Maxtor really isn't that bad is it?

sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
edited July 2005 in Hardware
A friend keeps telling me that Maxtor is a bad brand, and my Maxtor hd will probably die soon because of its high temps (around 40-44c). I thought Maxtor was a perfectly fine brand! Is it really that bad? Will my drive die soon?! Any success stories with Maxtor hds?
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Comments

  • shwaipshwaip bluffin' with my muffin Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Will keeping any brand drive at too high of a temp shorten the lifetime? Yup.

    I've had only one problem with a maxtor drive, but I RMAed it, and they gave me a newer model as a replacement. Regardless of the brand of HD you choose, there will always be someone who has had a lot of problems with those drives, and is eager to tell you about it.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    oh ok. well im trying to get the hd cooled down asap.

    im not worried about losing money, I'll definitely get my money back, but I don't want all my data lost!!
  • yaggayagga Havn't you heard? ... New
    edited July 2005
    Not had any problems with Maxtor here, however, now that I have used WD and Seagate I like Maxtor the least. Maxtor are by far the hottest of the three brands, but still I have never had any trouble. I've had 4 drives over the past 3 years, in the range of 1-3 years old now. All are still in use nearly 24/7. By the way, I'm running 6 hard drives in my main computer and 3 of them are Maxtors and I havn't had any serious heat problems yet.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    ok great thanks. I'm trying to get the heat problem under control asap, so hopefully I'll be fine.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    What size is it?

    I've gone through a number of Maxtor 6 L080L4 & Maxtor 6 L080J4 (about four or five dead-enders) 80GB drives. They were all purchased around the same time, so it was probably just a bad run.

    Other than those, I've had as much luck with them as any.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Maxtor is a fine brand. The fluid bearing models are very nice - quiet. I'm a big WD fan, but have been impressed with my Maxtors.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited July 2005
    One other thing I found with the Maxtor drives too is that they are very tolerant of running on an out of spec pci bus and not having corruption problems. I had one 20 gig drive running on a highly overclocked P3 system and I didn't have data corruption problems with the pci bus running at 45 MHz instead of the spec 33 MHz. :D:thumbsup:

    That was a Tully 1.26S at 180 fsb on an i815 board.
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    I've never had problems with maxtor drives, the only thing ive had with them is the earlier ones were a bit noisy. but other than that ive never had one die or anyhing.
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited July 2005
    ive literally used over 1000 maxtor drives..

    less than a 5% failure rate, which is an awesome number.

    you want a hot hard drive... Western Digital 180gig drives... massive heat issues...
  • macdude425macdude425 Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
    edited July 2005
    Let me put this into perspective: they're worse than WD and Seagate, but not as bad as the IBM Deathstar. So far I've had one Maxtor go nuts: a 40GB (that I no longer own :D)
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    well luckily I've got mine cooled down to 30c now :D
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Only Maxtor problem I've had was an incompatibility problem between my DFI NF4 motherboard and their SATA drives.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited July 2005
    Tell your friend to stop being a n00b :thumbsup:

    Maxtor is a fine brand, there is always someone who has had trouble with a certain brand of hardware.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    Clutch wrote:
    Tell your friend to stop being a n00b :thumbsup:

    Maxtor is a fine brand, there is always someone who has had trouble with a certain brand of hardware.
    I will be sure to do that ;D

    Yeah I agree on that - It's all about personal experiences, what you do with the hardware, how you use it, what you use it for, how you treat it and maintain it, etc.
  • yaggayagga Havn't you heard? ... New
    edited July 2005
    Gobbles wrote:
    ive literally used over 1000 maxtor drives..

    less than a 5% failure rate, which is an awesome number.

    you want a hot hard drive... Western Digital 180gig drives... massive heat issues...
    funny, my wd 160s are nice and cool

    btw, the only corruption i have had was with one seagate and that was with messing with old PII finicky boards that saw it as weird capacities (no not the typical ones like 137, 6.??, etc...), but i rmad it and i got back a 160gb drive when i sent in an 80.

    drives used:
    5-maxtor (2 sold) all perfectly working (1-3 years old)
    4-wd all perfectly working, however 2 are 5 years old and loud, been in retirement 6 months (3 months-5 years old)
    2-seagate all functioning now, 1 rmad (2-3 years old)
  • lemonlimelemonlime Canada Member
    edited July 2005
    I've owned a few maxtors in my day. I had a 30GB (one of the first gen 7200rpm drives) go sour, with the click of death. Plus I have an 80GB IDE drive that has also developed some clunking.

