Hard Drive Advise

[seekermeister]

Im using an internal Seagate Barracuda 120GB HDD that I got for free at work since it was refurbished - no problems whatsoever, and that IS a refurbished model!

Also, my PC is set up to have just Win7, and a few essential programs on that drive, and I use an external drive for storing all my main data - brand? Seagate.

You more than likely have bad luck, but I'd check your motherboard health to be sure, because it could be whats killing the drives.

It could also be a faulty drive controller chip on the board thats killing your drives.

No, as I said, Seagate may well have some good models of drives. In fact, I would definitely expect so, but the quality of the 7200.11s are known to not be good, it is not just my bad luck.

The fact that I'm not interested in any Seagate drive is because that I have already RMAed one of my 7200.11s 3 times, and it needs to be RMAed a 4th time also. Each of those drives, whether new or recertified, only lasted ~ 3 months. This speaks to a problem that goes deeper than a single lemon, or even a line of lemons, because Seagate should do whatever it takes to rectify the problem with those drives, and they are not. If they can deal in this fashion with one drive, they can do it with any of them. Therefore, no Seagates for me.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do you have any aversion to Samsung? Specifically the 500 gig Spinpoint HD502HJ?? About $50.

 

[seekermeister]

I wouldn't know, I never owned one.

 

[seekermeister]

Here is one drive that I just came across, but I'm not certain about it, because while it is SATA 3, it is only a 32MB cache. I wonder if it would still have the noise problem of the 64MB cache drives?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=61389&sku=TSD-1000AS5

EDIT: Hmm...I don't know, it only has a 3 year warranty.

 

[sygnus21]

I can easily agree with you on that, because the FAEXs that I mentioned are SATA 3s. I'm not sure if your velociraptor link is an endorsement or a warning, but it doesn't matter, because they cost too much for me. Your history with WDC drives has been much better than my own.

The link was just to show the discussion on the FAEX's loudness

I've never owned a velociraptor.

And yeah, I've had pretty good success with Western Digital. Probably would have bought a Western Digital SSD drive were it not for OCZ.
Though my first choice would have been Intel but the price was a little steep at the time

Personally with prices falling like they are on SSD drives, you seriously should consider one. The performance is that much more noticeable.... but I can understand your reluctance due to expense, even now.

Good luck.

Here is one drive that I just came across, but I'm not certain about it, because while it is SATA 3, it is only a 32MB cache. I wonder if it would still have the noise problem of the 64MB cache drives?

Seagate ST31000524AS Barracuda Hard Drive - 1TB, SATA 6Gbps, 7200 RPM, 32MB at TigerDirect.com

EDIT: Hmm...I don't know, it only has a 3 year warranty.

Well the Blacks have a 5 year warranty..... Desktop Internal Hard Drives Overview

 

[seekermeister]

When a 120GB SSD comes down to a price that I can afford, I'll get one, but they are not even close to that yet.

 

[sygnus21]

When a 120GB SSD comes down to a price that I can afford, I'll get one, but they are not even close to that yet.

Understand. I had the same thoughts before I got mine.

At any rate I'm not one for telling others how to spend their money - Was just a suggetion, no offense meant.

 

[Shootist]

When a 120GB SSD comes down to a price that I can afford, I'll get one, but they are not even close to that yet.

Understand. I had the same thoughts before I got mine.

At any rate I'm not one for telling others how to spend their money - Was just a suggetion, no offense meant.

I was of the same thought, wait for the prices to come down. then after looking at some of the speed reading from these SSD I say Screw It and ordered one. I've blown $200+ on a date that went NO WHERE. Why can't I spend $200+ on something that will actually give me some pleasure.

 

[sygnus21]

Well like I said, I'm not into telling another man how to spend his money. I may suggest something but as soon as they say they don't want to spend that that ends the conversation there as I have to respect their right to do what they will with their funds. I certainly wouldn't want anyone telling me how I should spend my money.

My two cents.

 

[Wallonn7]

When a 120GB SSD comes down to a price that I can afford, I'll get one, but they are not even close to that yet.

If you allow me a suggestion...
Product: Seagate ST95005620AS Momentus XT 500GB Solid State Hybrid Drive - 500GB, 7200 RPM, SATA 3Gb/s at TigerDirect.com
Review: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB ST95005620AS Review - Overclockers Club
About: Momentus XT | 7200 RPM | Seagate

 

[seekermeister]

That would be a lot more interesting if it wasn't Seagate. Despite the part that you annotated in the screenshot about it also being for desktops, everything that I found on your other links only speaks of laptops. I suppose that with the small dimensions, you could just tape it in place inside of a desktop, like some have done with SSDs, but that doesn't appeal much to me.

 

[Wallonn7]

I realize the mistake "7200.11" has been worth more than all the rest ... I respect your position. I hope I have helped in some way. Good luck in your search!

 

[seekermeister]

As Morton would say, when it rains it pours, and it seems that as far as hard drives are concerned, I'm in the monsoon season. It appears that my old 80GB Maxtor is headed for hard drive heaven. When I tried to boot into SUSE, which I just installed on it a couple days ago, it returned a disk read error. So I booted back into Windows and ran HD Tune on it, but it declared it clean as far as the benchmark and error scan. For some reason, it wouldn't read the SMART data on any of my drives, so I upgraded the version and tried again with the same results.

I then ran Crystal Disk Info, and it says that there are reallocated sectors, which I believe means bad sectors, which conflicts with HD Tune. Which is more reliable?

 

[Wallonn7]

As Morton would say, when it rains it pours, and it seems that as far as hard drives are concerned, I'm in the monsoon season. It appears that my old 80GB Maxtor is headed for hard drive heaven. When I tried to boot into SUSE, which I just installed on it a couple days ago, it returned a disk read error. So I booted back into Windows and ran HD Tune on it, but it declared it clean as far as the benchmark and error scan. For some reason, it wouldn't read the SMART data on any of my drives, so I upgraded the version and tried again with the same results.

I then ran Crystal Disk Info, and it says that there are reallocated sectors, which I believe means bad sectors, which conflicts with HD Tune. Which is more reliable?

I suggest you use the Seatools to be sure of the diagnosis.

 

[seekermeister]

I will try that, but I doubt that it will work, considering what I've Googled on the problem:

Solution for "A disk read error occurred." - Hard-Disks - Storage

His solution is not viable for me, because being that the drive is a SATA, I can't alter whether it is a master or slave, it's not a Windows system, and I don't want to clone SUSE to another location. It's unclear to me as to the expertise of the writer, but he certainly sounds like he knows what he is doing.

 

[Wallonn7]

I will try that, but I doubt that it will work, considering what I've Googled on the problem:

Solution for "A disk read error occurred." - Hard-Disks - Storage

His solution is not viable for me, because being that the drive is a SATA, I can't alter whether it is a master or slave, it's not a Windows system, and I don't want to clone SUSE to another location. It's unclear to me as to the expertise of the writer, but he certainly sounds like he knows what he is doing.

Do not be so pessimistic! :ar: Since I had that problem with a Samsung HDD, I used its tool and it solved the problem. That's why I told you to do the same.