Need your assitance - open letter to Hard drives manufacturers

Well Matridom I knew there would be someone out there still plugging away. :) I just posted that to stir things up a bit. I'm sure many of us still use those slightly older parts till they explode then we solder 'em back together and use 'em some more :D Hell, just yesterday I posted in another thread a suggestion on how to get use out of a 170MB drive :eek: And yes, it was a Western Digital.

That's why I say vote with your pocketbook. I'm very cynical about being able to change anything but I'm sure not going to knowingly give my money or the company's money to a business or product I have no faith in. And it feels good to support someone who does a good job.

Gabriel~ You may want to consider the positive angle in your letter too. Instead of sending a negative letter to hdd manufactures telling them the things you don't like, send a positive letter to the ones that are doing things that you do like. Alotta times when a company receives praise that is the type of thing that will forward it's way from the customer service desk to the higher up management or get quoted on a website. Negative feedback will just get deleted.

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Originally posted by craigmodius
OK then let's have a show of hands. Who's still using their 20gb hdd from 3 years ago as a primary drive and hasn't bought anything since.

anyone?

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I'm still using my fuji 17gb and my maxtor 10gb drives in my main system. I don't trust any newer drives to live long enough. The new samsung spinpoints are a shining example of this. the first 10 we sold all died within a week.

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Originally posted by Damned Angel
I'm still using my fuji 17gb and my maxtor 10gb drives in my main system. I don't trust any newer drives to live long enough. The new samsung spinpoints are a shining example of this. the first 10 we sold all died within a week.

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Fuji... nuff said :D :D :D

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Originally posted by Damned Angel
I'm still using my fuji 17gb and my maxtor 10gb drives in my main system. I don't trust any newer drives to live long enough. The new samsung spinpoints are a shining example of this. the first 10 we sold all died within a week.

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Then I'm curious as to why you would trust your home system with Maxtor and Fuji, and yet put a Samsung in a customer's system. I can understand switching from Fuji considering their situation, but Samsung :confused: I didn't even know they made drives.

Maybe you aren't the one who makes the buying decisions, and I'm not in the world of retail support, so I don't pretend to know what it's like to compete in today's cutthroat PC market of $200-$500 PCs.

However, that illustrates my point about voting with your pocketbook. If I trust Maxtor on my home PC then that is what I would put in a customer's PC. I'm not saying that you or your company are doing this, but I think you could cheese out any component on a PC, but the hdd is the most important. As we all know if a cheesy power supply blows up big deal, but if my data blows up then...

I'm not trying to single you out DA, I'm just interested in furthering this discussion, just so you know :)

I'm still using one primary hard drive (WD 30Gigabytes)..it's going on two years..probably next year it'll poop out on me..

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Originally posted by craigmodius
Then I'm curious as to why you would trust your home system with Maxtor and Fuji, and yet put a Samsung in a customer's system. I can understand switching from Fuji considering their situation, but Samsung :confused: I didn't even know they made drives.

Maybe you aren't the one who makes the buying decisions, and I'm not in the world of retail support, so I don't pretend to know what it's like to compete in today's cutthroat PC market of $200-$500 PCs.

However, that illustrates my point about voting with your pocketbook. If I trust Maxtor on my home PC then that is what I would put in a customer's PC. I'm not saying that you or your company are doing this, but I think you could cheese out any component on a PC, but the hdd is the most important. As we all know if a cheesy power supply blows up big deal, but if my data blows up then...

I'm not trying to single you out DA, I'm just interested in furthering this discussion, just so you know :)

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simple reason is when these drives were made, reliability was something that manufacturers took into account. Sure, fuji and maxtor make crap drives now, but 3 years ago, they made pretty decent drives.

the reason I put samsung drives into people's systems is because when confronted with several choices of drives, all with the same spec, consumers will always choose the lower priced drive over the higher priced drive. When they fail and they get mad, well thats the drive you choose. I gave you several different options and you choose to go with the cheapest one.

