ibm hard drives, good, bad?

**racronus** · 06-21-2002, 12:59 PM

are ibm hard drives reliable, on a scale of 1 to 10 what would you rate them?

**Bovon** · 06-21-2002, 01:36 PM

Some or all IBM series hard drives have been failing much more than others. I haven't read anything recently about IBM drive failures, maybe they fixed the problem. I have never owned an IBM drive, so I can't compare them to other drives. I have used Maxtor in recent years with good success...no failures, but...should a Maxtor drive fail, or even if the owner thinks it is about to fail, Maxtor has the best RMA, no questions asked return policy going I have heard of.

**Lycia** · 06-21-2002, 01:48 PM

I have a 60gig IBM GXP and I have no problems...

From what I understand, it's the 70GXP that have had the failure problems...

**arkie** · 06-21-2002, 02:55 PM

Our IBM Aptiva is over 5 years old, never had a hardware problem. 4.3 GB HD.

My wife is using it right now.

***Midknyte*** · 06-21-2002, 03:20 PM

IBM drives have been the standard for a long time. I have heard of recent batches with problems (see data storage), but for the most part, IBMS are good drives. I guess I would give them an 8.

Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate are all solid companies. The new WD drives with the 8MB cache are pretty awesome.

as far as returns/exchanges, Maxtor was probably the easiest, but WD and Seagate weren't too bad either. I have gotten a bigger drive almost every time I've had to return one. Fujitsu was kinda of a pain to get a replacement from.

Here's a good place to read up on the different drives:

www.storagereview.com

**grimfandango** · 06-21-2002, 04:57 PM

HAY now wait.

IBM hdd are real good.
I have been usin a 16gb from 1998!!

And I use me com all time.
no problem at all, (they may be real,real slow thats all).
but they are real good. so far.

**jad1097** · 06-21-2002, 05:36 PM

IBM IDE drives have a seriously bad reputation especially the entire GXP series. Too many die..click..click..click..dead.

http://www.tech-report.com/news_reply.x/2799/

http://www.tech-report.com/onearticle.x/3494

lets not forget this either.
http://www.sheller.com/ibmclassaction.htm

But...
IBM hands over HDD biz to Hitachi

**Ape0r** · 06-21-2002, 05:40 PM

I have a 20 gig IBM Deskstar thats about 28 months old - Never had any hard drive failures at all, but from what I hear a lot of people have. I would recommend Maxtor or Western Digital hard drives personally.

**rangeral** · 06-21-2002, 06:02 PM

Westerns have been failing of late I used them for around 4yrs til recently, friends store is getting tired of their failure rate, I sent 2 back and both rma's were dead consequently I've switched to seagates, ibm doesn't send back what you think you should get.

**racronus** · 06-22-2002, 03:59 AM

Originally posted by Lycia
I have a 60gig IBM GXP and I have no problems...

From what I understand, it's the 70GXP that have had the failure problems...

are the 80gb and 100gb any good? those are my main choices so far.

**jad1097** · 06-22-2002, 07:16 AM

All IBM GXP drives are unreliable. Please read the links I provided above and read what hundreds of people have to say.

From my second link:

By now, most of us are familiar with the serious reliability problems with IBM GXP-series hard drives (75GXP and 60GXP, primarily). Apparently high failure rates have even spawned a class-action suit against IBM. Then there was an IBM tech's bizarre recommendation revealed last week that 120GXP drives not be used more than eight hours a day. Sites like StorageReview and VIAHardware have withdrawn recommendations of IBM hard drives.
IBM has finally responded to StorageReview's questions with a clarification of sorts:

The 333 power-on hours (POH) defined in the 120GXP data sheet is not a new spec for our GXP drives; it is consistent with what we've held our desktop drives to in previous generation drives. The 333 power-on spec is not an indication of a maximum number of power-on hours or limitation of the Deskstar 120GXP.
Our specifications indicate that the 333 power-on hours per month represent typical desktop PC usage. This assumes an 11-hour day based on a 30 day month. Users can and have successfully run the drive more than 11 hours a day and 333 hours per month; the drives have been used successfully in 24x7 environments.

IBM stands by the 3-year warranty for the 120GXP. Power-on hours will not be a determining factor in negating the warranty.

However, warranties are only so useful when your drive crashes and takes your critical data with it. To date, IBM has said next to nothing about GXP failure rates, and without solid failure rate data, it's hard to know how bad the problems are.
But as I sat here this weekend recovering data from my dad's failed 60GXP, I got a new hint at the true scope of the problem. It's called The Thread That Won't Die. Ever since Andy first wrote up a news post asking for GXP drive failure (or success) stories back in August, the comments have been coming in. Unlike most of our other comments threads, which tend to die as soon as any trace of them vanishes from TR's front page, this thing has only picked up steam over time. And the stories folks are telling are not pretty. Read through some of them and see what I mean. It's phenomenal—and phenomenally depressing.

Since I recommended 75GXP drives in this very space before all of this started, I should probably say something more. In case you haven't gotten it through your head yet, don't buy IBM hard drives, especially the ATA variety (the GXP line). I'm not sure what's more disturbing: the drives' apparently extremely high failure rates or IBM's lack of communication with customers and the press. Either way, though, IBM doesn't deserve your business. If you value your data (or your time), pass on the GXP drives.

As an alternative, I recommend Maxtor's DiamondMax Plus D740X drives. Dr. John from KickAss Gear sent along a bunch of these for us to use in testing, and I've been very impressed with them. The D740X has some of the best seek times around, which makes its performance in everyday use feel astoundingly fast. Otherwise identically configured test rigs turn in significantly higher Winstone scores with the D740X than with the 75GXP. Also, these drives support ATA/133, so they're good to go on boards with the latest Highpoint ATA RAID controllers. Those of you still hanging on to your GXP drives might want to consider a preemptive upgrade to a D740X. (Damage eyes the Damagebox warily.) There's no better excuse to upgrade than this one.

**BipolarBill** · 06-22-2002, 07:20 AM

I cannot recommend any IBM GXP drive - especially the 75GXP series. Other than those, IBMs are as reliable as any.

**grimfandango** · 06-22-2002, 06:03 PM

My IBm still works.
I will recommend it to every one.
They are real nice if you know how to use them

**BipolarBill** · 06-22-2002, 06:27 PM

Oh yeah? How do you use them, Grimmy?

**shaggy** · 06-22-2002, 07:00 PM

My 15Gig Ibm lasted about 2 years then it just kept on getting more and more bad sectors. I've just sent it back.

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