Seagate buys Maxtor for $1.9B

groovy.ambuj writes "Reuters reports that Seagate Technology would buy rival computer disk-drive maker Maxtor Corp. for $1.9 billion. Seagate is already world's largest hard drive manufacturer and Maxtor is the third largest after Seagate and Western Digital."

Comments

Hard Drive Voodoo?

[eldavojohn]

You know, I noticed that between me and my friends the most painful experience when dealing with computers is losing a hard drive.

Yes, I know it's a nerd thing to say but it's almost as bad as losing a pet.

Now, because of the brands of said failed drives, I have developed a quality ranking apart from my friends. And it's the pain of that lost data that backs me up.

I had a death star (IBM deskstar) tear itself apart on me and even though it was one of those old Ukrainian IBM/Hitachi ones, I still shy away from Western Digital who now makes them also. I've also had a Seagate fail me but (to be fair) I had bought it thoroughly used.

Now, when ever I go out and buy a drive, I'm leaning towards Maxtor simply because I have a lot of them and one hasn't failed me with crucial data on it. I'm a lot better prepared to deal with that now as I'm older and wiser so maybe I won't ever feel that level of pain again.

Many of my friends swear by Seagate and also claim they're the quietest thing out there.

These new drives made by the merged company should be quite good, perhaps they're able to combine technologies, patents, manufacturing methods and resources to form a very reliable and quiet drive.

What I'd like to ask slashdot readers is for a good way to measure drive quality other than throwing down chicken bones and looking at them or reading tea leaves?

I guess the only thing I've found so far is reviews on-line (sometimes Neweggs have the best sampling), any other suggestions? Is there some kind of hard-drive-consumer-report thingy out there?