[mythtv-users] warnings and recommendations on my new mythtv box

[John Drescher]

> You're not clear: that's *Seagate* drives?
>
You are correct...

It is a mix of mostly IBM, Segate, and WD and a few others (Maxtor,
Quantum ....). Although in the last 3 years I have only purchased SATA
drives from WD, Maxtor and Seagate.

Now for Seagate. I have RMAd around 5 (or 6) out of 50 (mostly 320 GB
SATA2 drives) in the last 3 years, 4 of these were DOA with the other
having problems 8 months in use which may have been more of an infant
mortality case being the problem was read/write errors on the outer
tracks. I would say the rate for WD SATA drives was also similar but
most of these purchases were 2 to 5 years ago.

> I RMA *lots* of drives, but most of them are WDs and Maxtors.
>
I find that all drive manufacturers that I have used have their
problems from time to time and the non DOA/infant mortality related
failures tend to be related to batches as if one drive dies 2 years in
to use and I bought a few other drives from the same batch it is
highly likely that 1 or 2 more of them will die as well. I remember
having this happen with 120GB WD IDE drives which I had bought quite a
few of them. Certain batches were bad while others are still running
after 5 years. Same goes for the IBM deskstars.

As for the DOA/infant mortality. I believe some of this has to be due
to poor packaging.

John