Hard Drive experiences....

[Brent Burton]

Well, I recently bought a 7300 "lobotomized" of its hard drive.  The owner
sold the original 20M drive and used an external drive.

Now, since I'm in the market for a new drive I'd like some help.

After dealing many months with a bad Seagate SCSI model, I have wanted to
have a list of drive manufacturers/models to avoid.

So, what I want from the net is:
  * Have you had a drive fail on you?
if yes,
  * What kind/model was it?
  * How old was it?
  * Do YOU think it was premature considering price, company claims, etc and
    NOT what the company thinks?
  * Did you tell that company?  What kind of response, if any, did they
    have?

I think that by compiling a list of notoriously bad mechanisms, future trouble
and headaches can be avoided.  I don't want a list of good drives.  There
seems to be more 'good' drives than 'bad' and by narrowing out one we may
have more clues to the other.

----

I'll start.  I have used a Seagate ST277N (SCSI 63MB) mechanism for over two
years.  I bought the first unit from Hard D. International and three weeks
after, it started having "stiction" problems.  I sent it back and HDI quickly
shipped a new unit.  It worked fine (except a growing whining noise) for
about nine months, then stiction acted up again and the drive locked up
a week after the original 1-year warranty.  I called HDI who said "it's after
one year, call Seagate."  I called Seagate and they said, "we can sell you
a new one or rebuild it. Rebuilding is $210 for this model."  OK, rebuild it,
I don't have money for a new one.
  I finally got that unit back a month later and it worked fine.  This was
exactly a year ago.  NOW, this unit is beginning to have stiction problems and
an obnoxious whining noise.
  During the past year, it has made noise off and on (always that whining
noise) even though it never had lock-up problems or stiction.  When the noise
started, I called Seagate's tech support line, tested everything they
suggested and I still had problems.  I have written Seagate explaining the
situation and have NEVER received a call or reply letter.
  I think I have been ripped off by Seagate because I certainly expect a
hard drive that cost $450 (then) would last more than a year.  I usually
let the drive run constantly, but this only amounts to some 8,000+ hours
a year.  That's a pretty poor MTBF.

Please, if you have had problems, send your story to me; I'll compile
and summarize...

your help's appreciated...
             +----------------------+--------------------------+
             | Brent P. Burton      | n138ct at tamuts.tamu.edu   |
             | Texas A&M University | Computer Science/Physics |
             +----------------------+--------------------------+