D740X Is Definately The Most Popular Hard Drive, And It Kinda Blows Being Popular...

[OC-Master]

Well, after shopping all over the city, virtually all Maxtor D740X (All Models) were completely sold out and were out of stock from 8 of the 10 computer stores that are in the city.

It was brutal, I couldn't get a single Maxtor but yet IBMs and WDs were plentiful in all sizes right up to 120GB.

It seems, most retailers are switching to Maxtor due to past technical drive errors that have came up with Seagate, WD and IBM.

One reseller completely refuses to sell IBM and says that IBM hard drives now days are very unreliable. Most other retailers agreed that most people will buy an ATA-133 hard drive over an ATA-100 hard drive even if the ATA-100 hard drive has 8MB Cache. The fact is that in most places, the 8MB models are up to $50 more (Canadian for WD Drives), which is a total ripoff considering in most cases only proving only 5% faster.

But back to my story, the 80GB D740X that I was supposed to get is now delayed untill two weeks from now untill the store I saw the best price for it gets the new stocks in (60 Hard Drives). Get this, the store sold 30 80GB D740Xs in just 4 days! Wow, talk about popularity, and this was just a little computer shop!

They also had the XP2200 T-bred for sale there for $399 but lets leave that for the AMD section.

The other two places wanted $219 for the 80GB, total rip so I think I'm gonna hold out untill stores replenish stocks.

Oh man, two more weeks without a RAID, this sux. But I love that price for the Maxtor 80, just $175 CAN for that puppy, and thats a sweet deal especially considering its not online :)

p.s- thats like only $104 US, impressive! amount of space.


DS-Master

[Penguin4x4]

Kinda off subject, but what is the US/CAN exchange rate?

[OC-Master]

Say u live in U.S, your 66 cents in your pocket would be equal to 1 doller Canadian.


DS-Master

[Penguin4x4]

$115US for a hard drive is pretty much the normal price, :D

[Da Whip]

Why don't you get it from here;
http://www.atic.ca/store/product$/frameset.htm

For $155 cnd thats reasonable.

[OC-Master]

$13 for shipping thou, which brings the price to $168.

That would only save me $7, I'd rather buy from the store and spend seven dollers than take a chance ordering a Hard Drive from that place.

But thanx anyways :)

If it would save me like $20 then I'd get it online.


DS-Master

[FTC]

DS-Master,

Please, do not try to make all people here belive that all brands except Maxtor are CRAP. That is simply untrue and false. You know I am pro-IBM, but at least I try not to give bad press to anything else... without personal evidence. Maxtor is just one of the big players in the hdd business, and has had bad drives during history, as all the others.
If you have evidence/personal experiences, we'd like to hear those. Otherwise, and at least for me, your opinion (or those of the retailers you mention in your area) does not have real credit.

Just my .05c
Regards
FTC

[Mike360000]

FTC,

touche'

Sorry I didn't read DS-Master the way you did.

Cheers,
Mike

[OC-Master]

FTC,

Well, I actually have a WD hard drive and have had no problems with it what so ever. But I am just biasing opinions from computer stores where they only sell selected brands because of mechanical reasons from dead drives that they had to return.

This easily explains why almost every store in town is Sold out of Maxtor 7200rpm hard drives.

Futureshop, yes Futureshop is EVEN sold out at all locations in the city and they only have 40, 20GB 7200rpm and 5400rpm models. BTW, Futureshop has plenty of WD in stock as well as Seagate.

That has to tell you something. The D740X is in very high demand right now. Need I say more?

EDIT: Well, IBM totally screwed them selves when they released that information how you can only run the hard drive for only 8 hours a day. Well, because of that, some stores refuse to even handle IBM for Hdisks now because of that.


DS-Master

[Mike360000]

Maybe FTC would have a different opinion if he had to join the class action lawsuit against IBM? IBM has made some good HDs in the past, but that was the *past*! This is now, and the future!