    I personally have not had very good luck with them, although I have friends who swear by maxtor drives. Personally, I prefer WD drives, and have had generally good luck with them. One of my raptors bit the dust, but that is one out of probably one out of 20 drives I have used in my/family/friend's machines.
  • LincLinc Owner Detroit Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    All my drives (40gb, 2x60gb, 80gb, 120gb, and 300gb drives, and just recently purchased a 300gb external and 40gb SATA) are Maxtors. One of the 60s just died on me (3 yrs old), but I'm more likely to blame myself for that one... I think I smacked it too hard while moving it between systems. :( Been quite satisfied otherwise.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    General Keebler wrote:
    All my drives (40gb, 2x60gb, 80gb, 120gb, and 300gb drives, and just recently purchased a 300gb external and 40gb SATA) are Maxtors. One of the 60s just died on me (3 yrs old), but I'm more likely to blame myself for that one... I think I smacked it too hard while moving it between systems. :( Been quite satisfied otherwise.

    wow thats a LOT of success. thanks a lot guys - it makes me feel a WHOLE lot better about it now :):)
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited July 2005
    D00D wrote:
    funny, my wd 160s are nice and cool

    btw, the only corruption i have had was with one seagate and that was with messing with old PII finicky boards that saw it as weird capacities (no not the typical ones like 137, 6.??, etc...), but i rmad it and i got back a 160gb drive when i sent in an 80.

    drives used:
    5-maxtor (2 sold) all perfectly working (1-3 years old)
    4-wd all perfectly working, however 2 are 5 years old and loud, been in retirement 6 months (3 months-5 years old)
    2-seagate all functioning now, 1 rmad (2-3 years old)

    The heat issues were only with the 180gig which also suffered a high failure rate... go figure. The other WD we used to use were fine.

    The only problem we have run into with the Maxtors are with the:

    Maxline 3 300gig SATA in a raid 5 with a 3ware Sata raid controller, drive 0 drops out of the system. Put it back in as another drive and the new 0 drive drops out and the previous works fine. We have tried all kinds of things with no success. 3ware recommended staggered spin ups which maxtor did as well but no success, It only affected the maxline3, we tried some diamond max 10's with no problems as well as seagates with no problems. Maxtor sent us 4 new drives with different firmware to test out. We will see how that goes.
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited July 2005
    My experience with hard drives.
    Maxtor
    10GB Maxtor model 5T010H1 Going strong very impressed with this one (has always had at least 2 80mm fans aimed on it)

    20GB Maxtor 6E020L0 (always had a 80mm fan aimed at it) Rma'ed once hard drive is currently dead.

    30GB Maxtor 6E030L0 (had 2 80mm fans aiming at it) Rma'ed twice then the warentey expired hard drive is currently dead.

    40GB Maxtor 6E040L0 (had 1 80mm fan aiming at it) Rma'ed twice Maxtor forgot about it for a year on the second rma I just received it back a few months ago the warentey now expired hard drive is currently working and makes the occasional high pitched squealing sound. I bought this drive and the one before that because I had heard bad things about western digital and the local store didn't stock Seagate.

    80GB Maxtor *No longer remember the model* I had 4 of these the cache on one caught fire I called the rma line for Maxtor and they told me they don't cover physical damage and tried to blame me. I bought these drives because I got a great deal on them 4 for the price of 3. I was also told Maxtor had changed ....... I will never buy a Maxtor again .I sold the machine they were in and without warenty to one of my buddy's (Dirt cheep I might add) I don't know the current status of the hard drives last I heard another died but without fire.

    When I worked at ges I found that they were more reliable then my experiences showed only about 25% of them had a problem with in a year.

