I need a new hard drive...any suggestions?

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

I'm a big fan of the 2.5" 10,000 RPM 300Gig Western Digital VelociRaptors but just had 2 fail in a matter of 2 weeks, and then the 2 replacements failed too! Not sure what is going on here. WD is sending more replacements but it gets a little scary when stuff like this starts happening.

Check your HD power supply... especially if the Raptors are in external cases! When supplies get old, they sometimes don't put out rated voltage/amperage, and drives can't spin up properly. I posted awhile back about how I replaced a failing external drive power supply with a stock PC power supply, $40 at Fry's. It is now powering four externals, (including two Raptors) with plenty of headroom for more.

Interesting...I wonder if a bad power supply could have killed them though. I tried them in another known good enclosure and had the same problem. I'll consider trying a different supply though. Thanks for the tip!

[ripeart]

Here's a link to the "Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population" study done by Google in 2007. It's not extremely relevant in your situation however it is interesting to read. Draw your own conclusions. In my experience Seagate and Western Digital have always proved reliable. However I have always tried to keep redundant copies of important data. Anything mechanical will eventually fail. If it's important, make it fault tolerant.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w ... OiYZAyrKmA

[newrigel]

SSD!

Man... if you have the extra money... definitely YES! I have my system RAID on two of them (in my optical bay with a mod) and I haven't even seen the halfway mark on the DSP meter on this new MacPro!
Sessions that used to clip my old MP are about 1/4 on the DSP so the SSD's in a RAID has really helped! I'd stick with the smaller capacities if possible till they come down in price though.

I'm a big fan of the 2.5" 10,000 RPM 300Gig Western Digital VelociRaptors but just had 2 fail in a matter of 2 weeks, and then the 2 replacements failed too! Not sure what is going on here. WD is sending more replacements but it gets a little scary when stuff like this starts happening.

I have had nothing but great performance from mine (I have 4) and I work the hell out of them! But that's why in my previous post (I just got the Blu Ray) to back up, I have no problem with them suckers taking a dump... But that's really strange that you went through 4 in a row...

[ripeart]

SSD! Man... if you have the extra money... definitely YES!

I second this, however keep in mind that SSD drives have a limited number of reads/writes before they fail. Here's a quote from a whitesheet Imation published (late 08).

http://www.imation.com/PageFiles/83/SSD ... -Paper.pdf

Depending on the type of NAND flash memory (SLC or MLC), and the predicted usage per day, one can estimate the overall lifetime of the SSD (sometimes called the write endurance of the SSD). However, it is particularly important to emphasize usage per day. Embedded in the word usage and often overlooked is the type of usage, such as sequentially written, random written or mixed written (random and sequential). Each scenario affects performance (IOPS, transfer rate, block size, etc.) and the overhead written along with the data. These parameters, when accounted for properly, can effect the resulting life time estimation, even when the total perceived usage per day is the same. This is why, when life time estimation is quoted, the vendor indicates the type of written strategy executed, which is usually sequential write. Sequentially written data provides an ideal scenario for estimating lifetime since the IOPS, transfer rate and overhead are constant factors that can be used in a simple formula, as opposed to random or mixed written data, which can vary the overhead size. The calculated lifetime estimation example used in this paper will exercise the sequential written usage type, which is a reasonable estimation for the SSD lifetime, and will give the reader a base of understanding for the predicted value. Keep in mind, the true written usage will vary depending on the type of write strategy used.
Recall for the SLC NAND flash, which is the present technology used today, P/E cycle endurance is approximately 100,000 cycles, as opposed to MLC which is only 10,000 cycles.
In all cases the equation for lifetime is based on the simple product of SSD capacity and the write endurance of the NAND flash memory. This is because the wear-leveling algorithm insures the wear rate for each block of flash
memory to be essentially equal throughout the entire lifetime of the drive. The plot below shows the wear leveling result after constantly writing to a 32GB Imation SSD for 170 hours. Note each block has about the same number of erase counts.

