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Re: [OM] Strictly OT: System Crash

Subject: Re: [OM] Strictly OT: System Crash
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:47:20 -0400
I'm not quite with Moose on this one.  I agree that, in general, the 
remaining drive makers (and there are few of them) make the same quality 
product.  Howver, one can detect significant differences in the user's 
ratings of various drives on Newegg.com's site assuming you are looking 
at drives with hundreds of ratings (statistical significance) rather 
than tens or even lower numbers.

For example, the 1 TB Seagate ST31000528AS that I recently commented had 
announced that it was failing after only about 6 months, has a notably 
high incidence of early failures in Newegg's ratings.  When I reordered 
I decided to go with the equivalent Toshiba drive which had a similar 
number of reviews but only a 10% problem rate vs 20% for the Seagate. 
But then I got a small surprise by going to Amazon.  I decided to order 
the Toshiba there since I was going to buy some other stuff there anyhow 
and I'd also save a few bucks on price and shipping.  But I looked at 
the Amazon reviews and saw that the problem rate there was 20% vs the 
10% I had seen at Newegg.  Some further investigation showed that the 
problem was not Toshiba but Amazon itself.  Drives were arriving from 
Amazon with packaging typical for a book but not sufficient for a hard 
drive.  The buyers were complaining about damages and early failures 
which they were blaming on Amazon for shipping damage due to poor 
packaging, not on Toshiba.  I ended up buying the Toshiba but bought it 
from Newegg who know how to properly package drives for shipping.

Moose is correct that an initially high failure rate might be corrected 
in later production without a model change that we can see.  But there's 
no way I can know that.  So my solution is to read the reviews and pick 
the one that doesn't have a high infant mortality rate in the first 
place.  There are differences but you have to dig through the numbers.

Chuck Norcutt



On 6/8/2011 7:52 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
> Thanks for the useful advice, Moose.
>
> Jim Nichols
> Tullahoma, TN USA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Moose"<olymoose@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Olympus Camera Discussion"<olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 5:10 PM
> Subject: Re: [OM] Strictly OT: System Crash
>
>
>> On 6/8/2011 2:17 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
>>> My C drive is the original 80GB drive, and is 6 yrs old.  If I replace
>>> it,
>>> what is the currently preferred manufacturer,
>>
>> It doesn't matter. I went through this a couple of years ago and concluded
>> it's a mugg's game and not worth it. Not
>> that there aren't differences between different batches from various
>> manufacturers. It's that it's impossible for an
>> individual buyer to know enough to make a meaningful distinction between
>> brands. I went through this a couple of years
>> ago and concluded that.
>>
>> For example, at that time, there was a lot of noise on forums about one
>> brand of a particular size drive. However, it
>> was already old news. The old ones that ran afoul of some quirk in some
>> operating system or other had all been fixed or
>> replaced and a slightly different numbered drive was current. The
>> replacement model didn't have that particular problem.
>> Whether it, or any other model/brand, would have a problem in the future,
>> nobody knew, including the makers. I bought
>> another drive of another size at the same time, smallish, not bleeding
>> edge. It failed while being initialized. That
>> happens, but the incidence is so low that it's jut a crap shoot.
>>
>>> and what software would you use to clone the drive?
>>
>> If the existing drive is WD, I'd get a WD to replace it. They have a free
>> version of Acronis which only works WD to WD,
>> so you can save a couple of bucks. I've been using it to clone my C: Drive
>> fairly regularly for insurance.
>>
>>> Do you open up the case and connect the new drive to a cable and clone it
>>> that way, or do it over a USB connection?
>>
>> I would either install the new one in the case next to the old one or in
>> an eSATA external case. Either way works fine.
>> If the first, you can then remove the old one, if you want, or just unplug
>> the connectors. USB is WAY slower than
>> SATA/eSATA.
>>
>>> The last HD I bought was WD, and it seems to be fine. It is my external
>>> eSATA photo drive. WD and Seagate are the big dawgs. One of them absorbed
>>> Maxstor a while ago and one is buying Hitachi's drive operations (or is
>>> it Toshiba's?).
>>
>> I have mostly WDs lately, partly as chance that brought a couple with my
>> last computer partly based on pricing when I
>> was buying and partly because of the Acronis drive clone/backup software.
>> But I'd have no hesitation at all in getting a
>> pair of Seagates, Hitchais, etc. in my next image data upgrade.
>>
>> The only drive I've ever had fail, above, was a WD, but I think it's just
>> the luck of the draw.
>>
>> Moose
>> --
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>
>
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