IBM platter quality

b0ll · Post by **b0ll** » Sun May 26, 2002 10:33 am

Yo,

A friend had problems with files disappearing now and then on his IBM drive.

Is this a known problem due to bad quality of the platters?

/nils

jupiter8 · Post by **jupiter8** » Sun May 26, 2002 11:24 am

The last series of HD:s from was IBM was so bad so they quit doing HD:s!!!
They are infamous for dying suddenly.
I have myself though and it works fine but i am getting more and more nervous.

The Z Station · Post by **The Z Station** » Tue May 28, 2002 11:39 am

SCSI, ATAPI, or both?

I've been using an IBM Ultrastar U160 for a few years now and it hasn't shown sign of any anomalies.

[ This Message was edited by: The Z Station on 2002-05-29 15:20 ]

kimgr · Post by **kimgr** » Tue May 28, 2002 12:15 pm

All this talk about IBM drives being crap is, well, crap.
I've installed more than 450 drives on clients setups, and only 2 has come back faulty.
That's a WAY LOWER error count than any other brand.

Kim.

b0ll · Post by **b0ll** » Tue May 28, 2002 9:29 pm

Well, I went for a Seagate drive. Same price.

As thoughts and feelings are creative I would surely have crashed an IBM by being nervous

It sounds like kimgr knows what he is talking about though...

/nils

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Wed May 29, 2002 4:19 am

The IBM drives that were problematic were from a specific range of Deskstar drives known as 75GXP. They were made in hungary and used glass platters. They came in various sizes up to 75gig. I have 2 and 1 of them died a while back, it made a Very nasty scratching sound and all the data on it vanished. They have been dubbed the deathstars and have made many people wary of them. The slightly newer 60GXP drives also had some problems but not as widespread.

IBM have been known in the past to provide very reliable and fast disks and it is highly likely they have ironed out the problems with their new 120GXP range.

The seagate drives are very popular now with musicians because they run so quietly and performance wise there is little difference between the competition.

RedSun · Post by **RedSun** » Wed May 29, 2002 2:03 pm

My 60GXP has performed flawlessly for quite a while. It's the best HD I've had so far.

On the other hand, my friend's 75GXP died after 6 months...

I'll probably buy a Seagate next. Not because of the 75GXP's problems but because they're a bit less noisy.

RedSun .:.

Mammoth · Post by **Mammoth** » Wed May 29, 2002 9:44 pm

Isn't Western Digital Caviar better than Seagate Barracuda for multitrack recording ?

My IBM Deskstar 75GXP has died yesterday,... so... I'm looking for a differend brand. Actually, my IBM HD was extrymely fast. I don't think an WD or Seagate will give me same performance..

Bye, my Deskstar, you were the best !....

BTW, it's not so important for me how quiet a drive is, I would prefer a fast drive as IBM HDs are. So, what you guys recommend me, a Seagate or a Western Digital ?
Thanx.

[ This Message was edited by: Mammoth on 2002-05-29 22:58 ]

orbita · Post by **orbita** » Thu May 30, 2002 3:25 am

Your best bet for hard disk performance guides are at http://www.storagereview.com. They do detailed testing. I think the latest western digital drives with 8mb of memory are probably the quickest at the moment. But the even newer ibm 120gxp might have superseded them.

Unless you are really going to push the performance barriers though the seagate drives should be fine. Maxtor are another good alternative and are cheaper and very reliable.

Mammoth · Post by **Mammoth** » Thu May 30, 2002 8:02 am

Thanks.
I think I'll go with two Western Digitals.
As many testers say, the new Maxtor's (ATA-133) performance hasn't increased too much...

subhuman · Post by **subhuman** » Thu May 30, 2002 8:06 am

Maxtor and Seagate make my favorite drives, the newer liquid bearing Maxtors in 'quiet mode' are about as quiet as the Seagates. It seems most larger drives with multiple platters (all drives above 40 gig?) get really warm - both Maxtor 80gig and Seagate 80gig get about the same temperature.

I used the Western Digitals only on a few 'top range' systems, and of course, they were the special edition versions with the 8meg CACHE. I would only go WD if you get these 8meg SE versions. They really do fly! And they aren't that much louder than the Maxtor w/o 'quiet mode.' Seagate takes the cake for quiet tho, easily.

[ This Message was edited by: subhuman on 2002-05-30 09:06 ]