[newrigel]

SSD! Man... if you have the extra money... definitely YES!

I second this, however keep in mind that SSD drives have a limited number of reads/writes before they fail. Here's a quote from a whitesheet Imation published (late 08).

http://www.imation.com/PageFiles/83/SSD ... -Paper.pdf

Depending on the type of NAND flash memory (SLC or MLC), and the predicted usage per day, one can estimate the overall lifetime of the SSD (sometimes called the write endurance of the SSD). However, it is particularly important to emphasize usage per day. Embedded in the word usage and often overlooked is the type of usage, such as sequentially written, random written or mixed written (random and sequential). Each scenario affects performance (IOPS, transfer rate, block size, etc.) and the overhead written along with the data. These parameters, when accounted for properly, can effect the resulting life time estimation, even when the total perceived usage per day is the same. This is why, when life time estimation is quoted, the vendor indicates the type of written strategy executed, which is usually sequential write. Sequentially written data provides an ideal scenario for estimating lifetime since the IOPS, transfer rate and overhead are constant factors that can be used in a simple formula, as opposed to random or mixed written data, which can vary the overhead size. The calculated lifetime estimation example used in this paper will exercise the sequential written usage type, which is a reasonable estimation for the SSD lifetime, and will give the reader a base of understanding for the predicted value. Keep in mind, the true written usage will vary depending on the type of write strategy used.
Recall for the SLC NAND flash, which is the present technology used today, P/E cycle endurance is approximately 100,000 cycles, as opposed to MLC which is only 10,000 cycles.
In all cases the equation for lifetime is based on the simple product of SSD capacity and the write endurance of the NAND flash memory. This is because the wear-leveling algorithm insures the wear rate for each block of flash
memory to be essentially equal throughout the entire lifetime of the drive. The plot below shows the wear leveling result after constantly writing to a 32GB Imation SSD for 170 hours. Note each block has about the same number of erase counts.

That's why you get the smaller capacities and get an SLC... but in general, because SLC drives are less complex they have longer MDF, less storage capacity, higher costs and theoretically outperform MLC drives, that is until Intel released their X25-M SSD which is a Multi Level Cell drive that is equal to or faster then their SLC competitive counterparts.
Still, HD's fail and the performance gained is worth it. An armature mechanism, and spindle motor in a conventional HD has more of a chance of failure than a SSD.
That's why you back up your data and make sure they have a good warranty!
Drive death is inevitable. Like the gentleman in the other post who had 4 brand new Velociraptors crap out on him... it happens so just back up your data!
Plus, with 320 GB in read writes daily equals lasting 27 years... that's just fine with me!
5 years from a drive is quite a bit!

[ripeart]

Plus, with 320 GB in read writes daily equals lasting 27 years... that's just fine with me!
5 years from a drive is quite a bit!

Well, you kind of took that out of context hee hee...

Yet the verdict remains out as far as reliability when comparing SSD vs mechanical drives. It also remains true to make sure you back up your data consistently and frequently, even more so when using unproven storage media for your day to day!

[Radiogal]

Seagate Barracuda with 32 MB Cache memory. The cache is really important for audio. The higher cache memory is, the faster your disc will read, buffer and write. It´s like extra power to ur Mac and very noticable!
I´ve used Seagates for about 10 years now for the OS and the audio disc. I´m happy to say that I actually NEVER had any disc failures!
FWIW: I use Superduper for disc cloning to an external LaCie FW disc.

[carrythebanner]

Seagates can be a bit shaky, as some WD other colors.

YMMV, but I've never had any issues with Seagate drives.

[HCMarkus]

Who needs hard drives..? It's always tape, baby.

[martian]

I had a seagate barracuda 750 die last week ( yes friday the 13th ) - I think it was only a bit past it's first birthday...

I was actually using that drive in 2 partitions - one for system and the other ended up being a work driver- was supposed to be an archive but....

would this put extra stress on the drive?

I am now trying to buff up on that RAID array I never got going..

( did any one go drobo? )