"you get what you pay for" still applies

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Originally posted by Damned Angel

"you get what you pay for" still applies

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Damn skippy. :)

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Originally posted by Gabriel
Ya_know - RAID is for redundancy - this means that if drives fail than the other one "helps". still it works slower (most RAID levels are). and you need extra room in the case. I say - Avoid the problem and you won't have to come up with RAID array.
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Thank you all - and keep posting your thoughts,
Gabriel

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Ahh, but in a PC running either RAID 1, or RAID 0+1, speed is greater than on a single drive. I was not referring to a RAID 5 setup in a basic PC, which is the slowest flavor, however still faster than most single drive setups.

As far as a case requirement, only slim line cases won’t accommodate. All of the full towers these days will house as many drives as you want, sometimes 8-10 counting the CD drives.

RAID is no longer a server world benefit; PC users can now take full advantage…

Most people buy their computers and have no ideea of what is inside, nor care about the warranty of the hdd since it's the PC manufacturer's problem. PC manufacturers won't care since if it breaks out of warranty it can be replaced (read upgraded), generating more revenue. It is up to the very few people who have any ideea about hard drives and warranty to worry about these things.
Everyone who values the importance of the data will choose a backup solution, apart from using any RAID configuration. You can get the best drive or make any RAID array, but that won't save your a$$ when the PSU starts showing it's own will and burns every single component of your computer, or when a lightning strikes, or when a new virus starts wiping your data...

I'd go on a limb and say that reliability of hard drives really hasn't changed that much over the years. The only difference is, you lose more data today simply because the drives can hold more stuff. and people rely on computers more for doing things they never did before. Like storing MP3's, family photographs, your income tax return, whatever. Hence the new public perception that hard drives are less reliable then they used to be.

A hard drive is a mechanical device with motors and moving parts. Eventually, it WILL fail. There is no question about that fact, but whether that failure occurs two minutes after you install it or two decades, who knows. You can't force anybody to make a perfect product. So AFAIC, this open letter effort is a waste of time.

This just stresses the need for regular backups. There is simply no substitute for a reliable, regularly scheduled backup. And the cost of doing so has come down in price to the point where there's really no excuse. Get a USB 2.0 or firewire card, and get an external USB 2.0/firewire enclosure, put a hard disk in there big enough to backup, and you're off to the races. No removable caddies, completely portable, store it off site, keep it in your glovebox, where ever.

The unfortunate thing is, some guy building his new system doesn't budget for any backup, but instead sinks his money into a needless RAID setup, thinking that will solve his problems. RAID IS NOT A BACKUP. Even RAID 5 is not. If somebody steals your computer, you're screwed. If your home burns down, you're screwed. If you get a water leak, you're screwed. Forget about viruses, data corruption, and hardware failure. These are the REAL threats that need to be addressed!

You need to backup your data to external device or media, and remove it from the rest of the computer. Period.

Macgyver... here here!

i still use an 8gb seagate on my desktop.

hasn't failed me yet :)

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Originally posted by MacGyver


A hard drive is a mechanical device with motors and moving parts. Eventually, it WILL fail. There is no question about that fact, but whether that failure occurs two minutes after you install it or two decades, who knows.

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I really wish more people would understand that, I have computers that are close to 10 years old, and there computers that have apox 15,000+ hours of use. And the users are surprised that I can have 3 fail in one month.



I hate stupid people !!!!!!!!!!!

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...Drives of good make - don't make up to their first "birthday"....

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(from the original 'protest letter')

Well stop your protests ... the light dawns !! .... SATA drives are now being pushed out by all & sundry .... PATA is dead ! IDE is now 'obsolete' .... Long live the new king ! :p

& surprise, surprise what do these new 'offerings' come with ? 3 or 5 year warranties !!!

So now we know why they've reduced the warranty on IDE drives ... they want to sell you a SATA drive instead :rolleyes: ;) :D :D :D

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Originally posted by confus-ed
(from the original 'protest letter')

Well stop your protests ... the light dawns !! .... SATA drives are now being pushed out by all & sundry .... PATA is dead ! IDE is now 'obsolete' .... Long live the new king ! :p

& surprise, surprise what do these new 'offerings' come with ? 3 or 5 year warranties !!!

So now we know why they've reduced the warranty on IDE drives ... they want to sell you a SATA drive instead :rolleyes: ;) :D :D :D

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Brilliant observation. (Damn I hate it when he does that.) :D