In light of what may appear to the casual browser an epidemic of Samsung HDD failures...
1) I've gone through a dozen in the past 14-16 months w/o a single problem.
2) A certain percentage of drives from every brand appear to fail over any specific peirod, given a big enough sampleing. It's just the nature of things made by people. This is especially true for things owned by people who muck around with them all the time (ie -- silentpc geeks).
3) We here in the SPCR forums tend to put popular items under extreme scrutiny (like Samsung and Seagate Barracuda drives, Seasonic PSUs, etc). No surprise that blemishes and oddities show up under such close examination. Do that with ANY mass-product on the market and you'd see the same thing.
4) ARM Systems, HUSH Technologies and EndPCNoise have all recently moved to Samsung drives (partly because of my recommendation). So far so good, for them, though each is cautious about blanket approvals without longer experience.
What I am saying is that the high criticism of Samsung drives does not appear justified. Why can't people see that Samsung is currently the only drive maker that offers a genuinely quiet 3.5" desktop drive at a modest price?!!
DISCLAIMER: I don't have any pecuiniary relationship to Samsung. In fact, they don't even send review samples any more.
In defence of Samsung HDDs...
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
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MikeC
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In defence of Samsung HDDs...
Last edited by MikeC on Sun Jun 06, 2004 12:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dukla2000
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Re: In defence of Samsung HDDs...
Mike - I agree 100% that the best place to start looking for a quiet hdd is Samsung. Just like the best place to start with quiet 80mm fans is probably Panaflo L1A, and indeed the best place to form a psu baseline is SeaSonic.MikeC wrote:Why can't people see that Samsung is currently the only drive maker that offers a genuinely quiet 3.5" desktop drive at a modest price?!!
However, we can't be blind to reports that you may not be 100% satisfied with your purchase. My sample size of Samsung hdd is 2 - I have no reliability or noise issues. However I am puzzled by:
1) The "whine" thread/poll: may just be some folks ears, maybe just part of that "certain percentage", maybe a genuine batch/manufacture problem. So far I have no conclusion.
2) Both my (SATA) drives on 2 different mobos report (via Hitachi Disk Utility) that SMART is disabled. Not a big deal for me - just slightly aggravating. Actually the lack of SMART temps (others have 'wild' temp readings) is less irritating to me than the fact Samsung dont have a utility that works!
3) Reliability: again there are folk here who seem to be victims. I admitted previously I RMA'd my first Samsung in error when in fact it was me who was too dumb to get SATA drivers working. I have no personal opinion on broader Samsung hdd reliability - AFAIK it is as good as anyone else. I always suspect that in forums you see a far higher percentage of failures reported than successes. As per another thread here you have to be able to discriminate for yourself from all the 'noise' available on the web.
My bottom line - of course we should criticise Samsung! Responsibly, both good & bad. I feel their hdd are above average for the basket of features important to me, but have no scruples trying to get them improved. (Despite any possible weaknesses) I am also recommending them for use in systems I build for my employers
I haven't really scanned for these forums, but it seems that @ StorageReview.com most of the failures are reported by new users. What I'm trying to say is that many people just read these forums. And, as the general consensus is pointing that "Samsung = best at the market", they all tend to get one.
Say a thousand drives are sold. Even with failure rate of 0,1% per year (IIRC Maxtor claims 0,5% annual return rate), there is going to be one lemon. Now, say that the person that gets the lemon comes here, registers and posts "Oh God, it melted up after a month!" - effectively saying that all Samsungs are bad.
OK, I'm not even starting to debate what happens if some clutch at NewEgg happens to drop one of the OEM containers for the drives...
Cheers,
Jan
Say a thousand drives are sold. Even with failure rate of 0,1% per year (IIRC Maxtor claims 0,5% annual return rate), there is going to be one lemon. Now, say that the person that gets the lemon comes here, registers and posts "Oh God, it melted up after a month!" - effectively saying that all Samsungs are bad.
OK, I'm not even starting to debate what happens if some clutch at NewEgg happens to drop one of the OEM containers for the drives...
