Need your assitance - open letter to Hard drives manufacturers

Hello all,

This is long - I would appriciate if you will tahe the 5 minutes and read it. Thank you.

I just thought of making a group petition to hard drives manufacturers.
I have been into computers for the last 20 years or so. I have seen many hardware/software problems.
one that really gets on my nerve is the Hard drive quality theses days.
Drives of good make - don't make up to their first "birthday".
In the other hand old hard drives are with far better quality and reliability. I still own and Use my good old WDC23200 (3.2 Gb) and the WDC21600 (1.6) - I had no problem with them whatsoever. to add on it - both drives are most of the time inside my Motocycle cases - I use them as portable data storage - with case. In the motocyclke trunk "they" suffer from high temprature and G and shock. Still no problem whatsoever.

New drives are Fast, cheap and have large capacity. But their quality is bad. and this is by far the down on new hardrives. Hard drive is the most important thing in your system. It holds your OS, application and most important your Data. so what good is a Data container if it fails to do the primary intention.

this is also true about SCSI drives - thier quality is not what used to be.

I don't know what is the cause - but I have a feeling that this is Due to the High rotational Speed. Magnetic density and heat generated by new drives.


I would like to ask all of you tech Guys and Girls from around the world to join me on a open letter to hardrives manufacturer. explaining them that the sittuation is unbareable.
Hardrives manufacturers should take their enginneering effort and put it on reliablity and durability. and not upon speed and size.

Thank you all,
Gabriel Levi

Our strengeth is in Numbers (Tactical thinking...) ;)

Ps - NooNoo/scott, if you feel that this subject is not good fot the tech longe or the Windrivers BB - contact me.

The classic response is going to be "find a RAID solution, and you won't have a worry". Drives are cheap, and RAID solutions are cheap. As far as laptops go, you better hope you get a good drive...

Good luck. I can see this means a lot to you.

What do you intend to say in the open letter?

I hate to say it, but I think that Seagate for example, to stay competitive against Maxtor and others they have to go with the specs that sell. High rotation speed with high storage numbers are the big thing that sells in todays market. The profit margin of hard drives is now so minimal these days. Most companies really cant afford to put a lot of time and money to go towards making the better quality drives then expect those drives to sell in equal or greater quanities in the same market that the old ones were with the increase in price to help make up for the R&D costs.

But I also ask the same quesiton NooNoo asks, what would you put in the letter?

this is the main reason the Big guys (mator,quantum) went from a 3 yr warranty to a 1 yr warranty
Fijitsu died i think

They were getting so many drives back in the 2nd and 3rd yr the top execs were losing there big bonuses they decided to opt for a 1yr warranty with the option to buy a addon warranty.

Its all about money.

Now seagate however is different in there outlook toward the consumer they still offer 3 yr warranties

Old drives are also less sensitive, with a lower disk density, mistakes and precision are not as important, the physical space a "sector" took up is much much smaller now, more sensitive heads and more precision needed in those heads, makes the equipment more delicate.

but as stated above, drives are cheap, get a mirror array if your that worried about Data.. That's what i'm running now :)

Im a big believer in the "NO EXCUSE" type of thinking. Is this stuff more precise and thus more sensitive, yes, but is that an excuse? NO. They need to find ways to remedy these issues. Have cars got more precise and more sensitive? Yes, but is that an excuse for them? NO! So why should it be with other things?

Its the same way with burnt pixels in lcd displays, lite-on will take a display back with just a single pixel gone, if they can do that and still operate their busiiness and make money, why cant the others?

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Originally posted by Radical Dreamer
Im a big believer in the "NO EXCUSE" type of thinking. Is this stuff more precise and thus more sensitive, yes, but is that an excuse? NO. They need to find ways to remedy these issues. Have cars got more precise and more sensitive? Yes, but is that an excuse for them? NO! So why should it be with other things?

Its the same way with burnt pixels in lcd displays, lite-on will take a display back with just a single pixel gone, if they can do that and still operate their busiiness and make money, why cant the others?

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But will you pay for the extra r&d? The extra they need to put on every drive to service that commitment?

