What drives do the Pro's prefer?

[STeALtH]

Hi all, I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in Gen, but on the subject of 'avoiding' data recovery & repair I plumped for here.

I'm going back quite a few years as I switched from desktops to laptops and became quite oblivious as to what was storing my data, but back in the day I used to use IDE/EIDE WD Caviars & Seagate Barracudas as they seemed to be the best of the bunch back then, there were no SATA drives that I remember. Also had quite a few SCSI's, but I've never really had that much luck with any of em, admittedly whatever PC I was using was on 24/7 (365) and still is, and cash was always tight so alot were hand-me-downs or 2nd hand.

I'd love to hear from the guys/girls who repair and recover data from HDDs all day long as their profession, which makes & series/models do the Pro's prefer to use? Or even which models they avoid like the proverbial plague?

S

[labtech]

Hi all, I wasn't sure whether to post this here or in Gen, but on the subject of 'avoiding' data recovery & repair I plumped for here.

I'm going back quite a few years as I switched from desktops to laptops and became quite oblivious as to what was storing my data, but back in the day I used to use IDE/EIDE WD Caviars & Seagate Barracudas as they seemed to be the best of the bunch back then, there were no SATA drives that I remember. Also had quite a few SCSI's, but I've never really had that much luck with any of em, admittedly whatever PC I was using was on 24/7 (365) and still is, and cash was always tight so alot were hand-me-downs or 2nd hand.

I'd love to hear from the guys/girls who repair and recover data from HDDs all day long as their profession, which makes & series/models do the Pro's prefer to use? Or even which models they avoid like the proverbial plague?
S

They all suck in different ways

[jono-ats]

Pros prefer broken drives.

We tell people it doesn't matter what brand you buy, so long as you buy two of them and back up to both.

[pcimage]

All manufacturers had good & bad IMHO.

I liked Samsung T133/166 drives, not the worlds quickest but sturdy. In fact most Samsung drives were pretty good. I say "were" as Seagate have taken over, let's see what happens to the quality.

I like current WD laptop drives, but hated the old ones like the xxxVE and XxxUE series. Horrible.

Seagate 7200.10 Galaxy deives seemed pretty sturdy too, unless they were dropped.

Fujitsu laptop drives were ok at MHT series, but MHV and MHW seemed very flimsy.

All IMHO of course!

[STeALtH]

Pros prefer broken drives.

Haha, yeah that makes sense.

I've noticed alot of posts about WD & Seagate, especially Barracudas, which I always figured were good drives but then I guess, the more popular they are the more you guys will see of 'em.

Maxtor don't seem to figure too prominently though? Never really bothered with them myself apart from the odd one or two.

S

[STeALtH]

Any thoughts on the WD Raptors and V. Raptors? The last time I took an interest in HDDs the only thing doing 10k were SCSI, been looking at them on Ebay and they hold their prices well and new they're not cheap either.

S

[pcimage]

Raptors are super fast but unreliable, V raptors worse.

We had loads of Raptors setup as R0 in recovery PC's for speed, and they were SUPER fast. But one by one they all failed. The RMA replacements (v raptors) failed even quicker and had to be continually RMA'd until the warranty ran out.

[BlackST]

For me every drive is the same, as long as it fails in my hands or is not mine

I use Samsung, anyway.

[STeALtH]

For me every drive is the same, as long as it fails in my hands or is not mine

I use Samsung, anyway.

Hehe yeah I hear ya as a Chef my favourite meal was always anything I haven't gotta cook

Shame about the Raptors reliability, 10k does sound 'very' fast but no good if they don't last.

On the flip-side though that's 2 good recommendations for Samsungs.

S

[thatdellguy]

Dont care about the brand/model/drive as long as its in a RAID-1 or higher configuration.

[northwind]

I agree with some of the above posts and disagree with some others. If you ask 10 people, you will get 10 different answers in this one.

Samsung's; i avoid them like hell. Had 4 of them for my own data storage and they all failed in 6 months or so. Maybe my luck. I also see a high number of incoming Samsungs (relatively to their sales).

I personally use WD Black (*BY*, ie. ABYS, ABYX, FBYX and FYYS for 2TB) over a Raid-1 and of course under a good UPS for my personal data. All these years we have only had one 2500ABYS with fried PCB and one 320 with heads. So it's a low score I think.

As for 2.5" i think Fujitsu are quite nice and reliable, and despite their MPG and MPF fiasco, they still have good mechanics.

All have pros and cons.