Cheers,
Jan
The problem is that we have not bought a thousand drives between us, but there are still alot of dead units to take into account. I agree that some ef the deaths is Death by User, mine was and the one rolling the forums right now, but it still leaves to many unaccounted for. I mean, conciderring how many seagates there are in this community, there is alot more complaining over samsung.
I am not saying samsung is bad, nor that it isn't good. We do not have the statistical material to determine that. However, when compared to other popular models, there seems to be much complaining about dead Samsung units.
I am not saying samsung is bad, nor that it isn't good. We do not have the statistical material to determine that. However, when compared to other popular models, there seems to be much complaining about dead Samsung units.
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MikeC
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other popular models
And which ones would they be? There are only two drives worthy of consideration by silencers -- Samsung SP series and Barracuda V -- which is effectively discontinued. OK, some of the 7200.7 are not too bad, but they're not what the IV and V were.
I think Jan Kivar makes a valid point when he says "most of the failures are reported by new users"; ie, people logging on just to report a problem. Fewer people log on to say their drive works fine.
Don't get me wrong; I am not saying Samsung is any more reliable than any other HDD brand; just that there is no compelling evidence it is less reliable. I know full well that when it comes to DIY PCs, user error ranks #1 as the cause for component failure.
And which ones would they be? There are only two drives worthy of consideration by silencers -- Samsung SP series and Barracuda V -- which is effectively discontinued. OK, some of the 7200.7 are not too bad, but they're not what the IV and V were.
Oh you are, indeed saying it is bad. Your comments just previous to that:I am not saying samsung is bad, nor that it isn't good.
Which is a totally unfair, IMO: How do you know how many Seagates there are? And how many Samsungs? You don't, so that comment is really unfounded. I personally have only a couple Seagates in my "fleet" now and at least 6-7 Samsungs.conciderring how many seagates there are in this community, there is alot more complaining over samsung.
I think Jan Kivar makes a valid point when he says "most of the failures are reported by new users"; ie, people logging on just to report a problem. Fewer people log on to say their drive works fine.
Don't get me wrong; I am not saying Samsung is any more reliable than any other HDD brand; just that there is no compelling evidence it is less reliable. I know full well that when it comes to DIY PCs, user error ranks #1 as the cause for component failure.
I think MikeC has hit on a key point, and that is that you need to factor in the selection effects and the sample of drives owned by people who post here.
How many people turn up to post here to complain about their IBM drive dying? Not many. Does that mean IBM drives are reliable? No, far from it (they're not called DeathStars for nothing).
How many people turn up to post here to complain about their IBM drive dying? Not many. Does that mean IBM drives are reliable? No, far from it (they're not called DeathStars for nothing
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Ralf Hutter
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HDD failure is something that I've seen become much more of an issue since the Deathstar debacle. Ever since then it's been quite common to see pissing contests erupt between the various HDD factions. "I'll never buy xxxxxxxx brand again, I've seen too many fail". But invariably you can fill in the blank with the name of every HDD manufacturer out there. The simple fact is that a handfull of guys bitching on the internet about their crappy drives is not statistically significant in any way.
A few years ago, Storage Review tried to address this issue by creating a "Reliability Database" where people could log in and post the records of all their HDDs, whether good or bad. This has turned into the only halfway decent sized HDD database that I've ever seen. It may even have some statistical significance for those drives with large sample sizes (typically the popular drives like WD JB & BB, Maxtor DM9, IBM 60 & 75GXP etc) and my educated guess is that this is the best we'll ever get. I've never seen any reliability data from any HDD manufacturer. Heck, it turns out that IBM lied like a rug about their Deathstars reliability stats during the class action lawsuit.
What everyone needs to remember, and seems to always forget, is that people don't tend to post on computer forums to crow about their great new piece of hardware, they post to ask for help about their defective hardware. This gives a skewed perspective of the hardware. Sure, there's certainly some bad apples out there but it's very difficult to pass a judgement based on a small sample size of a very non-representitive population.
A few years ago, Storage Review tried to address this issue by creating a "Reliability Database" where people could log in and post the records of all their HDDs, whether good or bad. This has turned into the only halfway decent sized HDD database that I've ever seen. It may even have some statistical significance for those drives with large sample sizes (typically the popular drives like WD JB & BB, Maxtor DM9, IBM 60 & 75GXP etc) and my educated guess is that this is the best we'll ever get. I've never seen any reliability data from any HDD manufacturer. Heck, it turns out that IBM lied like a rug about their Deathstars reliability stats during the class action lawsuit.
