Ever Lose A Hard Drive? (if so please read)

[California]

Apple doesn't make the hard drives. I don't know why Apple is getting blamed. I had one Fujistu 10gig fail repeatedly in my rev A titanium Powerbook. That's it. Oh and a friend's Powerbook 100 (you read that right) had its original hard drive fail back in the early nineties.

These incidents were ten years apart. That said, if I ever get a Fujistu drive again in a Mac, it's out the door.

 

[bodeh6]

My turning 7 year old Dell is still on it's original WD HD from 1999. iBook is still strong after about 7 months of ownership. I back it up monthly to FW HD. Sister's 3 year old Dell laptop has had 3 Motherboard changes but still original HD. Bros 2 year old Dell Laptop still strong. Just depends.

 

[rzacharia]

The hard drive on my TiBook died last summer, roughly 3 years after I purchased it. It wasn't such a big deal however since the S.M.A.R.T. status notified me that the drive was going to fail. I was able to salvage all of my data and replace the hard drive for under $100.

 

[aquajet]

hellodon, you've personally witnessed 10 drive failures between you and your colleagues? That's not really indicative of a problem considering the many millions of computers Apple has built over the years. In my family, we've had 14 Macs over the past 17 years and never had a drive fail. In fact, the only problem we've had is a faulty Pro Keyboard with my old iMac. Unfortunately, it looks like you're just unlucky.

 

[djlu]

I have had a Mac since the Apple II and have had only one hard drive failure. That was my G4 PowerMac after 5 years. I consider that pretty good anyway.

I have a friend who has had three 250 GB external hard drives fail him all in less than 1 year.

I think hard drivees are a matter of luck really.

Doug

 

[Maxiseller]

Well, I just sent back my iMac in which the HD dies after only a month of use, but before that I had a TiBook which had trouble "keeping" data and frequently would corrupt files, delete my iTunes library etc even after multiple reformats and installations.

I guess some drives are just bad! Of interest though, Ive never heard anybody complain about iBooks in this way?

 

[Amuraivel]

I always keep close track of my hard drives. Losing one -- now, that would be carelessness.

Seriously, I've never had a failed hard drive in over 20 years of Mac ownership. I've had directory damage on a few of them, but it was always repairable. Maybe some of the people who've had their drives "fail" just don't know any basic diagnostic and repair techniques.

Would you care to enlighten us and detail how this is possible?

 

[IJ Reilly]

Would you care to enlighten us and detail how this is possible?

How what is possible? Not having a drive fail in 20 years, or how drive failures can be repaired?

 

[davegoody]

I'm starting to wonder (and worry) about Macs & Hard Drives. I think there is something going on with the way Apples run that is making these things completely crash and die.

These are about 90% of the mac owners i know...all have had this problem at one time or another.

I am an IT Consultant, I look at broken computers every day. Apple, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Sun, Silicon Graphics, You name it, IT DIES - Hard drives are, unlike most other parts in a computer NOT solid state, they have platters that spin round at somwhere between 4000 - 12000 RPM. It should be noted that 10 years ago the MTBF of these drives was around 2 years, these days they last FAR longer despite higher speeds and much larger capacities. So it does not matter who makes the machine (and Apple do not manufacture Hard Drives) they all eventually die.

If you are so worried about this, BACK UP YOUR DATA regularly.

If you wanted a "class action" then target the HDD manufacturers. If you crashed your car would you try and sue the people who made your fuel ?

 

[tip]

My parents never had a HD fail on them on a Mac (three machines in eight years).


I have had a few problems on the Wintel platform, however:

- Fujitsu: One drive failed on me after two months
- Maxtor: One drive failed on me less than a month

Western Digital and Quantum have been decent for me, however.

 

[Max on Macs]

Well, my first own mac was PowerBook G4 12-inch and its hard drive died after about two years of use, but it was pretty smashed around and wrecked, so I don't blame it. I now have a MacBook Pro which I aim to take care of, so we'll see how it goes with that. I have a friend who runs a business with three PowerMac G5s and his employees all use iMac G5s - about 200 of them in total - and he has only had one drive fail (I don't know if it was in a PowerMac or iMac though), so I don't think 'something is going on' here and certainly no need for a class action suit ! What are you trying to do?

 

[California]

I like it when Apple puts in Travelstars or Toshibas, but don't like the oem Fujistus. Too much bad luck and the form factor is actually slower on the Fujistu drives!