Cheers,
Mike

[Compexpert]

yea i love my maxtor drive it kicks but i have the 40 gig i dont need alot off storage i havent even used all the space on the 40 gig if i do then i will get a 60 the 80 then 100 and so on

[Tumbler 00]

Well right now I have a D740X-6L(60gb) and its dying,mechanically!After 2 months on a non-raid array.While I agree its suppose to be the best drive out there right now,I'd settle for a WD.

Imho,when it comes to puters nothings a for-sure thing.And I hope not every-one's going Maxtor,because these company's become pretty bad when there's no competition.

[eXtraktor]

3 Maxtor 40gb 7200rpm drives died on me in 5 months. Luckily i had bought an extended warranty from FutureShop, went in, told them the problem, they gave me a new one on the spot, no questions asked. I now have 1 Maxtor and 1 WD, and to tell you the truth, the WD makes less noise than the Maxtor drive, dunno why.

[M00CH]

I have always had WD and segate drives, but when it came time to get a new drive i went maxtor. cheaper price then the WD and segate, it diddnt last me 12 hours. started to make noise get realy hot then died..
the guy at the store asked if i wanted another, yeah right
just get me a WD...

2 years later 24/7 operation not a thing wrong

[jackswild]

Some might criticize that the Western Digital drive is not ATA/133. But the fact is, many people don't really know what to think about ATA/133. Is ATA/100 still fast enough? If it is, then when is the right time to upgrade? Are there any advantages at all? Right now, UltraATA/133 is nothing more than a marketing catchword. -Tomshardware

I concur. WD JB models all the way hehe.

[nikhsub1]

Originally posted by jackswild
-Tomshardware

I concur. WD JB models all the way hehe.
Even though that is somewhat correct, you would be doing yourself a favor by not quoting anything from tom's ever again. He is a jackass.

[Mike360000]

Don't even mention tom's fricken hardware!
While I would agree that there are other HDs besides Maxtor that are just as good or maybe better, I wouldn't believe what comes from tom's fricken hardware! He's a butthole firstclass! But I digress, he's the computer god for some people......

There is no one HD or anything else that is perfect for all people! What is right for you or me may not be right for somebody else. Just as some peeps has had problems out of Maxtors, I as well as others have not. I'm owning about my 10th Maxtor after 3 years, and they're all still running. (Family and inlaws owns 3 of them, I have 4 currently in use in my system, and I have 3 laid up.) That don't mean everyone will have the same luck. The trick is, finding something that is most likely to work for you, from what you read from others.

Just call me lucky, but I've only had about 2 HD failures out of about 100 HDs, in over 15 years. I know of Conner HDs, what I owned the most of, by far, still running for other people, which are pushing 10 years old.

Cheers,
Mike

[Mike360000]

Tell it nik!
I despise tom pabst and his website. I started going there when he first opened for business, about 8 years ago. (I forget the actual time he opened, but I got a personal invitation to visit his new website at the time.) I was impressed at first with his website and reviews, and I was a regular visitor there, including his forum for several years. However about 3 years ago I begin to notice the quality of his articles started to become less, and his hype and bias increased. Tom hired more people to write and run his website as well. I even personally e-mailed tom a couple of times about his articles. I might as well have been talking to a brick wall! I very rarely ever go to tom's fricken hardware now, and the ONLY way I will believe anything from that site is to read similar conclusions from other websites. Yes, tom pabst is a biased jackass whose arrogance runs up to his nose! (I hate to trash people, but don't go quoting something that comes from tom's fricken hardware!)

Mike Lamb

[Lord_of_Decay]

I mainly use Maxtor and Seagate HDD's, I have never used an IBM drive and wouldnt even consider owning another WD drive.

No problems on this end with my current HDD's.

[FTC]

Well, I am really enjoying how this thread is developing... it is effectively proving my point, where ALL drive brands can fail ...

Regarding the class action against IBM, I am perfectly aware of it.
Please note that it is only restricted to IBM GXP75's AND it has not been ruled out yet. I am not going to defend that particular model, basically because I lack personal experience with it, but I can say that today's (present) IBM IDE drives (120GXP's) are as good as (and probably better) than most other brands. The ones I own are giving *excellent* performance and reliability figures.

