It is Fast, but is it Reliable?

[Askitis]

Hi,
Having heard (and read) many good things about the IBM Deskstar 60GXP, I cannot doubt its performance prowess.

However, aside from speed, should I be a little skeptical about its long term reliability?
For example reading the specs for the IBM drive it states:
a)40,000 start-stop cycles
b)1 in 10^13 nonrecoverable error rate.

while, in comparison, I am reading the Maxtor DiamondMax plus drive stating:
a)50,000 start stop cycles
b)1 in 10^15 nonrecoverable error rate (100 less chance for error than the IBM drive)

I am sure this staff is just fine print, but I am curious, what experiences do YOU people have in terms of data loss, disk failures and other unexplained phenomena with drives of different manufacturers?

Regards
Thomas A.

 

[Arrow]

Back in those days... I had a Quantum Bigfoot which died in ~2 years. Have a Quantum Fireball KA, still running. Been in use for ~1 year (in an older computer). Also have a Western Digital, but I took that out as it's quite a bit noisier than the IBM drives. I myself have an IBM75GXP, but the 60GXPs are supposed to be even better. I've been using it for about half a year now and it's still great.

I would recommend IBM drives. They seem to be VERY reliable, and they have some excellent shock protection too!

Rob
Please visit <b><A HREF="http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048" target="_new">http://www.ncix.com/shop/index.cfm?affiliateid=319048</A></b>

 

[lhgpoobaa]

IBM has always been good to me.
not one hitch from my trusty (if a little loud by comparison) 16.8GP.

A few points...
isnt the diamond max a 5400rpm drive? if so then i would expect it to have a longer life, lower error rate.
but really... when u do the conversion the error rate of 1 in 1^13 comes out to be 9 Tera bytes.
so for every 9 tera bytes of data you read or write there is a CHANCE of getting 1 byte wrong.
have you read/wrote 9 tera bytes recently?
an error rate that small isnt worth thinking about
and i believe the modern drives have error correcting software on top of that anyways.

so ive had my 16.8GP for about... oooooh... getting on 2 years now, never a problem... ive even got a ancient 2.1gig seagate LBA drive around still works fine, but bloody hot!
a month or so ago igot a 40gig 60gxp... 0 problems so far.

one happy ibm customer here.


This behavior must not continue! Feel the BURNING STARE of my HAMSTER... and change your ways!

 

[Askitis]

>They seem to be VERY reliable, and they have some >excellent shock protection too!

Yes, IBMs have a high nonoperating shock rating of about 400G and an operating shock rating of 55G/2ms (these values are probably most important during shipping and handling). As a side note though, if we look closely, a Quantum Fireball Plus AS has an operating shock rate of 63G without error.

Anyway I know this is just white paper specs, what is more valuable to me right now is people with real life experiences.

And I Thank you Rob for your response !

Regards
Thomas A.

 

[Askitis]

>isnt the diamond max a 5400rpm drive?

No, the Diamond MaxPlus is a 7200RPM drive.

>but really... when u do the conversion the error rate of 1 in 1^13 comes out to be 9 Tera bytes.

Actually, this rating partains to bits (not bytes), but you are right, it is still a large number.


Regards
Thomas A.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

yup.
still over 1Terabytes per every 1 bit error.

im not sure i even believe those values anyways... what with software & hardware error correction...
and the number of on off cycles is just a weighted average.
hard to apply to ones hard drive in the case (unless you start counting on off's and reboots)


This behavior must not continue! Feel the BURNING STARE of my HAMSTER... and change your ways!

 

[Askitis]

>im not sure i even believe those values anyways... what >with software & hardware error correction...

The error correction rating (from what I've discovered so far) referes to instances that are not recoverable neither with ECC (Error Correcting Code) nor with retries.

Don't take me wrong, I think the Deskstars are very fine drives and I am just an inch close from getting one.

Just want to make sure what difference do the white paper specs make in real life (or doesn't it matter and any drive will do).

In my situation the hard drive is a very cruicial component; data integrity is paramount and reformating (as some people are quick to suggest in the sight of trouble) is a no-no.
Therefore, aside from an investment in a back-up solution, it is essential that the HDD is as reliable as possible. And since the budget doesn't permit $2000 drives, I am willing to trade some performance for reliability.
Possibly a RAID format might help too, but right now we are in the fase of screening the market for reputable manufacturers (although it seems they are all prety close to each other, only marginal quality differences).
Maxtor for one has an interesting "No quibble" service policy. The Quantum drive we are currently using has been ON 24/7 for the past ~3 years without a glitch. (And these two companies have now merged).

By the way, does anyone know what happened to that rummor about the IBM 75GXPs where the ones manufactured at a site "A" were excellent, but the ones made at a site "B" were spotty?

What about the Seagate Drives? Right now their IDE drives do not seem to do very well in the benchmarks, but what about their quality of constraction from a mechanical stant-point?

Regards
Thomas A.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

well if its absolute reliability your looking for, IBM has the best track record, but just to be safe avoid the 75GXP line (they are getting old anyway)
and DEFINATELY go for the redundant raid array.
that ensures far greater reliability.

also you might want to invest in a heavy duty surge protector and an uninteruptable power supply.
much more likely to get power spikes/ blackouts (well where i live i am) lol


This behavior must not continue! Feel the BURNING STARE of my HAMSTER... and change your ways!

