Need your assitance - open letter to Hard drives manufacturers

**Gabriel** · May 24th, 2003, 02:35 AM

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.

**Ya_know** · May 24th, 2003, 02:55 AM

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.

**NooNoo** · May 24th, 2003, 03:18 AM

What do you intend to say in the open letter?

**Jediab** · May 24th, 2003, 04:09 AM

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?

**Great White North** · May 24th, 2003, 07:07 AM

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

**Matridom** · May 24th, 2003, 07:23 AM

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

**Radical Dreamer** · May 24th, 2003, 01:59 PM

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?

**NooNoo** · May 24th, 2003, 02:06 PM

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?

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

**craigmodius** · May 24th, 2003, 07:46 PM

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.

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.

**Jediab** · May 24th, 2003, 08:32 PM

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?

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.

**+Daemon+** · May 24th, 2003, 09:41 PM

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

**Radical Dreamer** · May 24th, 2003, 10:19 PM

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?

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......

**Gabriel** · May 25th, 2003, 03:21 AM

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

**NooNoo** · May 25th, 2003, 05:25 AM

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.

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

**Matridom** · May 25th, 2003, 07:11 AM

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?

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

Thread: Need your assitance - open letter to Hard drives manufacturers

Thread Tools

Display

Need your assitance - open letter to Hard drives manufacturers

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions