160+ gb FW HDs at DVinfo.net

Elmer Lang · October 19th, 2003, 10:31 AM

Any bad experiences with the big 160 or 200 gb FW HDs? Are they loud? Fraught with sticktion?

I want IBM. Maxtor makes me nervous. I'm thinking about the Lacie?

Any info you want to share would be appreciated.

thanky,
elmer

Jeff Donald · October 19th, 2003, 11:00 AM

I use a Western Digital. It actually seems quieter than my older, smaller drives. IBM is making drives with cooperation from Hitachi. They seem to be a good alternative. Your older Mac may not recognize the entire size of the drive. It is a hardware issue with older computers. Another advantage to upgrade your computer.

Jeff Smallwood · October 19th, 2003, 11:13 AM

Yeah, we have a few 200gig WD drives, quite satisfied with them.

Glenn Chan · October 19th, 2003, 12:07 PM

IBM/hitachi drives are quieter than western digital drives. Go to storagereview.com and look at some of their drive reviews. Hopefully by comparing decibel levels between drives you will get an idea of how loud a FW drive will be.

IBM/hitachi and western digital drives are probably the best for video editing.

Lacie FW drives use WD drives inside (2MB buffer apparently). The most common advice is to go with a 8MB drive from IBM or WD with an enclosure with the oxford 911 bridge. Other World Computer and Granite are some popular brands for enclosures.

Some FCP users get dropped frames with firewire drives. It might be that the FW drive is sharing the same FW bus as your deck/camera. Getting a FW card might help.

If you have the money you get a FW800 enclosure, it's definitely faster than FW400.

Boyd Ostroff · October 19th, 2003, 01:32 PM

Actually I have 4 Maxtor 7200 RPM 160gb external firewire drives that work fine for video. These models (5000 DV) have the Oxford 911 chipset and are preformatted for the mac. No dropped frames or other problems. However, using an ACOM 60gb 7200 RPM drive with the same powerbook I get nothing but dropped frames and blocky digital breakup; not even usable. Make sure the firewire interface is fast enough on the external drives, it's not just the drive speed....

I am a bit spooked by the IBM/Hitachi drives. Got a new G4/1.25 about 2 months ago which had a 7200 RPM Hitachi Deskstar 80gb system drive. The drive suffered a hardware failure 3 weeks out of the box; made a terrible grinding/rattling sound.

Glenn Chan · October 19th, 2003, 03:28 PM

storagereview.com has a drive reliability database if you want to check out other people's experiences.

Promax (VAR for video editing systems) recommends IBM drives by the way.

Jeff Donald · October 19th, 2003, 03:31 PM

I don't think their sampling is big enough to be statistically of much use. It's just different peoples opinions so don't draw too many conclusions from what you read.

Andres Lucero · October 21st, 2003, 12:10 PM

I had the same drive as Boyd (Maxtor 5000 DV) and it became corrupt after 2-3 months of use, now WinXP tells me "the drive is not accessible"...

Bryan Beasleigh · October 21st, 2003, 01:48 PM

I've had the same trouble with thw IBM deathstar. You're going to get a bad drive now and again from any manufacturer. I've had good luck with Seagate and WD. My current HD's are the 7200 RPM 8 meg buffer models.

The service from Hitachi (IBM) was excellent. I put the drive in the freezer, off loaded all the data and sent it off to the Hitachi / IBM warranty depot. I had a new drive overnighted within days.

Dan Lahav · October 23rd, 2003, 04:48 PM

i've always trusted maxtor HDD's (10 years +) and have been very satisfied...never a problem. Plus i used to keep my computers on 24/7 until the CA energy crisis =\

Boyd Ostroff · October 23rd, 2003, 06:32 PM

<<<-- Originally posted by Andres Lucero : I had the same drive as Boyd (Maxtor 5000 DV) and it became corrupt after 2-3 months of use -->>>

I've had that sort of problem on drives from various manufacturers. Personally I doubt that this has anything to do with the drive hardware, it's more likely an OS or software problem.

When you're chucking around multi-gigabyte files, nearing the capacity of the drive, and suffering the inevitable crashes it's only a matter of time before something gets screwed up.

I was in a total panic last month when one of my drives became corrupt while backing up 95GB of my current project between 2 firewire drives. To my horror I found that both the source and backup disk were filled with unreadable files. Then when I rebooted the source drive would not even mount. Of course this all happened at 4:00 AM and I had to be at work at 8:00. Not a happy day for me.

But that afternoon I got a copy of Disk Warrior. It diagnosed the problem and repaired it quickly. The drive was fine after that. If you're using MacOS X and FCP you really owe it to yourself to get a copy of this program (or whatever other utility you prefer) and have it handy. It sure would have lowered my anxiety level if I could have repaired that disk on the spot instead of worrying about it all day! ;-)

I seriously doubt that any of this was related to the maxtor drive mechanism, much more likely to be a disk allocation problem related to OS X or FCP which caused the directory to get trashed.