What everyone needs to remember, and seems to always forget, is that people don't tend to post on computer forums to crow about their great new piece of hardware, they post to ask for help about their defective hardware. This gives a skewed perspective of the hardware. Sure, there's certainly some bad apples out there but it's very difficult to pass a judgement based on a small sample size of a very non-representitive population.
First. by "other popular models" I referred to the most commonly used brands except Samsung, not that there is modells that is as quiet as the samsung. So please, Mike, don't mix apples and oranges.
After rereading my post above, due to my deteriorating skills in english, maybe I came out abit to strong in what I said. I thought I was clear enough when I stated that we do not have enough statistical evidence to say jack realy about samsungs. Since I am one semester from a university degree in statistics, I am fully aware of that. HOWEVER, There has been alot of reported bad samsungs. It may be inconclusive, but it may be a clue. Since the period when the forums was flooded with reports of dead samsungs there has not been much in that way, that may also be a clue. faulty batch perhaps.
Meanwhile, however, I have not seen much of complaints about other brands. perhaps not as popular (as you want to use the word mike) as samsung, but other brands are common. I have not kept my eyes out for dead harddrives in general though, it is just my subjective observation.
As for the "most of the failures are reported by new users"-argument only holds if samsung-drives are the ONLY (or close to) drives people who reads this forum buy. The same logic Jan use says that, okey, samsung has 90% of the SPCR market (which I doubt) and Seagate the rest, if 10k units were sold, 1000 of whose would be seagate, faulty seagate would amass as well.
My point in general is that we have not seen enough evidence that samsung is bad in general, but for me, I have seen enuogh to be at least alittle suspicous.
After rereading my post above, due to my deteriorating skills in english, maybe I came out abit to strong in what I said. I thought I was clear enough when I stated that we do not have enough statistical evidence to say jack realy about samsungs. Since I am one semester from a university degree in statistics, I am fully aware of that. HOWEVER, There has been alot of reported bad samsungs. It may be inconclusive, but it may be a clue. Since the period when the forums was flooded with reports of dead samsungs there has not been much in that way, that may also be a clue. faulty batch perhaps.
Meanwhile, however, I have not seen much of complaints about other brands. perhaps not as popular (as you want to use the word mike) as samsung, but other brands are common. I have not kept my eyes out for dead harddrives in general though, it is just my subjective observation.
As for the "most of the failures are reported by new users"-argument only holds if samsung-drives are the ONLY (or close to) drives people who reads this forum buy. The same logic Jan use says that, okey, samsung has 90% of the SPCR market (which I doubt) and Seagate the rest, if 10k units were sold, 1000 of whose would be seagate, faulty seagate would amass as well.
My point in general is that we have not seen enough evidence that samsung is bad in general, but for me, I have seen enuogh to be at least alittle suspicous.
Last edited by Tobias on Thu May 06, 2004 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ralf Hutter
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Too subjective in my estimation. The vast majority of SPCR members only have Seagate or Samsung drives so what we see here is a very skewed sample. If you frequented as many computer forums as I did, you'd see that at places like Ars, Anandtech, OCForums, Asusforums, etc, etc they bitch about WD, Maxtor, IBM/Hitachi etc and you never hear a word about Seagate or Samsung. Does that mean all their Seagate and Samsung drives are working perfectly? No it means that they own few of those drives but they that they own mostly the more common drives. Does that mean that WD, Maxtor etc make crappy drives because that's all they bitch about? No, that means that those are the kind of drives they own so that's their "universe" and that's what they complain about.Tobias wrote:Meanwhile, however, I have not seen much of complaints about other brands. perhaps not as popular (as you want to use the word mike) as samsung, but other brands are common. I have not kept my eyes out for dead harddrives in general though, it is just my subjective observation.
