The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

So the complaints about the stopping, are made by people that are unaware of how to turn that setting off.
You allow windows to stop your drives? I would be afraid of ware and tear on the drive. As opposed to just running all the time.

 

They don't spin up regularly, they can spend many hours, or days at a time not spun up. Same load cycle as a normal drive really. That's the beauty of stuff being on 12 different drives, they don't need to be working all the time.

 

Sam,
I'm not so sure I can accept that answer, as a majority of the reviews mention the 4k sectors and the lack of compatibility with some raid controllers. Relatively few were DOA, as most worked for a while and then died. As I pointed out before, the majority of the buyers Tech level seems to have been very high. Non enthusiasts generally don't buy these type of drives. Also, I never mentioned the EARS, Kevin did!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Russ, some people say they have a high tech level, While they aren't. I don't. I say I have an average tech level. Which might be an overstatement in my mind too. In my opinion, only a small percentage of the people that say they have a high tech level, actually do! And not everybody handles the drives appropriately too. I've seen people handling them in a rather unrecommended fashion, that seem fairly intelligent too. Lots of people are aware of much, but unaware of other things. While I'm fairly logical and aware of much in the pc scheme of things, I still consider myself average, because I know I have MUCH to learn LOL! I treat my hard drives, ram, CPU's etc like they were MORE fragile than a baby. No joke...

Russ, I have money to burn. I like to gamble. So I will give this green drive a shot LOL! Nah, i'm not rich, but I do save for rainy days. And I would like to store good movies to hard drive. I will of course have them backed up to Optical disk as well

 

To be fair though, those that use cheap scummy RAID controllers deserve all the problems they get, cheap RAID is awful.
Also, plenty of non-enthusiasts buy these drives because they're big and cheap. It's drives like the 2TB Caviar Black (WD2001FASS) you won't see in the hands of non-enthusiasts.

You didn't specifically mention the EARS, but you mentioned the EADS, the EARS's predecessor, citing it as being before the problems began, so you sort of did mention the EARS

 

100% agree. I had a thought about that. Cheap and plenty of space. Non enthusiasts would be flocking to it...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LYF5X1iI8g&feature=player_embedded

The New Budget Build Case From Cooler Master it's alright Should have made it a little Longer for Bigger video cards just a few inches would a Primer coat or a flat Black can be done on the inside. I wonder what my Friend Bill Owen gonna do with one. I gotta ask...

Happy Building
Ya'll

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?category_id=19&product_id=3009
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1406/1/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2010/09/06/cooler-master-haf-912-first-look/1

 

Longer for video cards? You're joking right?
The HAF 912 is the only case in its series that allows one of the hard disk cages to be removed to allow a graphics card to stretch all the way to the front. That gives it the longest graphics card area of all the HAF cases...

 

Jeez, I must have gottten 10 new message e-mails all with the same page, things are going goofy.

 

Attractive case. Spendy though!

That's strange fred. Multiple emails for the same thread? It never does that to me. I get one email, and I don't get another, until I've visited the page, and it's been updated by a new post. Unless I haven't visited for a long period. Not sure what length. Perhaps 24hrs...

 

Question is what is the Longest graphics card? is it 15.4" inches there should be a way to modify the case to fit the card without removing the cage bays...

 

Yeah it is strange Omeg, I never had that happen before, I got at least 7 mails today from AD all starting and ending with the same page and post, weird, I'm not worried I know this thread has been having some issues anyway from before, no biggie.

 

Lol, thankfully no card is 15.4" long, the longest is about 12.5", and that's unusual.

No duplicate mails here.

 

Oman7,
It's not the claims they make for their personal level of technology. The can put down whatever they want. It's very easy for me to weed those out! I call it "The Idiot Factor"! When it comes to Large drives, the majority who buy them are very knowledgeable. The average person with no knowledge, wouldn't be talking about sector size or Raid configurations! I'm not saying that there were no Idiots, but I took those into account. Drive failures were far more prevalent than DOAs, by a very wide margin!

If I was buying a 2TB drive for storage right now, it would be this Sammy!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152202

Russ

 

So.I guess a 12.5" would fit without removing the upper drive cage? what you think of this Card?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150438

Nice NZXT Phantom ATX Full Tower Case here My friend Bill is doin the Video from facebook!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZxhvfSVLpM

 

The reviews for the sammy are almost similar to the green drives of WD's. Not quite. They do look slightly better. I think I'd rather stick with a company, that specializes in HDD's
Don't get me wrong. I have a great deal of respect for samsung. Their very name stands out in my eyes. Their displays are very nice. Their telephones, etc. Most of what they make, has the highest quality control.
I've been buying WD exclusively for quite some time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it Seagate is the only one that has failed me. I watched the performance degrade on one. Once I realized it was getting worse and worse, I returned it.
I think most people of this thread can trust me when I say that I know how to handle a hard drive, and if it quits prematurely, it won't be operator error, but factory imperfections, or design flaw I'd like to see this for myself.

It's not that I'm denying your claims russ. I'm simply being stubborn with a manufacturers name I've come to trust...

 

I JUST CHANGED THE Mother Brd on a HP, To a Gigabyte MA785M-US2H
The Front Media Panel for the HP has a single 10 pin plug, where as the MA785 only has a 5 pin plug. Any suggestions

 

Good 'ol new page bug LOL!

 

It breaks down like this:

HD203WI

DOA unspecified 38
DOA Mechanical failure 8
DOA - did not format 5
Bad Sectors from new - failure after 2-3 months 11
Failure after 1-8 months 11
Potential incompatibility with an Asus board 4
Severe mechanical noise, imminent failure 5
Minor SMART errors from new 1
Software issues from new 2

Total faults: 85 from 87/283 non-perfect reviews
Failure rate: 30%
Failure rate from DOAs: 21%
Mid-term failure rate: 9%

WD20EARS

DOA unspecified 102
DOA - did not format 1
DOA - software 4
DOA - bad sectors 9
DOA - mechanical 4
Faulty - period unspecified 5
Severe mechanical noise, imminent failure 1
Failure after 1-2 months 4
Bad sectors after 3-6 months 2

Total faults: 132 from 157/301 non-perfect reviews
Failure rate: 44%
Failure rate from DOAs: 40%
Mid-term failure rate: 4%


It's also worth noting Samsung's RMA service is very poor, WD's is pretty good. However WD will not honour support queries if you use Linux.


So basically, buy a WD Drive, you stand a high chance of getting one DOA. Keep RMAing and eventually you'll get working ones.
Buy Samsung and you're less likely to get a DOA drive, but twice as likely for the drive to fail a few months down the line.
While supporting a product with a close to 50% failure rate is hardly appropriate, if you want a quiet 2TB drive, put up the effort, and you'll get there.

I'll also mention just how appalling it is that so many people complain about newegg's shipping, there are dozens and dozens of complaints that the drives are packaged inappropriately - this is a big cause of hard disk DOAs.

 

I changed an HP board to an MSI, and I found that the connector didn't even use the right hand side of the connectors. Not sure if the same is true for your system, but in my case, I just cut the excess plastic off.

Looks fine Will, but unfortunately it's out of stock. Would easily fit in any normal case, the XFX versions are quiet and relatively reliable.