Can't make up mind.

BritBrat

Seagate and Maxtor are the same company now.

Every piece of hardware can fail, I bought a samsung 500Gig and it was broken before I even started.

It would do a quick format but trying to do a slow one all it did was click, click, click, I took it back.

Conor_3

It makes absolutely no difference to who you buy. Been building systems for over a decade and a half and it doesn't matter a jot. They'll either die within the first month or two or they'll go on for years.

esuhl

espresso wrote: »

Surely the WD was replaced under warranty?

If it failed in the first 50 hours, it was probably returned to the retailer under the Sale of Goods Act as it would be presumed that the fault was inherent when the drive was sold, and so the consumer would be entitled to a refund. The manufacturer's warranty would (normally) only be used to extend your statutory rights, and wouldn't (normally) permit a refund.

spud17

Surely the WD was replaced under warranty?

Thankyou very much to everyone that replied.

The supplier didn't have a replacement in stock so offered a refund, which I accepted.

Conor, good point, this is the first time I've ever had a brand new HD, so I guess all the others I've used have got past their first few months.

spud17

I've found with both Seagate and Maxtor if they are noisy use the software that comes with them and knock the drive speed from 100% to 99% and then they're almost silent and you won't notice the speed difference.

BillScarab, is the software you mention available from their website, if so, could you please post a link.
I've had a look but couldn't see anything obvious.

p.s. thinking I'll probably go for a Seagate

Conor_3

spud17 wrote: »

Conor, good point, this is the first time I've ever had a brand new HD, so I guess all the others I've used have got past their first few months.

It pretty much applies to all computer hardware. If its going to fail, it'll do it within a few months or go on for ages.

spud17

Conor wrote: »

It pretty much applies to all computer hardware. If its going to fail, it'll do it within a few months or go on for ages.

I think it applies to most things, car, truck lawnmower or anything else.

tradetime

Conor wrote: »

It makes absolutely no difference to who you buy. Been building systems for over a decade and a half and it doesn't matter a jot. They'll either die within the first month or two or they'll go on for years.

Agree totally.
To the OP if you google the question you will find all popular HD's get equally slagged to death for being unrelaible and praised for running forever, so my deduction is they'rw all much of a muchness and it's pot luck. I'd say stick with a mjor brand that has a long waranty and you'll be ok, apart from the annoyance / inconvenience you've already experienced when you get unlucky

spud17

System is AMD xp2400 and 768mb RAM, am I going to see a difference between a hard drive with 2mb cache and one with 8mb cache?

prost

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/19/maxtor_harddrives_include_virus/
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/11/12/maxtor_infected_hdd_updated/

say new drives can have viruses. Best to format new drives just in case. Plug it alongside the existing drive then you can format it from the operating system on the first drive.

Years ago I read that a 5400rpm drive is as good as last year's 7200rpm drive.