TiVo Community Forums Archives - Unhappy with Maxtors

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Unhappy with Maxtors
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Posted by: Answers

Just wanted to share a couple of concerns with Maxtor brand hard drives. First off, I should make it clear that I've been a loyal Maxtor buyer for several years now (mostly PC related). However, in the past three years of approximately a dozen Maxtor drives (mostly 80 gig) I've had nearly a forty percent failure rate. In addition, Two series 1 Tivos that I upgraded a couple of years ago with twin Maxtor 80's are now showing signs of drive failure and will have to have the drives replaced soon. Obviously, my Maxtor failure rate will soon be higher.

While I consider Maxtor's hard drive warranty to be one of the best and have never had a problem getting a bad hard drive replaced I consider this lack of dependability to be a major pain in the ass. A good warranty is not enough of a reason to buy an inferior hard drive.

Have a new Series 2 to upgrade at the moment. Will likely use a twin 120 gig setup and am considering Seagate for their new drive architecture and low noise. Any comments or recommendations would be appreciated.

Answers

Posted by: mainecooncat

I'm swapping out a 80 GB Maxtor (D540X I think) for a 120 GB Seagate Barracuda V. The Maxtor is getting noisy (annoying whining noise) that wasn't there when it was new (about 9 months ago). The Seagate is supposed to be very quiet but until I get it installed in the DirecTivo I won't be able to tell. It is currently in a PC with a CPU fan, power supply fans, etc. so even the noisy Maxtor seems quiet.

The 80 GB Maxtor also is showing some stuttering in the video, on occasion, so I think it is on its way to an early death. Hopefully the Seagate will last longer (and stay quiet) for more than 9 months.

Posted by: Gubbagubba

"Will likely use a twin 120 gig setup and am considering Seagate for their new drive architecture and low noise. Any comments or recommendations would be appreciated. "

I have 3 80GB Seagate IV's in my home workstation and they are wonderfully quiet.

I just bought the related Baracuda V 120GB ST3120023A for a serise 1 Tivo upgrade & expect it will be similarly quiet to silent as the cuda IV's were.

Good luck
B

Posted by: Answers

"I just bought the related Baracuda V 120GB ST3120023A"

Quiet is good but I'm not as interested in noise as I am in maximum MTBF (mean time between failures). I do NOT like going through all the changes required to upgrade a Tivo (or build a PC for that matter) only to have the hard drive fall apart on me after only a year or two in service.

I would hope that the Baracuda has longevity going for it as well as low noise.

Answers

Posted by: Montaño

I have replaced 3 Maxtor 80 gig HD's after about a year and a half of use in my TiVo's. The Maxtor's in my PC's have been going strong for years!!?? I replaced them with the Samsung 120 gig, of which I have no experience with. So I guess we'll see in a year or so if the Samsungs were better or not??