And Seagate has certainly come under fire here, just not so much over the past 9 months since the Spinpoints became the "drive of choice" here at SPCR. Go back to pre-August 2003 and you'll see tha Seagate had an inordinate share of the complaints. Where they made better back then? No, the sample size is just smaller now.Tobias wrote:As for the "most of the failures are reported by new users"-argument only holds if samsung-drives are the ONLY (or close to) drives people who reads this forum buy. The same logic Jan use says that, okey, samsung has 90% of the SPCR market (which I doubt) and Seagate the rest, if 10k units were sold, 1000 of whose would be seagate, faulty seagate would amass as well.
If you know about statistics, you'll realize that trying to predict a trend from a small, very unrepresentative (i.e. people post to complain, not to give a "thumbs up") sample size is shear folly, and that's what we're trying to do here.
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Shadowknight
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I know that some people have had problems with Samsung drives, but the amount of threads about is ridiculous. I think there have been around 8 different threads on the same thing in the last six months.
MikeC, you might want to just sticky just ONE of the voting threads, since some people seem to be (in my opinion) overly freaking out over this. While it's important for newcomers to know that there MAY be issues with this piece of equipment, I think the sheer number of voting threads on this topic may unfairly paint the picture of the Samsung as being utter crap.
P.S. - I've had no problems whatsover with my Samsung, been running fine since August.
MikeC, you might want to just sticky just ONE of the voting threads, since some people seem to be (in my opinion) overly freaking out over this. While it's important for newcomers to know that there MAY be issues with this piece of equipment, I think the sheer number of voting threads on this topic may unfairly paint the picture of the Samsung as being utter crap.
P.S. - I've had no problems whatsover with my Samsung, been running fine since August.
The funny thing I always notice about drive failures are two fold:
1. When a few people run into a batch of bad drives, everyone with a drive of that brand that has failed jumps on the bandwagon. All of a sudden, a manufacturer has gained a "reputation" for crap. The fact is, however, that compared to the Deathstar, the problems they are seeing are normal drive failure. It does happen! Yeah it sucks when it happens to you, but that doesn't mean they make shitty drives.
2. Everyone fails to note "the history of this device from birth to abortion" (to quote a movie). That means from the factory, to the truck that brought it to a distributor, to the asshole at UPS or Fedex who tossed your packaged drive around and kicked it, to the delivery guy who shot-put it to your door. Before you even get the drive it's been abused somewhat, most likely. Then people put these fast heat beasts into cases with less than ideal ventilation and let the case temps rise above 50C all the time and then bitch when the drive dies. If tech support has taught me anything it's that people HATE taking responsibility. They hate even more when they "diagnose" a problem and then are proven wrong. So, to help keep their fragile psyches from crumbling they lie and convince themselves it couldn't possibly be their fault, it must be that piece of hardware was bad.
This is how Maxtor, WD, Hitachi/IBM, Seagate, Samsung, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and anyone else I left out has a "reputation for low quality crap" depending on the circle you run in. A bunch of anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.
Hell, if I went on just my family's and my own experience when buying drives, I'd have tough luck. I've only ever had a single HDD die on me, a 40GB Fujitsu that I RMAed and the replacement has been working for my sister for three years now.
This isn't necessarily the case though. However consider this: how many people sit around and post threads bragging about how long a particular device lasted? You post in a forum like this when you have problem, not when everything is working beautifully. Therefore the failures are going to be highly concentrated and it's going to look like more failure is happening than really is.
1. When a few people run into a batch of bad drives, everyone with a drive of that brand that has failed jumps on the bandwagon. All of a sudden, a manufacturer has gained a "reputation" for crap. The fact is, however, that compared to the Deathstar, the problems they are seeing are normal drive failure. It does happen! Yeah it sucks when it happens to you, but that doesn't mean they make shitty drives.
2. Everyone fails to note "the history of this device from birth to abortion" (to quote a movie). That means from the factory, to the truck that brought it to a distributor, to the asshole at UPS or Fedex who tossed your packaged drive around and kicked it, to the delivery guy who shot-put it to your door. Before you even get the drive it's been abused somewhat, most likely. Then people put these fast heat beasts into cases with less than ideal ventilation and let the case temps rise above 50C all the time and then bitch when the drive dies. If tech support has taught me anything it's that people HATE taking responsibility. They hate even more when they "diagnose" a problem and then are proven wrong. So, to help keep their fragile psyches from crumbling they lie and convince themselves it couldn't possibly be their fault, it must be that piece of hardware was bad.
