[comp.sys.amiga.advocacy] Cheap Hard Drives?

jra1@ra.MsState.Edu (Mephisto) (02/28/91)

Everyone seems to love Quantum drives so much.  
What about Seagate?  I see that they are cheaper, 
but what about reliability?

jeff
Jra1@ra.msstate.edu

gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Gregory R Block) (02/28/91)

From article <1113@ra.MsState.Edu>, by jra1@ra.MsState.Edu (Mephisto):
> Everyone seems to love Quantum drives so much.  
> What about Seagate?  I see that they are cheaper, 
> but what about reliability?
> 
> jeff
> Jra1@ra.msstate.edu
Now I'm not positive on this, but didn't some big BBS have ALL of its seagates
go bad because of smoking?  I'm referring to a couple of 300mb hard drives.  I
have heard from a LOT of people who have had similar probs...  Also, something
about r/w errors if turned on its side, or something....
-- 
gblock@csd4.csd.uwm.edu | Amigas, Amigas everywhere, but not a one can think.
----Gregory R Block---- | Where's an AI when you need one?
________________________| A Mac, by any other name, would smell like a lawsuit
Roses are red, Violets are blue:  Go buy a Mac, and you'll be screwed too...

thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) (02/28/91)

In article <1113@ra.MsState.Edu> jra1@ra.MsState.Edu (Mephisto) writes:
>Everyone seems to love Quantum drives so much.  
>What about Seagate?  I see that they are cheaper, 
>but what about reliability?

You get what you pay for to a certain extent, but you DID use the correct word
in reference to Seagate: "cheap."

Contrast that word to "inexpensive".

Seagate horror stories abound in all the newsgroups, user groups, trade
journals, etc. out of all proportion to their (large) market share.

I've had 11 (eleven) Seagate drives (ST251, ST157, etc.) and they have all
failed with stiction (static friction).  My email file of Seagate failures
from around the world now exceeds 3MB (4 Amiga floppies).

Hard drive repair companies who come to our user groups unanimously berate
Seagate, and show (via photomicrographs) the "white worms" and other ailments
characteristic of Seagate drives more than any other manufacturers' drives.

Suggest you follow comp.sys.amiga.hardware and various comp.sys.* groups for
a few weeks and see how many problems surface with Seagate.

Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]

farren@sat.com (Michael J. Farren) (03/02/91)

jra1@ra.MsState.Edu writes:
>Everyone seems to love Quantum drives so much.  
>What about Seagate?  I see that they are cheaper, 
>but what about reliability?

They're cheaper.
-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Michael J. Farren                                      farren@sat.com |
|                        He's moody, but he's cute.                     |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

jafo@miranda.UUCP (Sean Reifschneider) (03/04/91)

In article <1951@public.BTR.COM> thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) writes:
>In article <1113@ra.MsState.Edu> jra1@ra.MsState.Edu (Mephisto) writes:
>>Everyone seems to love Quantum drives so much.  
>>What about Seagate?  I see that they are cheaper, 
>>but what about reliability?

I now have a 50MB Quantum (Came with the 3000-25/50), and a Maxtor LXT-200S
200MB hard drive.  The Maxtor I got a month ago for $849 (After shipping,
tax...).  The Quantum Pro-200S 200MBer would have been about $950 before
tax.  The Quantum drive I have now is just a tad faster than the Quantum,
but is almost quieter (not even noticeable).  I'd probably do the same
again.  Micropolis drives are supposed to be the most reliable.

>Seagate horror stories abound in all the newsgroups, user groups, trade
>journals, etc. out of all proportion to their (large) market share.
>
>I've had 11 (eleven) Seagate drives (ST251, ST157, etc.) and they have all
>failed with stiction (static friction).  My email file of Seagate failures
>from around the world now exceeds 3MB (4 Amiga floppies).

I just sold a 2 year old Seagate 277-N  (65MB) to a friend of mine.  It had
worked for two years, no problems.  He has it less than a week, and the drive
fails to come up on him (after a power down).  I left my system on 24 hours
a day, and he cycles the power on his a few times a week.  I guess if you leave
them powered on all the time, they'll work.  The Seagate 296N (85MB) is a great
price at ~$400, but then you also have to add another $100 on to that to get an
external power supply/case to keep it powered on all the time (if you like
to shut down your system).

I'd buy the Seagate for a swap only drive (with UNIX).

That's my $.02 worth.

Sean
--
From the desk of Sean Reifschneider.  Isn't Amiga UUCP great?  Thanks Matt.

uunet.uu.net!ccncsu.colostate.edu!ncuug!miranda!jafo