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?

thought not. :D

As suggested you need to consider some form of RAID. Or since high capacity drives are cheap buy a second one to backup to.

The only real thing we as consumers can do is 'vote with our pocketbook'. I prefer Western Digital drives and seem to remember their Special Edition drives come with a 3 yr. warranty still, and they even have new 10,000 rpm SATA ones with a 5 yr warranty.

So maybe that is what you should look in that direction.

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Originally posted by Radical Dreamer
Its the same way with burnt pixels in lcd displays, lite-on will take a display back with just a single pixel gone, if they can do that and still operate their busiiness and make money, why cant the others?

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Sorry to inform you Rad that Lite-On has changed their stance on this and now are back in league with all the other slacker LCD makers out there. Toms hardware has an update on he LCD article.

agreed with all post in one way or another.

Companies need to find another way of doing there product. I know there in the process of doing it, lke flash rom, sata etc.. but for now say just as some others who had posted, if you are worried about data, then backup and get a raid solution

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Originally posted by NooNoo
But will you pay for the extra r&d? The extra they need to put on every drive to service that commitment?

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Yes, I am a firm believer that good parts save you money in the long run, less downtime, less BS return procedures, less data loss......

Thank you all for your replies - yes it is a big issue to me - I am sick of bad drives.
I will comment on some of the things written in one long post:
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.
NooNoo - open letter in a way of signing on a large petition that we Techs and users alike are fed up with bad quality drives.
Great white north - Yes it is all about the money - but let me make an example - are you willing to buy a cheap, fast car but not reliable... I rest my case - reliability is very important in Storage.
craigmodius - Western Digital drives are a trend I hope they will continue with this. and also make a good expamle for others.


Thank you all - and keep posting your thoughts,
Gabriel

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Originally posted by Gabriel
NooNoo - open letter in a way of signing on a large petition that we Techs and users alike are fed up with bad quality drives.

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Ummm yes obviously... precise wording you propose is?

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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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untill about a month ago, when one of my 2 20 gigs failed, i WAS running 20 gig drives from 3 years ago for my main operating system (stripe array)

I upgraded the hard disks cause 20 gig drives where no longer available and my dead drive was not under warranty

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.
...

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

I rarely have problems with hard drives. I have never had a drive go bad in any of my personal machines. (must be because I back up...we all know that if you dont...it crashes. Like every customer that loses vital information and has 101 excuses for not having a back up and needs their machine right now because they had to have something done yesturday...ie... they lost their porn)

And too answer someones question, I was one of the first to buy a WD 20 gig 7200 rpm. That has to be getting close to 3 years.

1) I'm still using my old 20gb WD drive. It works fine. Had it for a long time too.

2) It's a consumers choice to make a purchase. Why make a purchase if it's something that you know won't suit your needs?

3) RAID=SAFE. Great solution to lowering the risk of data-loss, etc. Or maybe tape backups or CD or DVD backups.

4) I've been using computers since the late 70's when I was just a young lad, but one of the first and most important things I've learned is to ALWAYS ALWAYS backup your data. I don't care if it's a floppy, 173mb hdd or 200gb hdd,... When it comes to data loss, the ONLY prevention is backup, backup, backup.

* Let's say that this letter went through and let's say hypothetically that the 0.00000001% chance of them reading and listening to the letter happened,... And let's say that they responded by improving engineering and manufacturing thus improving their yields of defective equipment,... There STILL is going to be plenty of defective equipment floating around out there to create significant issues.

** PS: Btw, I don't think it's a good analogy to compare a harddrive to a car as I saw mentioned in this thread. That's like comparing a tree house to the Empire State Building. A car is a far more complex peice of machinery than a harddrive. Plus, peoples lives are at risk with a car.

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Originally posted by WebHawg
3) RAID=SAFE. Great solution to lowering the risk of data-loss, etc. Or maybe tape backups or CD or DVD backups.

4) I've been using computers since the late 70's when I was just a young lad, but one of the first and most important things I've learned is to ALWAYS ALWAYS backup your data. I don't care if it's a floppy, 173mb hdd or 200gb hdd,... When it comes to data loss, the ONLY prevention is backup, backup, backup.

