Hard drive reliability

Over the last few years I have used literally hundreds of hard drives on numerous systems, both for clients, work and for myself. Hard drives are usually the forgotten soldier, beavering away all the time and doing work behind the scenes. Its only when they go wrong that people realise they exist. Nowadays, hard drives and storage in general is so cheap that most people can impress their friends and boast the largest capacity.

The reason I am going on about this is because I serviced a PC for a client today. The computer would POST (the white text displaying specs when you start the system), but then it just looped in a continuous cycle of resetting itself. So it would not start.

Well blow me if it wasn't a Maxtor (Again!). It's an on-going joke with my partner and I about Maxtor. Whenever we see a hard drive with Maxtor written on it, we know we have got problems. Out of all the hard drives I have used, I can honestly say, that virtually all the problems I have had with hard drives turn out to be a Maxtor.

When we put an order into our distributor today, they offered Maxtor 80GB as they had run out of 40GB Western Digital. I said "Don't swear at me.", and explained my experiences with maxtor. Interestingly they told me that they ' receive more Maxtor returns than any other hard drive manufacturer. However, Maxtor are the best seller.'

I am not surprised by this. Maxtor, in my experince, are a temperamental animal, quite similar to an 80's Conservative politician. Prone to corruption, a failure in office and they get right up your nose.

I swear by Western Digital who have never let me down, have a 3 year warranty and they look far sexier.