack screws your PC. Only an offline backup will do that.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Mark R

A drive that is inadequately cooled (temperature allowed to exceed 45 C) is about 2x as likely to fail as one kept in the range 30-45 C.

People say that a lot, but a few research papers released recently (including one from Google) disputes the notion that heat affects failure rates.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

I read the Google paper on Failure rates and it's pretty interesting...Basically they say that the thing that kills drives is time....

One the earlier note...I would put my vote to Seagate...not scientific, but I've had lots of drives and I can't remember the last time i had to RMA a Seagate drive.

 

[Boyo]

My vote goes to Western Digital. Good drives that are silent and have a five year warranty (so does Seagate).

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Cr0nJ0b
I read the Google paper on Failure rates and it's pretty interesting...Basically they say that the thing that kills drives is time....

One the earlier note...I would put my vote to Seagate...not scientific, but I've had lots of drives and I can't remember the last time i had to RMA a Seagate drive.

I've probably had around a dozen HD's and never had a failure. The drives I use day in day out today are Seagate. I got them for the reputation for quietness. I had a Maxtor drive that started showing bad sectors after only 6 months or so and RMA'd it, but it hadn't failed and my data wasn't jeapardized.

Even so, I try not to get complacent and think a HD failure won't happen to me. I back up my data. Having 3 HD's in my main desktop, I do backups from my data HD to a different HD in the same system. I make occasional backups to other systems (2nd desktop, laptop), and once a year or so I bring a DVD with my data to my brother who lives 500 miles away so I have some offsite protection. I sometimes back up to CD or DVD and leave in glove compartment of my car, for additional "security."

A couple of weeks ago I was 90+% sure one of my HD's was failing and I called Seagate and their support gave me an RMA number. The system would BSOD after warming up and one HD would disappear from the machine - not in Windows, not shown in BIOS. Since I could see the HD when the system first started up, I could back up data I didn't want to lose, but there was almost none of that because I use that HD for backup and for temporary data such as TV rips.

I decided to do some further testing before sending in the drive and it turned out that swaping out the IDE cable resolved the problem.

Edit: Actually, I should report a couple of HD problems. They weren't failure, but not unlike failure:

1. A Windows installation became progressively more corrupted until it was very difficult to salvage information. IIRC, I was able to continue using the drive after a format.

2. I lost all the data on a HD (coincidenttally, I believe, it is the same drive as the one I nearly RMA'd about 10 days ago). It happened because I moved the drive from a PCI IDE controller to the mainboard's IDE controller, and the new controller didn't support drives as large as 160 GB once the amount of data on the drive was over 120 GB. I was unaware of this problem until the drive no longer showed up as formatted in Windows. The data was lost. At the time the data was as inessential as it is today, and it wasn't really a problem to reformat the drive. I'm continuing to use it on the MB controller, but have made a registry hack that forces Windows 2000 to accept the large drive. Gee, I thought I documented that registry hack but can't find my notes. Anyone know what I'm talking about? I'm intending to reinstall Windows 2000 in the near future and I'm going to need that hack!

 

[Markbnj]

I know, I know, I absolutely should not say this. But the truth is that I have owned a personal computer of one sort or another since 1982... and... I have never once had a hard drive fail on me. I even managed to eject a 100m Conner clear across my room (due to a sticky connector) and it worked fine when I plugged it in. When they said 100 g's non-operating shock, they meant it, baby.

Ok, my drive will now fail.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX

Originally posted by: Mark R

A drive that is inadequately cooled (temperature allowed to exceed 45 C) is about 2x as likely to fail as one kept in the range 30-45 C.

People say that a lot, but a few research papers released recently (including one from Google) disputes the notion that heat affects failure rates.

It was actually the Google research paper that I got that statistic from!

Between about 35-45 C, drives have about 1% per year chance of failure
At about 47-50 C, it's about 2%.

 

[Oyeve]

That time kill ref is, IMO, BS, I have systems that are well over 10 years old, some 15 years, and the HDs that originally came in em are still running fine. As for maxtor sucking, I have a first gen Maxtor SATA 250gb drive well out of warranty and it is running great in my second gaming system. In my main system I have 3 Maxtor Maxline III SATA drives and they are fantastic, 5 year warranty. As many said earlier, heat will kill any drive.

 

[vrbaba]

So getting heat spreaders/drive coolers is worth the investment? I am really worth it??? i dont want it to improve my chances by 1%, but more like 5-10%

 

[compguy786]

WD = bad..had 3 fail on me
Seagate = 1 died...rma'd it...got it back..after a year and a half it is dying out bad
Samsung = Great HDDs, next i am getting Samsung

 

[Ken90630]

Anyone got a link to that Google study? I'd like to read that.

PS: Don't tell me to "Google it."

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

My last machine had 9 Hitachi hds, and I had two fail over the course of the years...
This machine has 7 Western Digitals. I've had the best luck with Western Digitals, and I won't buy a Seagate. A friend of mine is the exact opposte.

 

[Cheezeit]

I've never had a HDD fail on me. I've gone through some really old Maxtor's and WD's, but they are still functional. Currently have 2 IDE WD's running great and 2 SATA WD's. I like WD for their balence between performance, warantee, and quiet.

 

[vrbaba]

what about raptors

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Mark R


It was actually the Google research paper that I got that statistic from!

Between about 35-45 C, drives have about 1% per year chance of failure
At about 47-50 C, it's about 2%.

Hmm, interesting. Of course, a 1% increase in failure rate chance per year at double the temperature doesn't seem like much of a difference to me. I can see how people came to the conclusions they did after reading Google's paper. From their own conclusion:

One of our key findings has been the lack of a consistent
pattern of higher failure rates for higher temperature
drives or for those drives at higher utilization levels.
Such correlations have been repeatedly highlighted
by previous studies, but we are unable to confirm them
by observing our population. Although our data do not
allow us to conclude that there is no such correlation,
it provides strong evidence to suggest that other effects
may be more prominent in affecting disk drive reliability
in the context of a professionally managed data center
deployment.

I guess what they're saying is, heat can be a factor, but it is not the predominant cause of failure as many assume it to be.

Originally posted by: Ken90630
Anyone got a link to that Google study? I'd like to read that.

PS: Don't tell me to "Google it."

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf