A few months prior, my computer was pretty low-end, with a 2.4 GHz processor (the best part), 256 megs of RAM, a 28 gig system hard drive and a 6 gig Western Digital hard drive. I recently upgraded to a newer motherboard (processor swap!), 2 gigs of RAM with a 20 gig system exclusive drive and a 160 gig Western Digital data drive.
Now, I'd been using that old 6 did WD drive for about 8 years, and it has worked flawlessly ever since. I upgraded to the new 160 gig WD drive about two months ago, purchased it from someone else new, still in the box.
A little while ago went back to my computer and, upon removing the screen saver, found that Firefox was frozen, and the computer as a whole wasn't being very cooperative. Firefox, I should mention, runs on the 160G WD drive. So, knowing that 98% of computer problems are fixed with a reboot, I rebooted.
Upon my next startup, I find that my computer doesn't seem to have a 160G WD drive anymore. Okaaaay... So I peel off the side of my case to see if anything is going awry in there, and reboot again.
I hear the hard drive making some peculiar struggling noises, then its quiet. Computer starts, no 160G WD drive. So I restart again.
This time I give the struggling hard drive a few knuckle taps. Now it starts up. Been working fine since, and I backed up my program files and some other important data, ran some error checks just in case, etc...
Now it seems to be working fine, since I'm posting this from Firefox which is running from that drive, but talk about paranoid... I've only had the thing for like two months and its already acting up!
(I also find it peculiar that my Firefox settings reset after that...)
ID:181947
 May 14 2009, 10:39 am
|
|
Statistics dictate that, on average WD, Seagate and Samsung are all quite reliable. Seagate comes out slightly better than WD and Samsung, but with a small enough difference that its not significant much.
With that said, hard drives are one of the easiest components of a computer to break without immediately noticing it. One of the more common causes is rotating a hard drive that is running, along with being rough with the cabinet, etc. New harddrives nowadays don't have a very high failure rate, but somebody has to be that low percentage part of the statistics ;) When we're talking 2 month old HDD, anything except Maxtor works. I'm with Silk on them - They blow. They have an abnormally high failure rate as well. | |
You should also note that once in a while you just get a defective piece of hardware. Every automated process has a hiccup once in a while or something happens in the term of the device's life that knocks it a little goofy.
One thing you learn to expect when buying large amounts of RAM is that at least a couple sticks might be defective. Just hope you can save your data and are able to get a replacement. If it happens once there's a good chance it'll happen again on the same drive. You'd be wise to not risk your data if you can replace the drive. If you can't get a replacement (warranty expired, etc...) just be cautious of your data and back up the important stuff often. (Also, in reply to Foomer's post directly. I've also noticed that if my computer is unnaturally killed while Firefox is running it'll fall back on default settings on the next run.) | |
I have had a couple dozen WD and Seagate drives over the years, and about half of the WD drives crashed in a few years, whereas I have never had one single Seagate drive crash. Could just be my good luck, but meh.
You said you bought the part new... Depending on who it is from you should be able to get it replaced. I'd suggest doing that. | |
SilkWizard wrote:
I actively use about twenty 500GB/1TB external Western Digital hard drives, and they're extremely reliable. They see their fair share of abuse too... whether it is on shoots in crappy weather conditions or from being constantly packed around in my suitcase on trips. Same here, I've never had trouble with WD despite the crap I put them through. I've had terrible experiences with Maxtor brand drives though; avoid those like the plague. That's because Maxtor is owned by Seagate :[ | |
As some have mentioned, you can likely replace the drive with very little hassle. Hard-drive manufacturers have the best warranties I've ever seen with practically every hard-drive they make. Most drives will have a 3 year warranty, even if it came inside of a brand new machine from a manufacturer like Dell. So if you bought it new, go to the WD website and look up their RMA page.
| |
Amen to that, I recently bought a 250GB Western Digital drive, it was one of those 'could be damaged' deals (couldn't pass it up, it was like $25 off), it didn't come with a box or anything. It had the box it was shipped in, and it was wrapped in a lot of bubble wrap. It had a one year warranty through the people I bought it from AND Western Digital still emailed me later on with 3 year warranty cards.
The drive works excellent, by the way. | |
Unfortunately this one was bought new, still on the box, through craigslist. It had been sitting around unused for a while, but the warranty according to WD expired in '08. The good news is that it only cost me $20.
| |
I have a 500 GB HDD in my computer and it started not showing at boot time, but I realized that it was because of where it was plugged into the PSU. Since my PSU has multiple rails, I needed to spread out my hardware as to avoid overdrawing from one of the rails and I had accidentally hooked up my GPU and my 500 GB on the same rail.
I've heard the same thing that was mentioned before, where Seagate edges out WD and Samsung, but all three are good brands. On a less related note, a friend of mine from college (same major, computer engineer) now works for WD. Also, if you knocked the HDD around a bit and got it to work, I would be suspicious of the cables connecting the HDD. | |
I've had terrible experiences with Maxtor brand drives though; avoid those like the plague.