Miphee wrote on 2021-03-09, 11:34:

I have a bunch of <300 MB drives that worked fine one week and died the next. Conner, WD, Seagate, doesn't matter. Quantums are […]
Show full quote

I have a bunch of <300 MB drives that worked fine one week and died the next. Conner, WD, Seagate, doesn't matter.
Quantums are complete crap (click of death), Maxtors either die immediately or work fine for years. I only have a single IBM ESDI drive that works.
I wouldn't buy drives from resellers because they are tossed around for weeks in the recycling center before they are sold.
Try buying from a local collector who tested the drive himself and pick it up yourself so it won't get damaged during shipping.

You mean the Quantum Prodrives?

There was a period around 2003-2004 where there was a bunch of Quantum drives early failures due to a change in semiconductor casing material. All the spindle drivers went up in smoke 😀

Thank you for all answers.

PTherapist wrote on 2021-03-09, 11:08:

Any old hard drives, regardless of model or type can be a gamble. Generally I've found reliability of old hard drives to be quite good, but that's all assuming they've been handled well and stored correctly - which if you're buying from somebody else then you just don't know this for sure. It's also assuming they don't have any flaws that leave them failure prone.

I've had more failures with Conner, Seagate & Hitachi branded drives over the years, than I've had overall with WD.

I still have a 21-year-old Maxtor 200GB IDE HDD that has been running practically 24/7 for those 21 years. Still going strong and the number of reallocated sectors/uncorrectable sectors hasn't increased from the present 6 total for over a decade.

It will be from seller, that handled them as retro components, so should been handled good and also will be surface tested. But not sure, if he have them stored from year 1998, maybe, it was used by someone else before, and in this case, I will not find out.

To the 21-year-old Maxtor 200 GB: Well, you eighter think 20 GB. Because I'm sure, in year 2000, even 20 GB was considered big. Even in anandtech reviews from that era, they are using 20 GB harddrive as test setup. Later the year, 30 GB HDD start to be mid-range standard, but maximum what I remember, have been 60 and 75 GB harddisks from that era, possible even in early 2001. They were just those Plenty platters version, like 4 or 5 platters. 200GB harddrives was more like 2005 and 2006 stuff. I remember it, because just in 2006 I had big upgrade for computer, and I've included also very good WD2500KS - 250GB hard drive, and I took one of those larger ones available. It served really good, till 2010, where 1 TB version was more like standard. I have it till today, also it was SATA/IDE combined disk, so I am using it from time to time because of that it can be connected to IDE interface of older motherboards. Interesting note is, that 1 TB WD green died after 6 years. So 1 TB from 2010 is already dead. I was quite dissapointed, as I took green version for 5400 RPM, and with only 2 platters, so it will last long. But nope, all my old harddrives out-lasted it. Even Maxtor Diamondmax 8, 30 GB , that I have from 2003, is still in use in retro computer. And IBM deskstar 30 GB, bought in 2001, is also operetional, using it from time to time as back up, and with all original files from that era. Been used as primary disk for few years, than till 2006 in retro computer, than as transport disk and for backups.

I've got a stack of dead drives, mostly Seagate, both 3.5" and 2.5".

One of my family members had a 500GB WD Blue die a few years ago. I took it apart and found that the platter had warped which caused the heads to die and shred the coating off the platter.

Though most spinning rust drives last a really long time, I really dislike the slowness of them.

I'd rather have stuff load pretty instantly on my retro builds than deal with old hard drives and their grinding away.

W.x. wrote on 2021-03-09, 15:27:

To the 21-year-old Maxtor 200 GB: Well, you eighter think 20 GB. Because I'm sure, in year 2000, even 20 GB was considered big. Even in anandtech reviews from that era, they are using 20 GB harddrive as test setup. Later the year, 30 GB HDD start to be mid-range standard, but maximum what I remember, have been 60 and 75 GB harddisks from that era, possible even in early 2001. They were just those Plenty platters version, like 4 or 5 platters. 200GB harddrives was more like 2005 and 2006 stuff. I remember it, because just in 2006 I had big upgrade for computer, and I've included also very good WD2500KS - 250GB hard drive, and I took one of those larger ones available. It served really good, till 2010, where 1 TB version was more like standard. I have it till today, also it was SATA/IDE combined disk, so I am using it from time to time because of that it can be connected to IDE interface of older motherboards. Interesting note is, that 1 TB WD green died after 6 years. So 1 TB from 2010 is already dead. I was quite dissapointed, as I took green version for 5400 RPM, and with only 2 platters, so it will last long. But nope, all my old harddrives out-lasted it. Even Maxtor Diamondmax 8, 30 GB , that I have from 2003, is still in use in retro computer. And IBM deskstar 30 GB, bought in 2001, is also operetional, using it from time to time as back up, and with all original files from that era. Been used as primary disk for few years, than till 2006 in retro computer, than as transport disk and for backups.

Now that you say that, I've definitely got my dates wrong here. The drive was actually bought later for a PC that I originally got in 2000, a case of posting without thinking there. So the 200GB drive is actually a little newer and not from 2000. However, it's still impressive that it's been running 24/7 for as long as it has though 🤣.

My opinion is simple. I also like keeping spinning rust in my computers as long as possible, but any pre-1998 drive I come across I consider dead until it boots again.

WD drivers are a mixed bag to me, but most tend to keep on duty: I have some realty old ones (mfm/rll) and they tend to keep going. My 420MB looks like it lost track last week, have to test it in another system The 850 and 1200MB keep going as well. I carried out a few 1-2GB ones.
Seagate: most look okay to me
Quantum: mixed bag, they tend be faster than reliable. Bigfoot tends to be better though...
Maxtor: I hate them. These seem to failing after ten minutes in use. Especially 2-12GB ones.
IBM I don't bother (ps/2 uses different brand luckily enough)
JTS: I've got a 2GB one that doesn't want to die! It's build on the remains of the dreadful Kalok stuff.

CF hasn't failed me yet, but I only use industrial class (like Cisco rebrands and Transcend industrial).

waterbeesje wrote on 2021-03-09, 17:22:

My opinion is simple. I also like keeping spinning rust in my computers as long as possible, but any pre-1998 drive I come across I consider dead until it boots again.

Just a testing note from my lab--

My experience has been that many old Quantum IDE drives (<1GB ) will make the "click-click-click-oops-I'm dead" sound when attached to IDE ports on motherboards >1997 unless I manually changed the BIOS config for the drive to "CHS" instead of "AUTO", "Large", or "LBA" mode.

I was getting ready to throw a small funeral for my 240MB Quantum Prodrive LPS until I realized that 1) it wasn't dead and 2) no one would come even if it was, not even "UrLord Pyro K" because he's serious about his quarantine =(