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@#Q$ IBM - seeking new HD

 
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Chung



Joined: 04 Mar 2002
Posts: 79
Location: North Carolina, USA

PostPosted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 6:26 pm    Post subject: @#Q$ IBM - seeking new HD Reply with quote

Well... the worst has happened.. my 60GB died... I think all the power popping from the ice-storm (North Carolina is my locale) helped rush it to death. Now I'm out 60GB of mostly recent anime.. feels like I'm missing an arm now. So, I need a new drive..

IBM is forever out of the question (IBM 60GB it was that died.. my C: is a IBM 30GB Shocked ), and probably Hitachi since that's who's buying up their HD div... I'm thinking Seagate.. I've never been a fan of WD, but maybe that 120GB 8MBbuffer? In any case.. I'd _like_ a drive that'd last.. but I guess I'll have to learn not to burner-buffer using the whole drive.
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Mon Dec 09, 2002 6:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That bites, man. Condolences.

Yeah, those IBM DeathStar drives are getting a bad reputation. My past experience with WD is also bad, but I hear they've improved a lot recently.

I always recommend Maxtor or Quantum. I've had several of each for years and never had a single problem.
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earthdark



Joined: 21 Feb 2002
Posts: 73

PostPosted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just a sidenote:
Yes those GXPs are bad but the other IBM HD product lines are quite good. IBM just did something really wrong with GXPs for some reason. I have a IBM Aladdin (~400MB) still in use on my 166 and no errors :P
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(inc)



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 356
Location: San Diego

PostPosted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Heh, I'm still running a 75G IBM GXP75 (yeah, one of *those*), purchased the first week they shipped. And -- knock on wood -- it's never even burped. A few maybe why's: my main box is hardly ever powered down, going months without being shut off; a top-of-the-line power supply (PC Power & Cooling, currently 425W); the case has always been *open* so no apparent heating problems.

As for buying one of the new IBM drives, I tend to think they've learned their lesson and are now over-compensating -- those GXP180's look rock solid to me and I expect to be picking up one of the Serial ATA 180G's when they finally appear ("real soon now").

(inc)
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Chung



Joined: 04 Mar 2002
Posts: 79
Location: North Carolina, USA

PostPosted: Tue Dec 10, 2002 8:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I should hope the new IBMs are better.. but after something like this.. well, it'll take a lot of good hype on IBM to put them back in my lime lite. The drive hasnt had much stress on it though.. it's almost always spinning (no hd power down), PC is always on, Antec 1030SX case full of fans, plenty cooling, even was on UPS (not since I moved, though .. still not settled in).. so it's either faulted on the drive or the power-blips the ice caused.. funny thing is, think the drive was working fine after power came back on. Just after I rebooted next time *poof*

SATA would be nice.. real nice, unfortunately.. I need a new hard drive now, instead of the formerly-planned later with the mobo/cpu.

Whatever happened with that class-action lawsuit against IBM over the GXPs? Hear about the suit, never heard more.. Guess most HD manuf have picked things up a bit.. Dont hear much about HD lines being bad failures anymore, other than GXPs.
Guess Size:Price may be the larger deciding factor with brand affecting secondly. My Maxtor 40GB (Which was an RMA'd drive.. heh) is holding me over at the moment. Got home with newsbin paused saying disk was full (playing catchup).

Seagate, Maxtor, Quantum.. wasn't Quantum bought by someone? .. Maxtor or maybe Seagate seem to be top bidding.. time to start searching, I guess.
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 12:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well I had 3 75GXPs fail, and it was originally a shock. I had previously doted on IBM's drives, and indeed, I still run many of the pre-75GXP IBM HDs.

After giving up on IBM, I switched to Western Digital, who is pretty popular right now, although I have a couple old Maxtors going strong as well. I don't tend to get the biggest drives, but rather, look for quiet running drives that stay cool. So essentially the less platters the better. I avoid more than 2. I find storagereview.com a handy resource, although I tend to mix in my own common sense and experience since they are more bent on finding the fastest drives when I care more about reliability. Recently I've been buying the 8M cache WD drives with 2 as opposed to 3 platters (which usually means the smallest size drive in a series, which isn't all that small these days).

Interestingly, a friend of mine who has contacts at a computer repair shop that does HD recoveries told me the repair folks have been getting very few problems for the new (post-75GXP, 120GXP? Something like that) line of IBMs. Even so, it'll be a long time, probably 2 years of good products, before I trust IBM again. I was burned quite badly. Especially since I was such an evangelist of their HD products before those 3 drives.

Of course, none of this applies to SCSI drives, but even with SCSI cards in all my computers I'm too cheap to buy SCSI HDs. Razz

Oh yeah...and I don't do this to my drives:
http://www.hitechmods.com/mods/hdd_window/hdd_window3.shtml Cool
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Chung



Joined: 04 Mar 2002
Posts: 79
Location: North Carolina, USA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 12:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

IBM that failed is a 60GXP. I still have yet to try a couple things.. just to see if I can pull anything off. Win2k wont allow access.. lists the drive.. but that's it. No size/capacity or anything. The other machine actually removed it from the drives list after initially listing it. Once this 24hr encode is done tomorrow, guess I should see what happens before moving on.

This bit left me in a fuss.. started considering ide raid5.. but I dont think I feel like shelling out $600 for a ide raid system.. heh. I'll probably just go simple again and either see if I can warranty swap this ibm for something else or equiv replacement.. or rma this drive, buy a new one, and sell the ibm when it comes back... or use it for "non-critical" data.