 

[FatBurger]

Just go for the 15,000 RPM Seagate Cheetahs, get four of them, and put them in a 0+1 RAID. No problems with speed or failure.

Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[Askitis]

I would like to thank you all for responding to this inquiry.

Best Regards
Thomas A.

 

[FatBurger]

Except for me, since I didn't help any...but hey, all the work was done when I got here

Apple? Macintosh? What are these strange words you speak?

 

[Askitis]

>Except for me, since I didn't help any...but hey, all the >work was done when I got here

Not so !
Any suggestion helps.

As a matter of fact your suggestion is quite alright.
After our small research on any and all possible reviews under the sun, along with several end-user experiences and parsing the internet through a fine comb...
..it seams to us that Quantums and Seagates are probably the most well built drives on the market right now. However, we have mixed feelings about the IBMs (which was initially our first choice). There is universal aggreement that the 60GXPs and 75GXPs are among the FASTEST (ATA drives), but their reputation is not as spotless as we want it. There are people who are really satisfied (as in this thread) but we have also seen a few concearns.

(Don't forget that we are nit-picking here; most drives on the market today are backed up with good warranties and will do what they are supposed to quite well for most people).

Regards
Thomas A.

 

[arsend]

I have had Maxtor HDs for the past 5 yrs and have never had any problems with them. I have had friends with Quantums that after 6 months fell apart but that was years ago.

If it works for you then don't fix it.

 

[Askitis]

>I have had friends with Quantums that after 6 months fell apart but that was years ago.

Of course ! All manufacturers have a certain percentage of defective stock. Our (nit-picking) concearn is to get an idea of who manages to have the least.

On our experience, two of our machines have Quantum drives running 24/7 for the past 3.5 years. They are still running. Even so (and to be on the safe side) we are preparing them for "Retirement" towards less critical tasks. They have done a lot of spinning!

P.S. We tried not to maintain a bias towards Quantums and that's the reason of exploring other options. Apparently though we came almost full circle. Seagate was as a second choice and we are getting two of them, while we left IBMs as an option for future consideration. (Maybe our bias was too strong to escape)

Regards
Thomas A.

 

[Askitis]

>while we left IBMs as an option for future consideration.

On second thought... maybe I should squeeze the budget a little bit and get a 60GXP for my home machine.

I guess that's the way to go... get all three candidates and let time tell.

 

[dandan]

I've read a review of the WD300AB drive that, whilst only a 5400 drive, is a single platter drive, very close to the IBMs in performance, and 'coz its a 5400, is a lot quieter, cooler and likely to last longer too. The only downside I've found yet is that it only comes in 30Gb and 60Gb models (due to each platter being 30Gb obviously).

I know it's not fashionable, but I need a new drive, and the thought of a less power-hungry and quieter drive is very appealing for my desktop case, and it's cheaper than the IBMs too.

Any thoughts?

 

[Askitis]

>and 'coz its a 5400, is a lot quieter, cooler and likely to last longer too

This maybe true up to a point, but not always.
I would rather start by comparing the Component Design life (in your case 5years) and the other reliability features provided by the manufacturers.
Seagate (7200RPM) drives also have 5 year component design life and so do Maxtors (i.e. DiamondMax Plus 60)

As far as accoustics is concearned, if you look at the specs for the WD300AB it claims:
Idle Mode (average dBA)* 32
Seek Mode 0 (average dBA)** 35
Seek Mode 3 (average dBA)** 33

The IBM-60GXP (at 7200RPM) has
Idle Mode (Average dBA) *29 (1 disc)

Quantum Fireball Plus AS:
Idle Mode (Average dBA)=30
and if you get the Hydrodynamic Bearing Model :Idle Mode=28dBA and seek mode=32dBA

However you must be right about the heat! (not sure though if the same applies on high-speed drives with Fluid Bearings) There are some reviews on 7200RPM drives that still run cool to the touch even after excesive use.

Also, you may think that lower speed would make a drive last a lot longer, but I am not sure about that.
Coming from an engineering background it is reasonable to suspect that idealy when designing a higher speed drive the engineer would need to compensate whith stronger components in order to meet the required Component Design Life of the product, while still being cost effective. Additionaly, it is not necessarily safe to assume that older (5400RPM) drives were heavily overengineered.


http://www.westerndigital.com/products/drives/specs/wd300abs.html#performance

Regards
Thomas A.

 

[Askitis]

If you compare this drive in its own leage, it is a very good performer though.

http://www.storagereview.com/welcome.pl/articles/200102/20010226WD600AB_1.html

 

[killall]

go ibm... ive got a few ibms... a few maxtors... little else... both are good companies and truth to tell the maxtors actually get more errors than the ibms... remember those numbers are the maximums... the highest possibility of it going wrong... so that people cant sue them... they could be a lot closer just ibm keeping safe... possibly? lol probably not but still...

you do not strengthen the weak by weakening the strong