This is how Maxtor, WD, Hitachi/IBM, Seagate, Samsung, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and anyone else I left out has a "reputation for low quality crap" depending on the circle you run in. A bunch of anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.
Hell, if I went on just my family's and my own experience when buying drives, I'd have tough luck. I've only ever had a single HDD die on me, a 40GB Fujitsu that I RMAed and the replacement has been working for my sister for three years now.
This isn't necessarily the case though. However consider this: how many people sit around and post threads bragging about how long a particular device lasted? You post in a forum like this when you have problem, not when everything is working beautifully. Therefore the failures are going to be highly concentrated and it's going to look like more failure is happening than really is.
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NapalmDeath
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The easiest way to diagnose a bad drive is to use the vendor's own utility.
They all have them on their websites. Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate...
They don't want to receive any NTF (no trouble found) drives more than you want to mail it.
HUTIL diagnosed my Samsung SP1614N with a media error. I ran several other utilities which saw nothing wrong. Per Samsung's advice, I ran a low level format, but the media error persisted. Not wanting to risk my data, I did an RMA while I was well within the warranty. I expected to get a new drive, but instead got a refund since newegg didn't have any more in stock.
(BTW I think it stinks that I spent $11 to ship it back, and only got a refund of my purchase from newegg. I'm out $11 for nothing now.)
What shocked me is that a search for SP1614N only returned (3) vendors on Pricewatch, and it doesn't seem like newegg is going to restock them.
To a vendor, RMA's cost money, and right or wrong, any product with too much heartburn will get dropped.
I also read on another website that Samsung and Toshiba are looking to get out of the hard disk market. IF you find a rock solid SP1614N, hang onto it. They may become very rare....
They all have them on their websites. Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate...
They don't want to receive any NTF (no trouble found) drives more than you want to mail it.
HUTIL diagnosed my Samsung SP1614N with a media error. I ran several other utilities which saw nothing wrong. Per Samsung's advice, I ran a low level format, but the media error persisted. Not wanting to risk my data, I did an RMA while I was well within the warranty. I expected to get a new drive, but instead got a refund since newegg didn't have any more in stock.
(BTW I think it stinks that I spent $11 to ship it back, and only got a refund of my purchase from newegg. I'm out $11 for nothing now.)
What shocked me is that a search for SP1614N only returned (3) vendors on Pricewatch, and it doesn't seem like newegg is going to restock them.
To a vendor, RMA's cost money, and right or wrong, any product with too much heartburn will get dropped.
I also read on another website that Samsung and Toshiba are looking to get out of the hard disk market. IF you find a rock solid SP1614N, hang onto it. They may become very rare....
[[ I wasn't sure where to post this anecdote, so why not here. ]]
A week or two ago, I posted about a bone fide Samsung failure (currently RMA'ing through Newegg). Yesterday, I had a Western Digital drive (WD1200) fail, and today the WD diagnostics returned "Too many errors; contact WD." This boot drive was in use 24/7 for almost two years (purchased before I found SPCR).
Bottom line: HD failures happen--no matter the vendor.
A week or two ago, I posted about a bone fide Samsung failure (currently RMA'ing through Newegg). Yesterday, I had a Western Digital drive (WD1200) fail, and today the WD diagnostics returned "Too many errors; contact WD." This boot drive was in use 24/7 for almost two years (purchased before I found SPCR).
Bottom line: HD failures happen--no matter the vendor.
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dukla2000
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And I am still waiting with antici.............pation for the version of HUTIL that recognises my SP0812Cs on Via 8237 southbridge controllersNapalmDeath wrote:The easiest way to diagnose a bad drive is to use the vendor's own utility.
They all have them on their websites. Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate...
They don't want to receive any NTF (no trouble found) drives more than you want to mail it.
HUTIL diagnosed my Samsung SP1614N with a media error.