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

I've found that disk drives are the most common items to fail in compturs. The primary hard disks on my PCs have always lasted beteen 3 and 5 years. I've had three hard disks fail in this way and another is about to go, I can feel it in my bones. There's a good reason why hard disk manufacturers are reducing the standard warranty on drives. Hard drives used to come with a three year warranty as standard, thats much less common these days.

 

[aquajet]

I like it when Apple puts in Travelstars or Toshibas, but don't like the oem Fujistus. Too much bad luck and the form factor is actually slower on the Fujistu drives!

My PowerBook's got an OEM Fujitsu. No troubles thus far after 1.5 years.

 

[ncook06]

One big thing that many people do not realize is that hard drives can fail if they're overheated. (Read: Powerbooks.) This may be why you experience it more on macs - they're hotter. Once you've overheated your hard drive, it's only a matter of time until it fails completely. The best thing to do is make sure you keep it cool. Use something like an iLap. This will help keep you from overheating your computer and your genitals.

 

[sushi]

Mac or Windows, the hard drive is by far the component that fails most frequently.

Yep, and I've had many fail both Mac 9/OS X and Winders computers.

 

[fuzzwud]

my first mac, a G4 Powermac 400 mhz had either a WD or IBM, and it died after 1 year.

another Powermac G4 966 mhz, with an IBM hard drive nearly died after 3 years. I knew by experience when it was going to die from the first time. I backuped and replaced it.

My brother's Powerbook 12" had problems but it was replaced under Applecare.

We also had Dell, IBM Aptiva, and generic PC hard drives die too. I usually buy Maxtor and haven't had a problem after the replacement.

 

[portent]

I wonder if the observed increase in hard disk failures is due to more people buying laptops. I would expect that laptop disks, which are subjected to more shock and vibration, would be more apt to fail than those in desktops.

And, if so, will the Sudden Motion Sensor help things?

 

[plinkoman]

And, if so, will the Sudden Motion Sensor help things?

being that that is the sole purpose of it's existence, i would certainly hope so

 

[paul84043]

It shouldn't really have anything to do with the OS, unless it was memory limited and swapping constantly throughout it's whole lifespan. But that can happen with pretty much every OS.
I work in an "equipment" IT group that supports nearly 600 machines of every type imaginable, and I have seen drive failures of every manufacturer. More often than not, they seem to come in batches. Western Digital 10's, 13's, 20's, 120's, and frighteningly enough 250's seem to fail more then the others. Every Death Star that I have has died at least once with the bearing failure issue. (Starts to screech like a grinder) I have had many fujitsu's that simply became unreadable one fine day for no reason that I could ever discern, and many drives that run 24/7 that crater on a power failure when the disk spins down and the bearings fall out of the groove they've created.
I've even had to give one a little "twist" to get it spinning to get the data off of it, that was a weird one.
Most of the failures have been either bearing or platter to head contact related. Very few have been electronics unless the machine got single phased or something really cool like that.
I have about 10 toshiba laptops that have had every last 40gig hard drive fail. They switched to Hitachi drives after that class action lawsuit. I guess 40gig drives were falling from the sky.
For a few years there Hard Drive technology was so bad that every manufacturer dropped their warranty down to one year. I have been happy to see them start creeping back up again. Most have a decent RMA system and I have never had a manufacturer complain about replacing a drive that was still in warranty.

Drives fail. They are the weak link, especially in a notebook computer.
Back your data up. It's that simple. RAID was created for a reason.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Lost a hard drive in a iMac 500 it was about 10 months old. It was doing the old clickity clunk sound when trying to start up. Apple replaced it with no hassles. The replacement is still going strong.

 

[strydr]

Hard drives used to come with a three year warranty as standard, thats much less common these days.

Actually, it's the other way around..
It used to be, desktop drives had small (1-3 year) warranty's, and server drives (SCSI) had long warranties (5 year). Seagate made a move about 1.5 years ago to 5 year warranty on all desktop drives. in a few min. of poking around, WD has done the same. (I only have seagate and WD, so I only checked those two), but I bet, most manufacturers now follow a 5 year warranty.

 

[d_and_n5000]

I don't own a Mac...But our 5(now 6) year old PC had it's hard drive die on us a year ago. Solution? Got a Dell.

 

[strydr]

I don't own a Mac...But our 5(now 6) year old PC had it's hard drive die on us a year ago. Solution? Got a Dell.

Ouch. Dude, Sorry to hear about that..

 

[elisha cuthbert]

Only one

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