[TriLUG] Dieing hard drive?

[Chip Turner]

Jason Tower <jason at cerient.net> writes:

>> Unfortunately drives dying is par for the course these days.  Falling
>> prices have roughly equated to falling quality, when considered in
>> aggregate over the past ~8 years.  Hopefully the recent trend (led by
>> Maxtor) back to 3yr warranties will hold the manufacturers to higher
>> quality standards... but somehow I doubt it.
>
> when i build new PCs for my clients, i typically use 4-10gb hard drives 
> salvaged from other machines.  that's right, i trust a five year old 
> 4gb drive more than i trust a brand new 80gb drive.  the only downside 
> is they're a little slow due to the lower data density, but that's not 
> reason enough to use new piece of sh*t IDE hard drives.
>
> since virtually every office has a file server there is zero need for 
> 4gb on most PCs that i encounter.  why on earth doesn't someone make 
> an inexpensive, quiet, reliable 4-8gb hard drive?

Sorry, but I have to disagree on this one.  Hard drives have too many
moving parts to trust after being that old.  Especially if they've sat
around unused.  Time kills things with moving parts :)  Plus, old
drives may not provide SMART data, which helps you detect errors
sooner.

I would trust a brand new drive to have 3+ yrs of life than I would
trust a 4 yr old drive to have 2+ yrs of life.  For value PCs, it's
different, but for someone building a box for data they care about,
buy a Seagate or a Western Digital (personal prefs, but they also
carry good warranties; seagate desktop drives are 5 years now; WD may
be the same for some drives, but nost are 3 years).

Of course, a good backup plan is always essential, too :)

Chip

-- 
Chip Turner                   cturner at pattern.net