The problem seems to be with the VIA 8237 controller. Just ran Seagate's on-line Seatools on my Seagate B V sata (VIA 8237 controller) and Hitachi 7K250 sata meow drive (Intel ICH5 controller.)And I am still waiting with antici.............pation for the version of HUTIL that recognises my SP0812Cs on Via 8237 southbridge controllers
No SMART status or drive test at all with the VIA 8237 controller and SMART status and "quickie drive test" completed with the ICH5 controller. So, those griping about no drive test available for Samsung sata drives (only pata here,) the tennis ball apparently is in VIA's court - not Samsung.
M
I've used drives from Maxtor, Seagate, WD and never had any fail on me. But this post won't be on that.
I've spent 4 years working in an electronics factory. One thing I've learned that electronics WILL go wrong on you in LARGE batches whatever QC you do. Parts tolerances for electronics parts are flat; and a few components at the wrong edge of the tolerance curve and you get dead hardware.
Now, every company follows a different strategy in producing their wares. Some go for reliability, some for speed, some for cost, some for features, some for value received, etc. So they DESIGN their products for that strategy. Which drive brand do you know as FAST? WD? they've claimed that title over and over for many years; yet I remember serious bitching about their drives back some 6 years or so - comparable in size to the deathstar issue. That's because they DESIGN for high speed and make sacrifices in other areas; maybe components with larger tolerance ranges, or high heat resistance with low reliability or whatever. You just don't get everything all at once.
Now coming back to the two brands under the spotlight in SPCR; Seagate is a brand I've always identified with reliability. Never performance, never price, but always reliability, and usually with quietness.
Samsung on the other hand, I've followed closely. Samsung's a huge electronics conglomerate with MANY different branches, from TVs to chips to drives to ..... They have excellent R&D and produce astounding technology - regularly. But as corporate strategy, they always go for price/value. Major selling samsung items, be it mobile phones or TV sets, regularly have lower reliability ratings than brands associated with quality. Not because they can't but because they choose NOT to. It's their strategy and their branding, so noone has the right to critisize them on this issue. That's how they've built their brand and it's a strong brand with good acceptance worldwide.
Would I buy a samsung HDD? Not for my primary data disk. I am however thinking of getting one for a AV center I'm planning. I'll be looking for quiet and low price for the AV, not reliability.
So I suggest before flaming any brand for any issue - be it reliability or price or speed or value - we'd be better off thinking about above issues. If you don't like the package they offer, you don't buy it. It just doesn't mean they've done things wrong.
I've spent 4 years working in an electronics factory. One thing I've learned that electronics WILL go wrong on you in LARGE batches whatever QC you do. Parts tolerances for electronics parts are flat; and a few components at the wrong edge of the tolerance curve and you get dead hardware.
Now, every company follows a different strategy in producing their wares. Some go for reliability, some for speed, some for cost, some for features, some for value received, etc. So they DESIGN their products for that strategy. Which drive brand do you know as FAST? WD? they've claimed that title over and over for many years; yet I remember serious bitching about their drives back some 6 years or so - comparable in size to the deathstar issue. That's because they DESIGN for high speed and make sacrifices in other areas; maybe components with larger tolerance ranges, or high heat resistance with low reliability or whatever. You just don't get everything all at once.
Now coming back to the two brands under the spotlight in SPCR; Seagate is a brand I've always identified with reliability. Never performance, never price, but always reliability, and usually with quietness.
Samsung on the other hand, I've followed closely. Samsung's a huge electronics conglomerate with MANY different branches, from TVs to chips to drives to ..... They have excellent R&D and produce astounding technology - regularly. But as corporate strategy, they always go for price/value. Major selling samsung items, be it mobile phones or TV sets, regularly have lower reliability ratings than brands associated with quality. Not because they can't but because they choose NOT to. It's their strategy and their branding, so noone has the right to critisize them on this issue. That's how they've built their brand and it's a strong brand with good acceptance worldwide.
Would I buy a samsung HDD? Not for my primary data disk. I am however thinking of getting one for a AV center I'm planning. I'll be looking for quiet and low price for the AV, not reliability.
So I suggest before flaming any brand for any issue - be it reliability or price or speed or value - we'd be better off thinking about above issues. If you don't like the package they offer, you don't buy it. It just doesn't mean they've done things wrong.