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To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg ;)

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Originally posted by confus-ed
To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg ;)

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raid 1, 3, and 5 are a safer form of backup then a single hard disk, however, these only protect from hard disk failure... NOTHING ELSE. Viruses, Wrong clicks and power surges will not be protected. The advantages of raid 1, 3, and 5 are more in the disk access speeds for servers then they are for backup.

A proper backup solution has an EXTERNAL system to backup the data and if posible, offsite. I've seen a few setups where servers are tunneled together across the internet, and use each other for backup..

I currently use multiple methods of backup.

The critical stuff sits on my raid 1 array and is copied on my laptop also, my data storage drive is in a hard disk caddy in my system and is easy to take out.

Sure, if my place burns to the ground, (and my laptop was left there) i'd loose my data, but i think if that happened, i'd have bigger concerns then my e-mail from several weeks ago. Each person has to decide HOW important the data is, the more important, the more steps one needs to make in order to protect it.

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Originally posted by confus-ed
To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg ;)

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Maybe you need to reread Mac's post. RAID is safer than a single disk. RAID 0 is the only RAID that is less safe than a single disk, because you rely on the availability of 2 disks to maintain the volume.

Backups complete the safety, which the Hawg made very clear in his post.

we just lost a disk in our SAN the day before yesterday. the only way I knew we had lost a disk was because it was blinking. . . . . access to the files stored on that raid 5 volume were still avaliable and the volume was functioning. the disk was removed, another was popped in and the raid rebuilt itself all the while the volume was still available. . . . not one second of down time.

if you can't see that as being safer than a single disk which in this case would have caused HOURS and HOURS of down time getting a new disk in then initializing it and restoring files from backup tapes . . .then you really are confus-ed!

coming in a little late but hands down western digital is my favorite....ive never had one die on me yet *hope i didnt just jinx myself* and they are definately abused running 24-7for the last 5 years adding extras as time went on. long live WD and i hope maxtor burns in hell.......

but on a side note when i worked for gateway we had brand new systems at least 3-5 times a month at 1 store having hard drives die within 1 month. and it wasnt uncommon for 1 pc to have had 5+ hard drives while it was still under warranty. my personal opinion is the difference between OEM v.s. RETAIL.... cheaper parts = more money for manufacturers...

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Originally posted by Kineda
cheaper parts = more money for manufacturers...

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Well, duh, no wonder they wont make a reliable drive.

Oh and response to the comment "there are lives at stake with a car" well, what if financial, or medical records are on those drives that go bad? May not mean loss of life, but it sure as hell wastes money (if theres no backup) or lots of time (if the tape has to restore the drive)

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Originally posted by confus-ed
To point 3 : NO ! NO ! NO ! NO ! NO! NO ! NO ! NO !

Is that enough times ? RAID is NOT 'safe' in data terms, it is less safe than a single disk .... Read MacGuyver's post above!!

But at least you know BACKUP is important !

I've finnished my rant now ! You can come back out now Webhawg ;)

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Ok you got me,.. well sorta. What I meant by that is that RAID (depending on which type or how many disks, etc.) is safer then just relying on one single harddrive without RAID to store your data on. If you have 2 drives, and all your data is mirrored to both drives and one drive craps out, then at least all that data isn't gone. But anyway...

Now that I've explained that, you can now feel free to walk away with your tail between you legs confus-ed. ;)

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Originally posted by Radical Dreamer
Oh and response to the comment "there are lives at stake with a car" well, what if financial, or medical records are on those drives that go bad? May not mean loss of life, but it sure as hell wastes money (if theres no backup) or lots of time (if the tape has to restore the drive)

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True RD. I can't argue the fact that data loss for those types of institutions would be extremely critical. My main point of posting that was to point out that cars and computers can't be compared as far as equipment failure goes. For example, a hospitals server goes out. More than likely they have the records backed up somewhere and can restore the lost data. But when you're driving in your car and the brakes go out and you go tumbling off a cliff and end up getting killed,... there is no backup that will restore your life. So quality assurance of automotive standards needs to much more intensive than the quality assurance of harddrive manufacture.