October 19th, 2003, 10:31 AM	#1
Elmer Lang Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: NY, NY Posts: 319	160+ gb FW HDs Any bad experiences with the big 160 or 200 gb FW HDs? Are they loud? Fraught with sticktion? I want IBM. Maxtor makes me nervous. I'm thinking about the Lacie? Any info you want to share would be appreciated. thanky, elmer

October 19th, 2003, 11:00 AM	#2
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I use a Western Digital. It actually seems quieter than my older, smaller drives. IBM is making drives with cooperation from Hitachi. They seem to be a good alternative. Your older Mac may not recognize the entire size of the drive. It is a hardware issue with older computers. Another advantage to upgrade your computer. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

October 19th, 2003, 03:31 PM	#7
Jeff Donald Warden Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 8,287	I don't think their sampling is big enough to be statistically of much use. It's just different peoples opinions so don't draw too many conclusions from what you read. __________________ Jeff Donald Carpe Diem Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Where to Buy? From the best in the business: DVinfo.net sponsors

October 21st, 2003, 12:10 PM	#8
Andres Lucero Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Austin, TX Posts: 75	I had the same drive as Boyd (Maxtor 5000 DV) and it became corrupt after 2-3 months of use, now WinXP tells me "the drive is not accessible"... __________________ "Oy... Aim it downhill."

October 19th, 2003, 11:13 AM	#3
Jeff Smallwood New Boot Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: St. James, Missouri Posts: 23	Yeah, we have a few 200gig WD drives, quite satisfied with them.

October 19th, 2003, 12:07 PM	#4
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	IBM/hitachi drives are quieter than western digital drives. Go to storagereview.com and look at some of their drive reviews. Hopefully by comparing decibel levels between drives you will get an idea of how loud a FW drive will be. IBM/hitachi and western digital drives are probably the best for video editing. Lacie FW drives use WD drives inside (2MB buffer apparently). The most common advice is to go with a 8MB drive from IBM or WD with an enclosure with the oxford 911 bridge. Other World Computer and Granite are some popular brands for enclosures. Some FCP users get dropped frames with firewire drives. It might be that the FW drive is sharing the same FW bus as your deck/camera. Getting a FW card might help. If you have the money you get a FW800 enclosure, it's definitely faster than FW400.

October 19th, 2003, 01:32 PM	#5
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	Actually I have 4 Maxtor 7200 RPM 160gb external firewire drives that work fine for video. These models (5000 DV) have the Oxford 911 chipset and are preformatted for the mac. No dropped frames or other problems. However, using an ACOM 60gb 7200 RPM drive with the same powerbook I get nothing but dropped frames and blocky digital breakup; not even usable. Make sure the firewire interface is fast enough on the external drives, it's not just the drive speed.... I am a bit spooked by the IBM/Hitachi drives. Got a new G4/1.25 about 2 months ago which had a 7200 RPM Hitachi Deskstar 80gb system drive. The drive suffered a hardware failure 3 weeks out of the box; made a terrible grinding/rattling sound.

October 19th, 2003, 03:28 PM	#6
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	storagereview.com has a drive reliability database if you want to check out other people's experiences. Promax (VAR for video editing systems) recommends IBM drives by the way.

October 21st, 2003, 01:48 PM	#9
Bryan Beasleigh Trustee Join Date: May 2002 Location: Barrie, Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,922	I've had the same trouble with thw IBM deathstar. You're going to get a bad drive now and again from any manufacturer. I've had good luck with Seagate and WD. My current HD's are the 7200 RPM 8 meg buffer models. The service from Hitachi (IBM) was excellent. I put the drive in the freezer, off loaded all the data and sent it off to the Hitachi / IBM warranty depot. I had a new drive overnighted within days.

October 23rd, 2003, 04:48 PM	#10
Dan Lahav Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: CA Posts: 172	i've always trusted maxtor HDD's (10 years +) and have been very satisfied...never a problem. Plus i used to keep my computers on 24/7 until the CA energy crisis =\

October 23rd, 2003, 06:32 PM	#11
Boyd Ostroff Wrangler Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Mays Landing, NJ Posts: 11,802	<<<-- Originally posted by Andres Lucero : I had the same drive as Boyd (Maxtor 5000 DV) and it became corrupt after 2-3 months of use -->>> I've had that sort of problem on drives from various manufacturers. Personally I doubt that this has anything to do with the drive hardware, it's more likely an OS or software problem. When you're chucking around multi-gigabyte files, nearing the capacity of the drive, and suffering the inevitable crashes it's only a matter of time before something gets screwed up. I was in a total panic last month when one of my drives became corrupt while backing up 95GB of my current project between 2 firewire drives. To my horror I found that both the source and backup disk were filled with unreadable files. Then when I rebooted the source drive would not even mount. Of course this all happened at 4:00 AM and I had to be at work at 8:00. Not a happy day for me. But that afternoon I got a copy of Disk Warrior. It diagnosed the problem and repaired it quickly. The drive was fine after that. If you're using MacOS X and FCP you really owe it to yourself to get a copy of this program (or whatever other utility you prefer) and have it handy. It sure would have lowered my anxiety level if I could have repaired that disk on the spot instead of worrying about it all day! ;-) I seriously doubt that any of this was related to the maxtor drive mechanism, much more likely to be a disk allocation problem related to OS X or FCP which caused the directory to get trashed.