Bad disk or kernel (ATA Driver) problem? - SOLVED

[Karl Denninger]

On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 07:37:34PM -0800, David G. Lawrence wrote:
>    Yeah, the 6Y series Maxtor is particularly bad. More than half of all
> of them that I've had (a few dozen in total) have gone bad. The 7Y series
> is a slightly better, but still well short of an acceptable failure rate.
>    On the other hand, the Hitachi 7K250 and 7K400 series SATA drives have
> worked quite well for us, with failure rates in the low single digits.
> Seagate SATA drives also seem to be reliable, although they don't perform
> very well.
> 
> -DG

I have some associates that have had major problems with Deskstars in server
use, which is why I didn't consider them originally.....   They moved them
all to desktop machines where they're getting reasonable life from them -
albiet at a pricepoint that didn't make sense compared to the Seagates 
and WDs of smaller capacity.

Often this kind of thing is part and parcel of one given model though, which
means that unless you're talking the same line/model/whatever, it may not
apply, and some of the issues are firmware related - so a production change
can make a formerly unacceptable unit "ok" somewhere - or the reverse.

This really bites - while I used to have issues with disks now and then 
when I ran my ISP, it was typically a rare bad lot once in a while.  
Products with this kind of failure rate just never made it out - now 
it seems that the manufacturers will throw whatever they can into 
the market, hoping they survive until the warranty runs out, and 
there's a trend towards shortening warranties to one year as well!

I wonder if someone could go after these guys on their "MTBF" claims
which all appear to be WILDLY optimistic.....

Ah well, if I can't get the Maxtors to work reasonably well I guess I can
try the Deskstar 250s...

Thanks for the datapoints guys...  (rant off!)

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl at denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights Activist
http://www.denninger.net	My home on the net - links to everything I do!
http://scubaforum.org		Your UNCENSORED place to talk about DIVING!
http://www.spamcuda.net		SPAM FREE mailboxes - FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME!
http://genesis3.blogspot.com	Musings Of A Sentient Mind