Keikai wrote:
Of course, none of this applies to SCSI drives, but even with SCSI cards in all my computers I'm too cheap to buy SCSI HDs.


too cheap? heh. SCSI would be nice.. dunno if pricepoints changed since I last checked a few months ago.. but I dont think not wanting to pay $1200 for a 180GB U160 SCSI drive qualifies you as too cheap Razz


Keikai wrote:
Oh yeah...and I don't do this to my drives:
http://www.hitechmods.com/mods/hdd_window/hdd_window3.shtml

heh, I've seen that mod.. all I could think when I saw that was "cool.. but man, you guys have guts" .. I don't think I'd have the gall to try that.. knowing what a speck of dust could do to a platter spinning at 7200rpm...
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Keikai



Joined: 18 Feb 2002
Posts: 178
Location: Miami, FL

PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 12:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aye, 60GXPs weren't quite as bad as 75GXPs (there were 45, 60 and 75GB 75GXPs, so I had just assumed you had a 60G 75GXP since I'm prejudiced against them Evil or Very Mad), but they were still problematic. I'm still running one 60G 60GXP, as I recall.

As for RAID, I think RAIDs are good. With the storage needs I have, I find wiring all those drives into a case, even my delicious Lian Li, a chore. Cost is, of course, another big factor.

However, I dont know if you need a RAID 5 setup. You might just want to consider mirroring. With many drives, RAID 5 is surely more efficient. But if you just want a pair of 120s or the like, you have the added advantage of two individual drives that will unplug from your RAID controller and plug right into a regular HD controller. (Well I can't say ALL mirrored RAIDs can do this, but all the ones I've setup could. Came in handy once or twice.)

And if price is a major factor, and all you want is reliable storage and tip-top-speed is not your top concern, you can always settle for a "dumb" RAID card. They are much maligned in comparison to their processor wielding bretheren, but they do work, and they are dirt cheap.

Anyways, I'm not arguing against RAID 5, which is just so, well, cool. I just thought I'd throw out a few other ideas to make your decision process more lengthy. Wink
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Chung



Joined: 04 Mar 2002
Posts: 79
Location: North Carolina, USA

PostPosted: Wed Dec 11, 2002 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Keikai wrote:
However, I dont know if you need a RAID 5 setup. You might just want to consider mirroring. With many drives, RAID 5 is surely more efficient.


Yea, since I've calmed down more from The Incident, I've been thinking mirroring would be good as well as CHEAPer. My Abit already has a HighPoint RAID controller, so the controller isn't a problem. I was using striping with two Seagate 20GBs, but after it CRC error'd nearly 75% of the anime on that drive (I keep stuff rar'd so THANK YOU RARers for including recovery records!) I've been wary of RAID. You know, the kind of thing where a dog almost mauls your leg off so you're afraid of all dogs now kinda thing. If I do RAID again, it'll be mirroring, 10/0+1, or RAID5 set. I like my data reliability.

Keikai wrote:
Anyways, I'm not arguing against RAID 5, which is just so, well, cool. I just thought I'd throw out a few other ideas to make your decision process more lengthy.


Guess it's good to know someone out there would give me more work (the stuff we love in all forms) to do. Wink

On the up side of things, I've run across a program called VirtualLab that can indeed read the files off this "dead" disk and make an apprent full recovery. I'm beginning to think Track0 desctruction or something to that affect has happened to the drive. Unfortunately, I can't use VirtualLab to actually recover my data as they want me to pay $379.00 to have the software do the recovery (Gig #1 - $99, X Gig at $5 each) even though the software does the work. So, if anyone knows of anything that can recover files without relying on FAT/Partition Table/MBR please Please PLEASE let me know. Once I have that, I just need to actually find 60GB.. somewhere, to put the recovered stuff.. heh
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Gorunova



Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 318
Location: Burnaby, B.C., Canada

PostPosted: Thu Dec 12, 2002 7:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chung wrote:
Unfortunately, I can't use VirtualLab to actually recover my data as they want me to pay $379.00 to have the software do the recovery (Gig #1 - $99, X Gig at $5 each) even though the software does the work.


Cripes, what a scam! Just write the software once then set back and do nothing while the money rolls in from desperate crash victims. I should have thought of that one.

They should just charge a one-time fee for the software like everyone else.
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Chung



Joined: 04 Mar 2002
Posts: 79
Location: North Carolina, USA

PostPosted: Fri Dec 13, 2002 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, VirtualLab was nice in that I could see that it could be done, data recovery. Then, time to look for another solution. Friend was able to hook me up with some software that could do the job, so now.. since I dont have 55GB to spare anywhere.. I'm pulling stuff off and burning to CD what fills a CD. Maybe then I'll have enough gathered space to hold the overflow until I get a new drive.

I've had a good few recommendations for WD hard drives, so I'm thinking I might try them. Still haven't decided yet. Then what's more to throw a bigger wrench into the works, I saw today that local supplier is now carrying Asus AMD motheboards with SATA. Looks like I got some head gears to grind.

Still thinking, this might be a long process.. since I'm pulling off a somewhat damaged hard drive.. (everything's rar'd) test the archives after recovering and then burn.. moved to next CD sized chunk to recover. At least I'm getting my stuff back.
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