    Opinion on brand: Recommend Using another brand
    Western Digital
    2GB (No idea on mode) dead not sure when it died.

    20GB (No idea on model) its been going almost as long as the Maxtor 10gb (Had no cooling) its is in my buddy's machine as a secondary now.

    40GB (No idea of model) sold in a computer had 1 years of use on it current status in unknown (Cooled by 1 80mm fan)

    80GB caviler Overall this drive is the best drive I have ever owned runs room temp dead quiet and been going since it I got it. (3 of my friends bought this drive none have had a problem)

    36GB raptor A bit loud when reading or writing but when its idle its quiet :).Been going since I got it back in December I couldn't see this dieing any time soon

    When I worked at ges we rarely used them I only ever saw 1 or 2 dead ones.

    Opinion on brand: Recommend
    Seagate
    20GB not sure of model Going strong a little loud

    40GB not sure of the model same as the 20gb

    Used these a lot at ges it was rare to see a dead one.

    Opinion on brand: Strongly Recommend
    Samsung
    160Gb Samsung It was my buddy's. (Before he bought a 80Gb western digitals) He got this drive for dirt cheep $95

    We carried them at ges but I left before I could find out how many got returned.

    Opinion on brand: In sufficient to do anything other then recommend a trusted brand.
    Quantum
    Bigfoot 10gb All I can say is wow at how many dead ones Ive seen at least 10. (Have yet to see a live one).

    Opinion on brand: Since there part of Maxtor recommend you stay away from them.
    TriGem
    Ive seen more models and sizes then I can count all dead

    Opinion on brand:Run away from this brand !
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    macdude425 wrote:
    Let me put this into perspective: they're worse than WD and Seagate, but not as bad as the IBM Deathstar. So far I've had one Maxtor go nuts: a 40GB (that I no longer own :D)

    So you had ONE older 40gb fail? Apparently after you sold it so you have no idea why it failed.

    But they are worse then WD and seagates?

    Thats a rational sounding answer. Probably based on owning a very large sample of each drive make you compared.

    Tex
  • macdude425macdude425 Mr. Roger's Neighborhood
    edited July 2005
    Who said I sold it? Gave it to my brother-in-law after it croaked; God only knows what he did with it.
    Thats a rational sounding answer. Probably based on owning a very large sample of each drive make you compared.
    Four Maxtors, six WDs, one Deathstar, four Seagates, and three Quantums.
    Respectively, one failed, none failed, one failed, none failed, and none failed.

    About the same sample size as Gray's.
  • indigoflow_asindigoflow_as Westerville, OH
    edited July 2005
    so getting back to the heat issue...fans blasting air on them is the best way to cool them off i take it?

    hell, bare with me...i dont even know an appropriate temperature for a HDD to be running at or how to measure it.

    i just got my first maxtor today and am looking forward to keeping it around for a good while.

    fill me in.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited July 2005
    indigoflow_as wrote:
    ...fans blasting air on them is the best way to cool them off i take it?...
    Good case cooling in general, coupled with a fan specifically for the HD area, is your best bet. :)
  • sectorz715sectorz715
    edited July 2005
    pilotwings119 wrote:
    well luckily I've got mine cooled down to 30c now :D


    I own a Maxtor too and it heats up pretty badly . how'd u do it?
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    i moved my hds to the actual hard drive cage (instead of the floppy drive area) where theres a TTake 120 blowing right at it. They're both constantly 30 or 31c :)
  • sectorz715sectorz715
    edited July 2005
    Something like this?

    http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3972938?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

    guess i'll be needing one of those to
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2005
    Does your case have its intake fan bracket in front of the hard drive cage? If so, all you need is an intake fan in good working order.
  • sfleurietsfleuriet Texas New
    edited July 2005
    yeah that was the exact hd cooler I was going to get before I realized I had the hds in the wrong place!!!

    Yes do what Leonardo said - Check for fan mouting holes in the front of your case
  • sectorz715sectorz715
    edited July 2005
    Ya it had room for two, but its so crappy that the front panel where the buttons are doesnt have any way to let the air in or out, they didnt even put groves in it. And i had a fan there be4 but it mde a ton of noise so i removed it
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