Regards
FTC

[Mike360000]

The point from this is, IBM doesn't have as good a track record with HDs as do many other companies. At one time yes, but they squandered it with bad HDs, HDs that they wouldn't and haven't admitted was bad. Which is why we have a class action lawsuit against IMB right now.

Now since you claim a lack of personal experience with some types of HDs, and claim you can't comment because of that; I don't see how you can make any comment on any other HD you haven't owned, or any other company because of some of their HDs you haven't owned?

The thing is, a company's reputation is based, in large part, on their total performance with all their products in a particular area. In this case HDs. Have a big enough flop, treat the people bad enough, and make enough excuses, and you're sure to alienate your market base! I wouldn't hesitate to say that IBM sold their HD division because they have ruined their reputation with that division among the marketplace. I mean anyone who knowingly buys an IBM HD right now has several things against them. Blind alligence, disavowing noted concerns/problems, disavowing public opinion, disavowing known service and support. I am sure this can be expanded upon, but the point is there comes a point where people, as a whole, stops and says, hey something is wrong here because too many people are saying negative things about something. Plus what they directly see coming from the company.

While all these things doesn't mean every single HD from IBM is bad, and one stands a chance of getting a good one. It does mean you are taking more risk in getting a good one. I don't know what the prices are of IBM HDs at this moment, but they should be considerably cheaper than anything else on the market. Maybe 25% cheaper.

Still as I said, anyone can have and claim good luck with practically anything. What works for one doesn't work for another, or even a majority.

While Maxtor may be no.1 right now with their HDs, I can guarantee you one thing, they won't stay there forever. Being no.1 in brings with it arrogance and a superiority complex, that they can do no wrong. (Applies to all companies.) At some point cost cutting, trying to maximize profits on a no.1 ranked reputation will lead to a poorly designed product. What remains to be seen is if Maxtor handles their future flub-up with the dignity and integrity to move them back to no.1 after their fall. IMB has completely failed in this area because they really haven't admitted they ever made a mistake, which is about the biggest blunder a company can make.

On a side note; Do any of you remember how Seagate got their start? How they first manufactured their HDs? What their reputation was? I didn't know untill I bought a early Seagate HD that failed on me and I needed it replaced under warranty. A couple of guys started the company in a vacant warehouse. There was no clean room where the HDs were assembyled. Needless to say, they continued this practice even after large numbers of their HDs were being returned to them. It took a lawsuit then to get many people their HDs fixed, replaced, or refunds. Seagate ended up having to destroy thousands of new HDs because they were suspect and people had quit buying their HDs. Thus they tried to save face and show they were doing something to improve their quality by pulling all them HDs.

That happened back around 1990. And I never have had the urge to want to own another Seagate since that bad experience with them. OTOH Seagate bought out the best HD maker there ever was when they aquired Conner HDs. Conner HDs were known as the best you could buy the whole time they remained a company, and had a sterling reputation for the 8-10 years they were in business. There are today, thousands of Conner HDs running that are over 10 years old! The point is, Seagate even with purchase of the best HD maker that ever was, still in my mind and I'm sure in other early Seagate owners mind's as well, is still is a company I would prefer NOT to do business with!

Maxtor isn't innocent either. When it was Maxtor and Conner, along with Seagate, Quantum, WD and IBM, it was Maxtor who had the ackward HDs, just above the Seagates in reputation. Their HDs wouldn't run with anything but another Maxtor or maybe some WDs. They were loud/noisy and slow. Plus they had a high failure rate, although not anywhere near what the Seagates had. While building computers then, in the late 80s and early 90s, I said to myself, I'd never buy a Maxtor HD, and I didn't! IMHO Maxtor has only recently, since about 1998, really improved their HDs. Yet the main thing that kept Maxtor in the hunt was they never alienated many people, and always tried too put forth a little more effort in satisfying the demands of the market. So in the last couple years I think Maxtor has seen this philosophy pay off. Again though, whether they can keep this position and reputation remains to be seen. If they can't, that's when I'll go elsewhere again.

