Quality of WD drive?

[allburnintegrated]

Hi all

I was looking at buying a Maxtor Diamondmax 10 hard drive, 300GB size, but for the 16MB cache mainly. They're very hard to get over here, most shops are telling me it'd be a month before they can get any in stock.

One of the shops offered me an alternative, a "WD Single 7200rpm 320GB 16MB Int SATA 2 Caviar SE" (copied from their email). The Maxtor would be about $300, the WD $50 cheaper. Would it be a good idea to accept that? I've heard some bad things about the quality of WD drives so have avoided them in the past, but this seems like a good deal.

[jayb1234]

This should be the one you are referring to.

The WD 16Mb cache drives have been getting pretty good reviews. I wouldn't expect any problems with it.

edit 3 yr warranty

[TwoRails]

I'm a Maxtor fan, and there are a lot of WD fans here, too. Even though I like Maxtor, both are good drives. If you get the Maxtor in the OEM version, it has a 3 year warranty, but only one year for the retail version (at least over here). Not sure of WD's warrantees off the top of my head but they are probably similar.

[KatoPC]

Main HD's I use are 1) WD 2)Maxtor

[Hi Ho]

Seagate, Western Digital, and Maxtor all make very good drives.

[Panama Red]

I've been a WD user for a few years now with the vast majority of the near 40 builds I've put together using 80Gb WD hdd's. But I won't use them any more. Just had one fail under warranty on my wife's machine. Got the new one today and after several hours of frustration trying to install it, I tested it with DLG and it failed the Quick Test! I'm no longer a WD user. I'll use a good replacement when it comes but I won't trust it with anything vital. I'm sticking with nothing but Seagate from now on.

[Hi Ho]

All the companies have ups and downs in quality control. Are you sure you aren't jumping the gun when two out of 40 drives had a problem?

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by Hi Ho All the companies have ups and downs in quality control. Are you sure you aren't jumping the gun when two out of 40 drives had a problem?

Nope, cuz I've had two others fail too. Both were Retail versions and were outside the 1 year warranty. That's 4 out of 36. 11% failure rate is too high. I'll pay the extra few bucks for the Seagate.

[FireByyrd]

Did'nt Maxtor merge with a company?

[Hi Ho]

Now I remember when you posted about those other two and I became worried about my WD 80GB drive. Well, thankfully it's still going. Seagate is my current favorite due to their 5 year warranty but I'm not sure how credible it is to judge an entire range of product lines based on one model.

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by FireByyrd Did'nt Maxtor merge with a company?

They were recently bought by Seagate.

[freakitchen]

I'm with PR on this one. I've replaced quite a few WD drives, particularly P-ATA interface, more so than any other manufacturer.

Seagate would be my preference, but the 16MB cache Maxtor drives are difficult to ignore for the price, and are of good quality also.

FK

[HAL9000]

Originally Posted by Panama Red Nope, cuz I've had two others fail too. Both were Retail versions and were outside the 1 year warranty. That's 4 out of 36. 11% failure rate is too high. I'll pay the extra few bucks for the Seagate.

I used Seagate for a short period of time... 4 out of 10 used failing INSIDE the warranty... 40% failure rate in a short period of time... may have been dumb luck, but using that logic, I would be more afraid of Seagate... doesn't seem like anyone else has that problem though. I haven't used them much due to availability... Maxtor and WD are the popular ones here and I haven't had probs with either.

[glc]

All manufacturers have their ups and downs, and "lemon" models. WD's 80gb JB series PATA drives have been problematic. So far, WD's SATA drives have established a good service record.