[KLUG Hardware] Re: problems with IBM/hitachi hard drives

[Mike Williams]

>
>
>Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 23:35:05 -0400
>From: Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam at whitemice.org>
>Subject: Re: [KLUG Hardware] problems with IBM/hitachi hard drives
>  
>
>>> My problem with sudden failure of IBM/Hitachi hard drives has reached 
>>> epic proportions.  I initially bought 2 drives, about 3 years ago.  I 
>>> have now sent back, and had replaced, about 6 of them.  And that's 
>>> really in a 2 year interval, as I mostly stopped using them after 2 
>>> years of dismal reliability.  The 2nd to last one failed after 2 months 
>>> of light use (after sitting on a shelf for several).  It's replacement 
>>> didn't even last long enough to get the operating system installed! 
>>    
>>
>
>Hmmm.  Are these all in the same machine?  If so have you considered
>that your power supply might be crap, or that you have inadequate
>cooling.
>
>The are hi-speed (7,200rpm is fast in IDE land) consumer grade drives -
>(1) You can't operate them in ambient above 85F
>(2) You can't high-density mount - one drive directly above another -
>you need ~1in clearance between drives.
>(3) Shock resistance is minimal, the case should never be so much as
>even skooched with the drives spinning.
>
>If these conditions aren't acceptable either buy 5,400rpm drives, or get
>and external cabinet and use SATA or SCSI.
>
>  
>
I know enough about hard drive cooling to not make mistakes like that.  
initially, they were mounted top and bottom of a 3 drive bay with an 
intake fan blowing right on them.  Power supply was a 350 (maybe 400) 
watt Antec driving a 1200 Mhz Athlon.  I think after the first failure 
they were mounted middle in their own 3-drive bay, so there was plenty 
of space above and below.  After that they were moved to a different 
midtower case with a different power supply.  They usually had the drive 
bay to themselves in this one, and basically nothing else in the way 
that could draw excess power or block airflow (rounded cables, and only 
the HD and an optical in the whole machine). 

>>> company that bought IBM's storage division and has continued to replace 
>>> faulty drives with more faulty drives) through as much mud as I can 
>>> manage.  May I have better luck tilting at windmills than the Man of La 
>>    
>>
>
>Horror stories about these drives are common.  But the drives are not
>faulty, it is almost always the fault of the PC they are installed in.
>  
>
I disbelieved the stories too for a while, as I'm sure a lot of people 
did.  The purpose of the email, which went out to basically my entire 
address book, was to spread the word that the problem is at least as bad 
as you might have heard.  The drives ARE faulty.  No amount of cooling 
or power supply problems can excuse a drive suffering a complete 
hardware failure (BIOS no longer recognizes it, and you can hear loose 
parts scraping around the inside of the drive) in it's first 4 hours of 
use.  I know infant mortality is relatively common with anything that 
has moving parts, and if it was an isolated incident I might be willing 
to discount it, but it's the 7th drive or so that has failed.