I've been following the Samsung HDDs topics closely. I've got 3 120Gb drives - WD, Hitachi and Seagate. None of them are what I want.
The Seagate has no whine, but has audible seeks. Has constant seeking buzz when idle
The Hitachi whines but has silent seeks with AAM. Also has reset noise
Western Digital - has both whine and seek noise.
Samsung is my only hope - I'm just waiting on them bringing out some higher capacity drives.
The Seagate has no whine, but has audible seeks. Has constant seeking buzz when idle
The Hitachi whines but has silent seeks with AAM. Also has reset noise
Western Digital - has both whine and seek noise.
Samsung is my only hope - I'm just waiting on them bringing out some higher capacity drives.
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shadestalker
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In reference to seemingly low availability of vendor listings for the sp1614n, try froogle (beta): http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=sp1 ... oogle&sa=N
Pricewatch is sooo late 90's.
Lots of results from froogle, including an attractively priced entry from Directron.
Also, some vendors such as Microcenter may have the drives under a different designation on their site. Microcenter inexplicably lists theirs as SP161NR30 online, but in stores the item is indeed an OEM sp1614n.
Pricewatch is sooo late 90's.
Lots of results from froogle, including an attractively priced entry from Directron.
Also, some vendors such as Microcenter may have the drives under a different designation on their site. Microcenter inexplicably lists theirs as SP161NR30 online, but in stores the item is indeed an OEM sp1614n.
Drives (including those in notebooks) I've purchased (for myself or family) that have failed in the past few years:
1/3 Western Digitals
1/4 IBMs (not Deathstars-- and the bad one was in a RAID 0 array!)
3/9 Seagates (including one in the last week of warranty, and one factory replacement that was returned because it was too noisy)
0/4 Samsungs (all purchased within last 6 months)
0/3 Toshibas (all notebook drives)
One thing that's important to keep in mind is that there are different kinds of failures. A DOA drive is different than one that fails after 2 years, and that's different than one that fails after 10 years. For me, the worst is drives that fail after 2 years, while they're being used for daily work. Big hassle, even if you do have a good backup policy (and if you don't, shame on you). A DOA drive is frustrating, but shouldn't be a threat to your data. A drive that finally fails after 10 years should be buried in a place of honor; all drives will fail eventually, and 10 years is way longer than the reasonable service life of any commodity hard drive.
[flame]My attitude is that when you buy a drive, you're really buying data storage service for the drive's warranty period. If Seagates really are more reliable than Samsungs, then Seagate can go back to 3 year warranties. Even their retail boxed 8MB cache units have only 1 year warranties.[/flame]
PS. The Microcenter near King of Prussia, PA has Samsung SP1614Ns in stock for $109 no rebate. Get 'em while they last!
1/3 Western Digitals
1/4 IBMs (not Deathstars-- and the bad one was in a RAID 0 array!)
3/9 Seagates (including one in the last week of warranty, and one factory replacement that was returned because it was too noisy)
0/4 Samsungs (all purchased within last 6 months)
0/3 Toshibas (all notebook drives)
One thing that's important to keep in mind is that there are different kinds of failures. A DOA drive is different than one that fails after 2 years, and that's different than one that fails after 10 years. For me, the worst is drives that fail after 2 years, while they're being used for daily work. Big hassle, even if you do have a good backup policy (and if you don't, shame on you). A DOA drive is frustrating, but shouldn't be a threat to your data. A drive that finally fails after 10 years should be buried in a place of honor; all drives will fail eventually, and 10 years is way longer than the reasonable service life of any commodity hard drive.
[flame]My attitude is that when you buy a drive, you're really buying data storage service for the drive's warranty period. If Seagates really are more reliable than Samsungs, then Seagate can go back to 3 year warranties. Even their retail boxed 8MB cache units have only 1 year warranties.[/flame]
PS. The Microcenter near King of Prussia, PA has Samsung SP1614Ns in stock for $109 no rebate. Get 'em while they last!
I have 2 160 SATA samsungs and 1 160gig PATA and none have died on me
I have had 2 WD die on me and seen 3 more on top of that.