This past month, when I purchased my 3 Maxtor D740Xs, I came real close to getting the WD Special Editions instead. The only reason I didn't was because I was now already comfortable with Maxtor's HDs, knowing their track record. Plus the only other HD I ever had to die on me was a WD, back in about 1994. (Don't forget WD had some bad HD models in the mid to late 90s as well. They took a beating for awhile, but they too seem to have pulled themselves back out of their problems by fixing their mistakes.)

Cheers,
Mike

[ZeroAquaduct]

Originally posted by DS-Master
Well, after shopping all over the city, virtually all Maxtor D740X (All Models) were completely sold out and were out of stock from 8 of the 10 computer stores that are in the city.

It was brutal, I couldn't get a single Maxtor but yet IBMs and WDs were plentiful in all sizes right up to 120GB.

It seems, most retailers are switching to Maxtor due to past technical drive errors that have came up with Seagate, WD and IBM.

One reseller completely refuses to sell IBM and says that IBM hard drives now days are very unreliable. Most other retailers agreed that most people will buy an ATA-133 hard drive over an ATA-100 hard drive even if the ATA-100 hard drive has 8MB Cache. The fact is that in most places, the 8MB models are up to $50 more (Canadian for WD Drives), which is a total ripoff considering in most cases only proving only 5% faster.

But back to my story, the 80GB D740X that I was supposed to get is now delayed untill two weeks from now untill the store I saw the best price for it gets the new stocks in (60 Hard Drives). Get this, the store sold 30 80GB D740Xs in just 4 days! Wow, talk about popularity, and this was just a little computer shop!

They also had the XP2200 T-bred for sale there for $399 but lets leave that for the AMD section.

The other two places wanted $219 for the 80GB, total rip so I think I'm gonna hold out untill stores replenish stocks.

Oh man, two more weeks without a RAID, this sux. But I love that price for the Maxtor 80, just $175 CAN for that puppy, and thats a sweet deal especially considering its not online :)

p.s- thats like only $104 US, impressive! amount of space.


DS-Master

Yes, I agree. It's hard for the other HDD manufacturers to beat Maxtor because of it's better price and great performance. Why shell out more money for a WD or IBM when Maxtor does the job? I just recently got myself a D740X 60G at a pretty good price here in Vancouver, and I'm just lovin' my new HDD. :D

[FTC]

Mike360000,

I basically agree with all you say 'in general', 'cause I read your append as 'all brands fail sooner or later', and this has been my point in this thread.

I need to clarify however :


Now since you claim a lack of personal experience with some types of HDs, and claim you can't comment because of that; I don't see how you can make any comment on any other HD you haven't owned, or any other company because of some of their HDs you haven't owned?

I have never personally owned a 75GXP. This is not a 'type' of HD, but a specific make/model... and I admit it, so not going do advocate or not against that specific model. I personally own currently a IBM 120GXP, A Quantum LM20 (read my sig), and several other hdds from my last 20 years machines. (4 machines total: an IBM XT '85, an IBM PS2 Mod. 70/486, and 3 different IBM Thinkpads (a P133, a P2-300 and a P2400), plus some no-name 'clones').
At work I have worked with many machines (I work in IT Services for banking and CRM industry, and my customers are used to buy hdds by the thousands), so I know quite well what I'm talking about.

I try not to post in forums *opinions* or hype, but only personal first-hand experiences. This is why my comment had to be read as 'I can't comment on 75GXP reliability since, not owning one, I would not add new information to that debate'.

Regarding comments on other companies, I think I have not dashed or made destructive comments about those... just said that :

- All brands have had some 'bad press' models (your append also does reinforce this asessment) at certain moments.
- All main brands hdds fail in a low percentage. I have been able to observe this at work in the last 20 years. (note that I am not aware of 75GXPs failing in this environment also, but it *may* be because no one was installed as well as because runnig OK...)

Please accept my apologies if my comments could have been interpreted otherwise.

Cheers
FTC