|
dandy72 wrote: Also - I'd never buy a refurbished drive. Ask yourself: What are the reasons anyone would ever send a hard drive back?
I would never buy even a new a drive from Amazon. I thought to save some money and bought 2 8TB drives from them (in 2022, IIRC). Both were dead on arrival. Buying the drives locally in Israel is a bit more expensive, but none of them have ever arrived dead.
(Sample of >30 drives over the last 20 years)
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
I've only been buying drives from Amazon for...a decade, maybe? At least 20 drives. None of them have had a hiccup so far (and FWIW, all WD Elements or WD My Book).
|
|
|
|
|
StarNamer@work wrote: I'm wondering what his experience has been with them so far and how it matches with mine
So, I guess not knowing is driving you crazy. Yeah I know, I'll get my coat. 
StarNamer@work wrote: I'm beginning to think this may have been false economy and I'd have done better sticking with newer Seagate drives despite the price!
Keep in mind, I haven't built a RAID in years. So, my experience is old and crusty, but back in the day Seagates were always known to fail before drives like from WD. I'm sure someone online will get upset and emotional about that, but whatever. Anyway, what time span are you talking here? Assume the warranty was still valid then did all these drive failures happen within a year? If so, that's crazy.
Also assuming prior to this HGST fiasco you didn't have drives failing like popcorn popping in the microwave, which would indicate a problem with your housing... maybe it overheats (which is a big problem), or you're setting your enclosure on top of a large speaker magnet for funzies, etc... Then you might be onto something.
If HGST was acquired by WD in 2012 then it's safe to assume they it was acquired with inventory. Given the fact that we had serious economic trouble in 2007-2008 and inventory can be manufactured a few years before it's actually sold to the customer (depends on the size of the company), or even if manufactured in 2012 maybe they started in 2008 being cheap and continued with it. So, in theory it's possible there was some cheap batches made you were unlucky to get. It's just conjecture though. Either way, might be time to try a different brand.
Side note, Google used to keep a list of which drive brands suck. They go through millions of them and they know. They refused to release that list though as it would effectively put that company out of business... even though in a real free market that can and should happen. Which is to say, the consumer is the last person companies care about these days.
Jeremy Falcon
modified 23-Apr-24 12:07pm.
|
|
|
|
|
Jeremy Falcon wrote: Side note, Google used to keep a list of which drive brands suck.
Backblaze isn't shying away from that, and my conclusions seem to match their yearly reports.
RE: HGST...weren't they the ones that had a major flood at their manufacturing plant a decade+ ago, and subsequently had a huge batch of unreliable drives?
|
|
|
|
|
dandy72 wrote: Backblaze isn't shying away from that, and my conclusions seem to match their yearly reports.
Respect.
dandy72 wrote: RE: HGST...weren't they the ones that had a major flood at their manufacturing plant a decade+ ago, and subsequently had a huge batch of unreliable drives?
Dunno. I've been doing cloud everything lately, so me old and crusty with that. Never even heard of HGST until this post. It would explain a lot though.
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
I think HGST used to be a Hitachi brand, and I've purchased external drives from WD, and the drives inside had an HGST label. Even recent ones, so even though they might no longer promote the HGST brand (at least on the box), WD is clearly still using the name internally...
And I don't think I've had any sort of bad failure rate with the drives I have that I know are HGST.
|
|
|
|
|
They were and Hitachi bought that division from IBM earlier. The flooding happened in Thailand if I recall correctly.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
|
|
|
|
|
Weren't the IBM drives originally branded as "deskstar" which, of course, became corrupted to death star?
I've had reasonable experiences with Hitachi and Western Digital drives - no unexpected failures before they were replaced because they were either getting old anyway, or were just replaced for more capacity.
I did have to laugh when many years ago, having just bought and installed a Fujitsu Robin drive a "very knowledgeable" friend (a technical writer journo) posted a list of drives not to be touched with a dirty stick online, and the Fujitsu was top of the stack. That drive eventually got retired some 6 years later without a hiccup when the machine it was in was upgraded.
|
|
|
|
|
Alister Morton wrote: Weren't the IBM drives originally branded as "deskstar" which, of course, became corrupted to death star?
They were. I had the misfortune of buying a couple of these, and they are the only drives that catastrophically failed in service for me.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
If you deep doin whatcha been doin, you'll keep gettin whatcha been gettin.
Definition of a burocrate; Delegate, Take Credit, shift blame.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.1 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
|
|
|
|
|
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
|
|
|
|
|
Hi,
I'm a fan of a functional drive. I've owned WD, Seagate, Toshiba, HGST, Deskstar and a couple other no-namers. For a couple of years, my WD's were shining stars and Seagate was garbage. Then it became Deskstar and HGST with the WD and Seagate's being terminal garbage. Then Seagate's were the king of the world and WD was the dregs. From my experience (for what its worth), Seagate and WD were the consistent drives. Either really outstanding and will go forever or garbage and toss now!!
At present, I have a mixture of 1TB, 2TB and 4TB drives running. Approximately half are Seagate and half are WD. An old HGST is in the mix as well. I have a couple of Toshiba portable drives I just purchased. I purchased two portable Toshibas and one of them was DOA. Purchased another and returned the dead one to Amazon. That one is good to go.
Your mileage will vary.
Cegarman
I drink, there for I am
Illegitimum non carborundum
Welcome to my Chaos and Confusion!
|
|
|
|
|
Or a crackpot idea.
MSN[^]
|
|
|
|
|
|
It's a crackpot idea, don't get sucked in.
Definition of a burocrate; Delegate, Take Credit, shift blame.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.1 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stop it with link only posts. (grumpy max)
At least copy the title or the summary if there is one.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
|
|
|
|
|
MSN[^] 18 Reasons Why Men Get Grumpier As They Age
|
|
|
|
|
|
touché!
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
|
|
|
|
|
2 things:
(a) I see MSN still hasn't lost their habit of spreading their "[N] reasons why XYZ" type of articles over [N+M] pages (where M are just extra ad pages). So make that 19 reasons.
(b) Was there anything in there that was actually unique to men, and could not equally apply to women? Besides, aren't we're all supposed to be gender-fluid now?
|
|
|
|
|
Black holes generating enormous power has been around in science fiction for a while (Arthur C. Clark - Imperial Earth (1976)). More recent in the Star Trek Universe with the Romulan D'deridex-class warbird uses an artificial quantum singularity as a power source for its warp propulsion drive.
from the Wikipedia article ( Black hole starship - Wikipedia[^])
" A black hole weighing 606,000 metric tons (6.06 × 108 kg) would have a Schwarzschild radius of 0.9 attometers (0.9 × 10–18 m, or 9 × 10–19 m), a power output of 160 petawatts (160 × 1015 W, or 1.6 × 1017 W), and a 3.5-year lifespan"
That's a lot of power from a tiny space.
|
|
|
|
|
"imagine if we could produce a microscopic black hole in a particle generator."
Ah yes imagine that.
Or if we could manufacture anti-matter (or other exotic matter) really cheap.
Or if we could construct a worm hole using neutronium.
Or if we could design an build a generation ship. Or a fleet.
Or if we could create cold fusion generators.
Or if those aliens that keep zipping around would actually drop off the design specs for those faster than light drives that they must be using. And those cloaking devices. Throw in anti-gravity while they are at it.
Or if fairies were real.
|
|
|
|
|
Merely for specificity due to my intimate knowledge of Space Aliens I submit those are not faster than light drives per se but bending spacetime drives.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