I have a 60gig maxtor from my second compaq like 4 years ago and it is still going strong! This thing has been threw hell too
One of my friends seagate out like 10 have died.
I only buy samsung now.
I really hate WD, they are so loud and they are the only ones i have seen in person die alot
~RaNDoM
I have had 2 WD die on me and seen 3 more on top of that.
I have a 60gig maxtor from my second compaq like 4 years ago and it is still going strong! This thing has been threw hell too
One of my friends seagate out like 10 have died.
I only buy samsung now.
I really hate WD, they are so loud and they are the only ones i have seen in person die alot
~RaNDoM
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NapalmDeath
- Posts: 148
- Joined: Mon May 12, 2003 1:08 pm
Most of those vendors on Froogle I've never heard of.
If a vendor is still listed on Pricewatch from the "so late 90's" I feel comfortable buying from them.
To be honest my Samsung SP1614N didn't show any issues. Their diagnostic said something was wrong, and I just didn't want to wait until it failed. After reading burkakb's post it makes sense.
The Hitachi and Seagate utility didn't show any errors.
I really did like the silence of the Samsung while I had it.
I'd even try another one.
If a vendor is still listed on Pricewatch from the "so late 90's" I feel comfortable buying from them.
To be honest my Samsung SP1614N didn't show any issues. Their diagnostic said something was wrong, and I just didn't want to wait until it failed. After reading burkakb's post it makes sense.
The Hitachi and Seagate utility didn't show any errors.
I really did like the silence of the Samsung while I had it.
I'd even try another one.
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Nowhere_man
- Posts: 190
- Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 5:50 am
- Location: USA
lol, I had new WD Raptor go flying across the room and bounce of my chairmat and land on the carpet, seriously, I hadn't even taken it out of the ESD bag yet but it was out of the protective foam package. Works fine. They're tougher than you'd think.Jan Kivar wrote:OK, I'm not even starting to debate what happens if some clutch at NewEgg happens to drop one of the OEM containers for the drives...
I'm not the "typical SPCR" person. I am currently using an 80gig Maxtor Ultra (very quiet) and a pair of WD 37gig Raptors (no whine) all three together make much less noise than the Maxtor D740X-6L "nut grinder" I used to use.
I've gone between WD and Maxtor about evenly over the years. I had one 20mb Segate back in the day. I've never had a hard drive die, probably because I retire them before they die and just keep them around for spares.
Heat is to hard drives as high blood pressure is to humans - both are silent killers (no pun intended).
Most drives can sustain a powerful shock, but the lifespan of the drive might be shortened by a year or two. Drives have evolved on this area also, and one-platter configuration is more rugged than any other configuration. My friend dropped a 6 GB Maxtor about 2 feet onto a mat, and it died.Nowhere_man wrote:lol, I had new WD Raptor go flying across the room and bounce of my chairmat and land on the carpet, seriously, I hadn't even taken it out of the ESD bag yet but it was out of the protective foam package. Works fine. They're tougher than you'd think.Jan Kivar wrote:OK, I'm not even starting to debate what happens if some clutch at NewEgg happens to drop one of the OEM containers for the drives...
I'm not the "typical SPCR" person. I am currently using an 80gig Maxtor Ultra (very quiet) and a pair of WD 37gig Raptors (no whine) all three together make much less noise than the Maxtor D740X-6L "nut grinder" I used to use.
I have two D740X-L6s as backup drives. They're FDB, so they don't whine as much as my WD's (WD1200JB), but the seek is LOUD. I'd enable AAM, but I use them like once a week/month, so I can't be bothered.
I do worry about those JVC motors, as some of them seem to whine. Hopefully it's just a bad batch. Especially as I'm gonna buy two Samsungs for my new comp...
Cheers,
Jan
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Nowhere_man
- Posts: 190
- Joined: Tue Mar 23, 2004 5:50 am
- Location: USA
When I made the above post I had the WD Raptors mounted in another case (aluminum with a thick front) and I have since moved the whole setup back to "test mule" Antec SX835 and noticed the whine but only when really close to the case.
I really was pissed when I dropped the drive but pleasantly surprised when it spun up and worked fine.
I really was pissed when I dropped the drive but pleasantly surprised when it spun up and worked fine.