What's a reliable hard drive?

[macx]

my wd caviar se hard drive just over one year old crashed--is that a good brand or are there more reliable ones?

thanks

 

[Tedster]

Western Digital is known to be a good brand as well as seagate. The two now, are one as they merged earlier this year. The fact is most hard drives on the market today are very reliable as hard drives has been produced since the 1960s. Heat is the #1 killer of drives.

 

[Rick]

The two now, are one as they merged earlier this year.

Huh? I think you are referring to Seagate & Maxtor. Quantum merged with Maxtor awhile back, so I guess you could throw Quantum in there too.

is that a good brand or are there more reliable ones?

Good as in "well known", sure... WD is one of the most recognizable brands. Good as in performance - sure - WD has (almost) always been a solid performer. Good as in reliability? Who knows...

Any mechcnical drive is prone to failure, no matter how well designed they are. Seagate is well known for being reliable, but who is to say they are any more reliable than say, Hitachi. I personally haven't seen any empirical data that proves one brand is more reliable than the other but their advertising campaign and success in the server market plants the seed of belief. Seagate also has that 5 year warranty which is kind of like putting your money where you mouth is and for that reason, I might be inclined to choose Seagate, just for the warranty.

If you're looking for the fastest drives, WD's Raptors are choice. The next step down are those perpendicular recording drives by Seagate, I'm betting.

 

[Mirob]

I've had bad luck with Hitachi. Deathstar and the click of death...I'll stick with Western Digital or Seagate.

 

[TimeParadoX]

Digital and Seagate are the best brand for Hard Drives out there...

Here is a link of a HD im getting for my build ( Seagate )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140

 

[Surkitz]

I have a maxtor and have had great success

no crashes, etc. although im due for a new one its dated....120 gig of storage just isnt what the kiddies are doing these days. time for more space

 

[Samstoned]

good is relative term
a good drive is any drive that keeps running or runs a looong time :years
if you want to envest in long term data storage scsi is the only way to go
if not retail seagate, WD or maxtor will be fine if you go with fast servo put a fan on it.
maintenance key to long life
I have 5, 6 and 2 year old maxtors running fine
main system uses 8 scsi's all seagate cept 1 ,4 are over 3 years old, 2 are 2 years old.
I bet I can dig up a old 100 mb conair that still works