You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
what're the best choices of hard-drive
- Thread starter MASTON
- Start date
I own a bunch of drives at home, and maintain many more at my day job. All of my own drives are either Maxtor or Western Digital. They both seem to have good quality, although Maxtor seem to be a bit louder. Note that COMPUSA sells their own branded hard drives, and these are Maxtor's as well.
They both also offer good warrenty service. I just sent two of my own Maxtor drives back on warrenty special RMA - that's when you give them a credit card number and they ship you drives immediately, then you have 30 days to return your bad ones or they charge you. One was fried by a bad power supply (which took out most of the PC as well) and one died of over-stress during an XP install, check my post on it). Got the new drives in 2 days.
At work most of the drives in my 300+ systems are Western digital, with a few Quantums & Maxtors. I probably see a 2% failure rate per year, and that is almost always on PCs more than 3 years old, i.e. out of warrenty.
They both also offer good warrenty service. I just sent two of my own Maxtor drives back on warrenty special RMA - that's when you give them a credit card number and they ship you drives immediately, then you have 30 days to return your bad ones or they charge you. One was fried by a bad power supply (which took out most of the PC as well) and one died of over-stress during an XP install, check my post on it). Got the new drives in 2 days.
At work most of the drives in my 300+ systems are Western digital, with a few Quantums & Maxtors. I probably see a 2% failure rate per year, and that is almost always on PCs more than 3 years old, i.e. out of warrenty.
DigitalDon
New member
I have two Maxtor 7200RPM 40G drives in removeable carriers. Haven't had a problem yet (installed the first one Dec 2000). Really like the setup/format software that comes with it too.
DD
DD
While many people use it, I would suggest avoiding the Maxtor setup software. It reminds me too much of Disk Manager, which was/is the cause of much grief - use it and a virus which would otherwise be an annoyance can wipe out your hard drive.
I would stick with the standard OS tools for setting up a drive. If you are using Win98 and buy a drive larger than 60 gig, you would need to download an updated FDISK program. Win 2000 and Win XP there's no issue.
I would stick with the standard OS tools for setting up a drive. If you are using Win98 and buy a drive larger than 60 gig, you would need to download an updated FDISK program. Win 2000 and Win XP there's no issue.
Just purchased and installed a Seagate 7200 as a second drive. It's really quiet--quieter than my other drive which is my Maxtor, and much quieter than my friend's pc which is louder than a microwave! I haven't used it long enough to tell you about performance, but I "heard" they were pretty solid and stable. Hope this helps a bit.
DigitalDon
New member
RWHITE - Give me more detail about not using the Maxtor setup software and your "use it and a virus which would otherwise be an annoyance can wipe out your hard drive" comment. You pushed my "worry" button.
Thanks,
DD
Thanks,
DD
seagate, maxtor, Western digital, Quantum... they've all worked fine for me, the Seagate's i had were a little noisy but i put sound proof material in my cpu case, so overall its quiet
i just got a 120gig 7200rpm drive with 8mb cache for $175. i might run over to compusa and get one of those firewire kits so i can take the drive with me when i go the other studio
i just got a 120gig 7200rpm drive with 8mb cache for $175. i might run over to compusa and get one of those firewire kits so i can take the drive with me when i go the other studio
Well, I'm late to go home, so I'll make this quick.
Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital and many other companys used to license a software program called Disk Manager. There is a real "Disk Manager" program you can buy, but these licensed versions would typically only work with that manufacturer's brand drives. This would be / is on a floppy disk that ships with the drive. Sometimes they change the name.
The main reason for Disk manager is that many older motherboard have BIOS or other hardware limitations that prevent them from seeing the full size of todays newer drives. When you install Disk Manager, it installs a custom boot-block and translation table on the hard drive that "fools" the motherboard into thinking that it is a smaller drive (usually 8 gig), but once the drive boots the software kicks in and acts as a translator, so the whole drive is visable.
All this is fine except for two things. First, if you boot the system up from a floppy disk (like after a crash) the Disk Manager software is not loaded, so the drive is unreadable. Later version of disk manager started using a special boot menu to resolve this.
Second, if you get hit by a virus that modifies your hard drives boot block, the usual fix is to re-write the boot block. One way to do this is to use FDISK /MBR. Other programs like Norton Utilities have different methods. But if you have Disk Manager's custom boot block, and it gets re-writen, you are 100% screwed. Your drive is unreadable, and it is basically impossible to get it back.
Now, I have to caution, even though I just bought a Maxtor hard drive, I have not looked at the Maxtor software RECENTLY. Their software may no longer be based on Disk Manager and have these problems. But why risk it? The built-in tools of any OS from 98 on are good enough. If your motherboard is too old, I would suggest instead buying an IDE controller card by Promise of Maxtor (same card) that handles this in virus-proof hardware.
Make sense?
Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital and many other companys used to license a software program called Disk Manager. There is a real "Disk Manager" program you can buy, but these licensed versions would typically only work with that manufacturer's brand drives. This would be / is on a floppy disk that ships with the drive. Sometimes they change the name.
The main reason for Disk manager is that many older motherboard have BIOS or other hardware limitations that prevent them from seeing the full size of todays newer drives. When you install Disk Manager, it installs a custom boot-block and translation table on the hard drive that "fools" the motherboard into thinking that it is a smaller drive (usually 8 gig), but once the drive boots the software kicks in and acts as a translator, so the whole drive is visable.
All this is fine except for two things. First, if you boot the system up from a floppy disk (like after a crash) the Disk Manager software is not loaded, so the drive is unreadable. Later version of disk manager started using a special boot menu to resolve this.
Second, if you get hit by a virus that modifies your hard drives boot block, the usual fix is to re-write the boot block. One way to do this is to use FDISK /MBR. Other programs like Norton Utilities have different methods. But if you have Disk Manager's custom boot block, and it gets re-writen, you are 100% screwed. Your drive is unreadable, and it is basically impossible to get it back.
Now, I have to caution, even though I just bought a Maxtor hard drive, I have not looked at the Maxtor software RECENTLY. Their software may no longer be based on Disk Manager and have these problems. But why risk it? The built-in tools of any OS from 98 on are good enough. If your motherboard is too old, I would suggest instead buying an IDE controller card by Promise of Maxtor (same card) that handles this in virus-proof hardware.
Make sense?