1237ceceb901
tech



Hello Wayne - 

CA>> I have a link on my 'hard drives' page to information
CA>> similar to what has been posted here about reliability for
CA>> hard drives. Unfortunately all of the available
CA>> information is somewhat 'dated'. 

WC> Been there, saw that. 

I debated with myself trying to decide if the link should be
there or not for the reasons mentioned here (dated info). I
decided it might be a point of interest even though it couldn't
just be applied it gives clues as to where to focus your
attention when reading more uptodate information. Something
like that anyhow. :-) 

WC> My experience is limited to four drives two Seagate, one
WC> W.D. and a Quantum. None died natural deaths. 

All of my hard drives seemed to have died of what I consider
'old age' (bearing failures). Longest in-daily-use lifespan was
15 years which I consider quite remarkable (Seagate RLL). Might
be worth mentioning that this would never have been possible
without Gibson Research and SpinRite. :-) 

WC> The first Seagate was toast after when swapping it my arm
WC> brushed the monitor screen frying the drive electronics,
WC> this at six years and no bad sectors. The Western Digital
WC> bought the farm at 4 years but that too was not a natural
WC> death. Physical fight restraining girlfriend from injuring
WC> herself led to impact that caused head - platter crash, no
WC> bad sectors prior to that. Seagate now in the 486 is ten
WC> years old and no bad sectors. 

With IDE and EIDE it's difficult to say "no bad sectors"
because the onboard hardware for the drive hides bad sectors by
using replacement reserve sectors that they _all_ have
available. We really don't know anymore when we try to put a
file at the start of a drive that it physically _is_ at the
start since all hard drives 'translate' for the OS and don't
offer exact locations anymore. 

WC> Quantum drive in this box is OK but does have bad sectors,
WC> no idea if original owner moved the box while the drive was
WC> oerating or whapped the box upside the head in exasperation
WC> over the ribbon cable induced Windows crashes. 

I would guess the CPU was 'slugged' several times. I've seen it
happen so often I just take that for granted now. The sales
manager at INACOMP once punched the monitor square in the
middle of the screen and drove it all the way back to the wall.
I was surprised it didn't break. :-) 

--8<--cut 

CA>> I would also point out that running out to buy 120gig hard
CA>> drives with no reasonable way to make backups is "building
CA>> a boat in the basement" mentality. To take advantage of
CA>> all that storage would require at a _minimum_ purchasing
CA>> two of these hard drives, preferably three. I expect to
CA>> read much "gnashing of teeth" as people crash a 120gig
CA>> drive with no backups. ;-) 

WC> That would be a major ouch. 

Probably going to happen to MP3 music file 'traders' more than
the rest of us. I can't imagine what would be 120 gig that I
would want to maintain on the hard drive here at home. 

When I worked as a PC consultant I maintained several months of
daily reports on employee efficiency (detailed) and the
telephone system for 4-6 months plus training texts and other
graphs and charts all on one 110 meg hard drive. :-) 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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