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Western Digital's VelociRaptor 10K RPM SATA Drive
MojoKid was one of a number of people to submit about WDs new 10k RPM SATA Drive. He says "Western Digital's Raptor line of Hard Drives has been very popular with
performance enthusiasts, as a desktop drive with enterprise-class performance.
Today WD has launched a new line of
high-performance desktop drives dubbed the VelociRaptor, and the product
finally scales in capacity as well. The new SATA-based VelociRaptor weighs in at
300GB with the same 10K RPM spindle speed, but with one other major
difference — it's based on 2.5" technology. Its smaller two-platter, four-head
design affords the VelociRaptor random access and data transfer rates
significantly faster than competing desktop SATA offerings. Areal density per
platter has increased significantly as well, which contributes to
solid performance gains versus the legacy WD Raptor series."
They used a non-standard connector layout so it won't work in the Mac Pro.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Well... the drives have a heatsink on them that bumb them up to 3.25" size. You can take them out, but it will raise the temp on each drive 4-5 degrees C. Plus add the heat from packing them so close together, and I'm not sure that's such a good idea.
Plus, if you take them out of the heatsink, you void the warranty.
Sounds like you're purchasing your drives from a dodgy OEM, especially since all of their laptop drives ship with 3-year warranty.
I suppose this might have been different in the past, though judging a hard drive manufacturer purely based upon anecdotal evidence is a bit flimsy. There are people who say the same thing about every single other hard drive manufacturer out there.
I'll wholeheartedly agree that there can be bad batches of drives (which is most likely what you encountered), though any faults are usually rectified quickly enough that there doesn't seem to be all that huge of a difference across manufacturers when you look at the entire population.
If you've ever managed a computer lab (eg. large number of identical machines), you'll occasionally run into a batch of machines with particularly dodgy power supplies, hard drives, etc..... More interestingly, if you've got a large sample of "identical" machines that were ordered in separate batches, you'll also likely find that the patterns of failure differ somewhat between the two batches.
The only exception to this is that server/enterprise-grade drives tend to be more reliable then their counsumer-grade counterparts. This is why they cost (a lot) more.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I don't doubt the accuracy of your story, but I've heard the same story over and over again, but with every hard drive manufacturer. I build my own computers, and have been for quite some time. I research the heck out of my components before I buy them. Like a lot of people, I want to get the best bang for my buck. Reliability factors into that. But in all the research I've done, as far as hard drive reliability goes, I've found that you don't have to look too hard to find your exact story, only with Seagate or Maxtor or Fujitsu or Hitachi or whatever. Seriously, go check out the forums at StorageReview.com, and do a search for "reliable". You'll find all kinds of "authoritative" posts like this:
I've been a [sysadmin/system integrator/builder/whatever] for [10+] years. I've always used [WD/Seagate/Hitachi/whatever], and only had [very small number] failures out of [very large number] of drives.
...Or the analogue, like your post, where someone has had [very large number] of failures with a particular brand.
The point is, I think all manufacturers (in general, not just hard drive makers) go through bad spells. Unfortunately, those bad spells typically aren't found out until too long after the fact. Best bet, if you can get away with it, is probably to buy technology that's a generation or two old, so you can see how the product has fared thus far. Sometimes I know that's not possible, so if it were me, I'd probably buy from multiple vendors, and spread the risk.
Also, if I remember correctly, there was that study done by Google on hard drive reliability/longevity that said no brand was more failure prone than the next.
There's no use even making the comparison. You buy what you want because it makes sense for you. Other people buy Mac Pros (or Dells, HPs, or whatever) because they want the warranty, tech support, dealer network, etc. Apple just doesn't see folks like you as part of its market.