Thread: Which is The Most Reliable Hard Drive Brand?

I have a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB that died last weekend. My friend is recovering the data for me. In the meantime, I'd like to get a new HD to store my photos, movies and MP3s which would require about 250 GBs of HD space.

I've heard Maxtor's had reliability problems in the past and Western Digital was the way to go. But After going through Newegg.com, I noticed quite a number of people had to RMA their new WD HDs.

So I'd like to ask everyone here.

In your experience, which hard drive company is the most reliable?

I'd want to buy another hard drive that'll die out on me in an year and now all my data is at risk.

Any opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks

I have had very good luck with Western Digital. I have used 10 and never lost data on one while it was under warranty.

I am pissed right now with Seagate because they charged me more for Advance RMA a hard drive when Western Digital will do an Advance Replacement for free and I only end up paying fewer amounts for return shipping.

I read the same reviews before purchasing my two WD 400 GB Raid Edition hard drives, but both have been running 24x7 for about a year without a hint of a problem.


I think maybe they had problems when they were first introduced, either that or people are having difficulties because 1) they are SATA and 2) Non SP1&SP2 version of Windows have problems with large hard drives.

I have my RE drives in a RAID 1 config, so both have to fail at the same time before I lose any data!

If anytime during the next 4 years+ one starts to fail, WD will advance ship me a replacement and I end up only losing fewer amounts.

Of course I still use Retrospect to backup all my really important files and photos as RAID 1 can't protect against a virus or a fire for that matter.


If you are really concerned, buy two hard drives and put then in a RAID 1 config.If one starts to fail, WD will ship you a replacement and you can send the old one back in the replacements packaging for less amount.

One thing to remember about hard drives is that they may come out of the factory fine but runs into some bumps along the way to its final destination. When going through its distribution process there are people who just toss boxes and this is a good way to mess up a hard drive no matter how well it’s packed. And then there is the occasional oops. While stocking the drives in retail box or OEM. I have a 2.5GB western digital in a 486 computer I use as a fax machine and it still works fine. The 80GB in my current computer is 11 months old and have not had any problems. In my opinion western digital is a good brand.