Which One?

I spent some time the other day looking at people talking about IBM 75GXPs, and I noticed something.

This morning, I got an email which illustrates what I noticed.

About six months ago, I leased a Dell 4100 with a 45 Gig 75GXP with Windows 2000. I was excited about getting this drive, as it looked like a winner on paper. I had bad sectors pop up during it’s first week of use.

Dell came out and replaced it with another 45 Gig 75GXP, which lasted about a month before it [died].

Dell then came out and replaced it with a 75 Gig 75GXP, which I still have, though it’s given me nothing but problems. . . .

I replaced the IDE cable, and Dell came out and replaced the motherboard, but neither helped a bit. I also added a fan, hoping it was a heat issue, but that didn’t help either.

My advice to you and all your readers is to stay away from the 75GXP, in any size, at any price, and get something more reliable.

Obviously, there are tons and tons of 75GXPs that work perfectly fine, but you can hardly blame the guy for feeling the way he does. To him, he’s had three straight drives, every one a loser. If they were any good, the odds on getting three straight losers are awfully, awfully high.

However, if you look at people talking about hard drives, you see the same thing happening again and again and again. Doesn’t matter what brand it is, you’ll find some people who have three or four of the same drive fail on them. I’ve had that happen with me; I’d just look at a Quantum for a while, and it would go bad.

Maybe it’s not the hard drive. Maybe it’s where it lives.

I’m not saying there is no problem with some types of 75GXPs, especially the 45Gb variety. I’m not saying that all of those drives wouldn’t have failed in a different home. But in at least some of these cases, I have to believe that there is something going on in that box which is causing those hard drives to fail in at least some cases. There’s just too much clustering of failed drives.

There’s a few concrete possibilities that come to mind. The power supply could be at fault; supplying not enough or pure enough power (connectors might not be too good, either). Heat is another prime suspect. We know OSs and drivers can cause problems.

It might be as simple as reverse natural selection. When you have a bad hard drive, what do you normally get back in return? A refurbished hard drive. What is that but a bad drive gone good? Maybe a lot of them go back to a life of grind. 🙂

However, it might be more subtle than that in some cases. Like what? That’s the point; I don’t know. It may be a problem with an individual machine. I really doubt Dell is averaging three GXPs per one initially sold.

What can I do about it?

1) Take preventative measures first. Buy a good power supply, buying a $30 case plus 300 watt power supply might be a very expensive purchase. How much does a hard drive cooler cost? How much hassle is returning a few hard drives worth? At the very least, space them out.

2) Give them two strikes. You probably don’t have a leg to stand on demanding a new drive or different brand the first time around, but if it happens again, ask for one or the other.

3) If you’re having problems, see if others are, too, and see just what other equipment those who are in the same boat as you have. If most people have the same mobo, or case/power supply, that might be the real problem.

Something to consider.

Email Ed


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