18 replies to this topic

[Ski]

Sorry to be so crass as a new member, but if you are gonna buy a new HD, after 30+ years of experience - stay away from Western Digital!!

Have a WD1600AAJS - 160G SATA drive that has been RMAed 4 times since 1 Sep this year. One would be acceptable, two - maybe - three... now it's getting old..... 4....?? Keep getting refurbed junk. Tried e-mailing them, but my beef - JUNK for sale - doesn't fit into their parameters for questions.

The original old drive went bad, was still under warranty - replaced on 1 Sep 09, by the time I got it and got it formatted, it lasted a couple of weeks. That one was replaced on 5 Nov 09 - this drive never even formatted out of the box it was DOA. Replaced that one with the 4th drive on 1 Dec 09, lasted 3 days. Just got that one formatted and everything copied over, and it just stops...... Freezes the box, on reboot nothing past '...you have 27 seconds to boot Winbloz normally.'

Gonna order a new larger SATA drive, currently have 2 80G that I hope I can restore to. Aint gonna order WD, and AINT gonna order from NewEgg - just had a MAJOR problem with them, after near 5 years business with them.

Any suggestions? I'm lookin at Seagate, but I think they are all about the same anymore - outsourced junk!!

Never rains, it pours.....

[Broni]

I guess, it's just bad luck.
My brand new Seagate lasted 6 weeks....LOL
Replaced with Samsung....so far, so good....over 2 years, but....I really don't think, brand is the issue.

Look around. Nothing is made anymore to last forever.
Just bought a pair of work gloves. One finger broke apart after 1 hour of use...

[rokytnji]

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Look around. Nothing is made anymore to last forever.

Quite true Broni. I have IDE drives that are ancient still chugging along.

The 80 gig sata in my IBM M57 still works (knock on wood). Wife bought me one of those Western 1 TB My Books to go with it. First thing I noticed was no off switch. Have to unmount and unplug power cord to turn it off. I have a couple external 250 gig IDE external Enclosure USB drives (they have a off switch) where the hardrives are ancient (to some users) that keep working also.

I think, as they try to cram more memory in same size boxes/enclosures. More things can go wrong.

Waiting to see how long SSD drives in my ASUS 900 eee LAST to.

[JohnT]

I had more than my share of Western Digitals go bad but I think it goes in Phases. For awhile Seagate was having problems. I sometimes think they take turns as to what will be junk for awhile and who gets the lead. Kind of like Anti virus software. No one software remains on top for any length of time. Consistency is something these companies cannot maintain.

[Broni]

I think, part of the problem is probably price war.
One wants to be cheaper, than the other and they outsource to more and more crappy countries.

[Ski]

Well to resurrect this thread - Got an RMA'ed drive from WD before the Holidays. Just left it on the bench figuring I'll try it later. Opened it this evening, and lo & behold, WD sent me a 320G WD3200JS series drive. Formats out to 298G - so that's kinda nice. It only took 5 returns, maybe this one will work. Hope so.

Gotta find a larger server case, on that could hold 7 or so drives. 4 SATA & 3 IDE for a total of ~1.3TB - probably act as a small furnace, but gotta try it (oh and 2 optical drives). Now all I need is about a 1K W PS..... :)

[JohnT]

Hope it works well for you. Right now I am sitting with a 1TB WD external drive and hope it lasts for awhile. I gave away the Maxtor 120gb that I was using, it was over 5 years old and never any problems.

[Ski]

Well, I've had poor luck with WD recently. But maybe their 160G SATA drive is no good. Hopefully the newer one I received will work. I'm not going to put much faith in it for a while, just exercise it a lot for a couple of weeks, til it either breaks or lasts......

Been using a new 500G Seagate for about a month so far..... all OK - so far!!

[Broni]

Trust me, these days, it's more about your luck, than a brand name.
They don't make stuff, which will last for 50 years anymore.

[Keeper]

I still use my 6 yr old external Maxtor One Touch for back-ups of major items on all my computers, Why, I trust it more than any new ones that's over 500GB. Knock wood my Arrayo (unknown manufacturer - Dell) 1.280TB HD is still working after 1 yr....

[Broni]

You don't have Seagate anymore. It's Chinagate.
You don't have Western Digital. You have Thai Digital.
...and so on.

[Broni]

My Vista desktop came with Seagate. I always considered it a good brand.
And?
It lasted SIX WEEKS.
Surely made in some Vietnam, or whatever.

[Man'n'Black-4xp]

I think that sata is junk period, no matter who puts their name on it.
W.D.'s old school H.D.'s are built like tanks...

[Berton]

Newsletter today says Seagate just acquired the Samsung line of HDDs, makes WDC and Seagate the major players with Fujitsu and Hitachi still available.

I have to agree about SATA, I've replaced more of them in the last two years that I have the PATA but then it could be the SATA controller on the motherboard contributing to the issue or the SATA power connection.

[Man'n'Black-4xp]

Quote

Newsletter today says Seagate just acquired the Samsung line of HDDs, makes WDC and Seagate the major players with Fujitsu and Hitachi still available.

Seagate Scoops Up Samsung's Hard Drive Business for $1.375 Billion

Western Digital Buying Hitachi's Hard Drive Business for $4.3 Billion

Quote

but then it could be the SATA controller on the motherboard contributing to the issue or the SATA power connection.

I have the "my book" and the controller board crapped dumping the "translater" program, and windows could not make heads or tails of the information {my 1 tera byte of pixals and what not}. Thus I had to re-format it to NTFS, losing all data {I spent 3 weeks trying to recover to no avail}

[katz1113]

Well I have a 1.5 TB External Seagate Freeagent Desk Top.. It started getting very warm and freezing up , when I contacted Seagate they said OHH it's probably from transferring large amounts of Data! duhhh.. When we decided to test it, I was told to move all my data off first in case it got lost... So I bought a 3 TB Seagate GoFlex Desk Top..transferred all the data 1.02 TB of it.. Now this %&$#%@ thing will not scan by Norton... It starts the scan and ends immediately saying 1 file scanned!!!! No viruses found. Norton worked with me for hours trying to find out why it wouldn't scan, they couldn't come up with any reason...Now Seagate wants me to take all the data off this one before testing it.. I am SOOOO ticked. I'll never ever buy another Seagate. The Seagate techs seem to have such a "OH Well" attitude about them it's frustrating.

katz1113

[JohnT]

They all have times of trouble, one year it is a Seagate not working the next WD, sometime back it was IBM, and next year now that Samsung has merged with Seagate it will most likely be them. Hitachi has had a lousy drive for a number of years. The hard drives are platters and are mechanical. At the rate of speed they work and the data stored on current larger drives it can happen to anyone of them. The bottom line no electronic device including flash drives are safe. My recommendation is if your data is that important and you cannot afford to lose it put a copy to a secondary hard drive and a DVD disc. I have not lost data in the last 8 years doing it that way. Just a thought...............

[katz1113]

I agree John, Thats exactly what I've done..But it seems I have had more problems with the Seagate HD than any others. I also have a WD and a Maxtor.

katz1113

[JohnT]

Cramming more GB in a smaller box may be part of it. I know my old 60gb Maxtor (six years old) still works like a charm.