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Intro

COMPUTER HARDWARE MANUFACTURERS
This will be moved to a far, far larger database as some as I have the time to spare! <-- Back to the Manufacturer Index

HARD DRIVES
[Δ] See also my HD and storage page and the Serial ATA page
I remember the first breeze block sized 5Mb MFM drives I remember the first RLL drives I remember partitioning 40Mb IDE's because DOS couldn't handle over 32Mb But most of all I remember the ruddy hassle as trying to get a 20Mb ALP to co-exist with a 40Mb Conner, actually to co-exist with anything. Turns out Alps would only work with another Alps, an they had (thankfully) gone to the wall a year earlier. Four days it took me to sort that and rescue the clients data! Anyone remember Palladium drives? Wonderfull examples of the art, made in India. How I laughed at the 100% failure rate on the entire shipment... Near twenty years has taught me one absolute. The customer can have what they want but if it doesn't say Seagate on the label there's no way I'm gonna trust it for my data!
Conner	Now part of Seagate. Never had a Conner fail on me, ever.
ExcelStor Technology	Never tried them. Reckon they are new to the scene. Largest drive so far (Summer 2002) is a 40Gb, although in it's favour it is 7,200rpm, 2Mb cache and is reasonably well priced at £50 retail.
Fujitsu	You really don't want to hear me when I when started on Fujitsu. I'll not mention (re)selling returns as new drives to distribution. I should have nailed them to the post then... I'll not mention the hassle trying to get a RMA authorised, assuming they even reply I won't even breath a word about the massive cover and buck passing up over faultly controller cards on their HD's Nope. The channel has it's own memory and it is unforgiving Just pick a search engine, any one with do, and enter "Fujitsu Failure Rate" Nuff said! I believe they have pulled out of the business and recall a few rumours along the lines of class actions and compensation and that if they had to pay up it would bankrupt the entire Fujitsu group. Serves them right I say.
Hitachi	Details to follow. Basically IBM sold off the HD division a merger/cross licensing deal with Hitachi
IBM Storage	I really am not impressed with IBM drives any more! How can you trust a product the manufacturer tells you not to run more than 8 hours a day? Ye gods, our systems are hardly ever turned off! My hard drive page covers it in better detail but basically, brilliant patents aside, I hold them in contempt second only to Fujitsu They recently sold up to Hitachi. Same /Similar drives - a new owner won't magic the problems away!
Lacie	I know them better for monitors, but they also sell an external USB 2.0 / Firewire hard drive (up to 60GB) and a 36Gb Ultra 160 SCSI LVD 15000rpm drive. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the drive was a rebadged Seagate, with Lacie's custom housing.
Maxtor	Hmmm. Seem OK I guess. Never sold enough to make a comment here
Megadrive	"At DataDirect Networks, we design and build Silicon Storage Appliances that accelerate applications and allow you to manage storage simply and easily"
Palladium	As far as I can recall, these are / where made in India and remain in my memory as the worst drives I have ever ever seen, especially for failing.
Quantum	I used to swear by their Fireballs and sold a truckload of the Bigfoot drives. Actually I did an upgrade for a friend only this week (April 2003) and was surprised to see they had a Bigfoot in the box. It was still working so reliably they left it in as the main drive Quantum now make backup devices - DLT, ATL etc.
Samsung	Cheap, cheerful, reliable. I like Samsung products!
Seagate	Firm favourites. The first to market with Serial ATA. I swear by Seagate. Nuff said. Dealers could do worse than sign up to Seagates Partner Program for new and product updates. There's also a little extra info on their SATA drives
Western Digital	I'm not entirely sure I trust my memory but I seem to recall a problem with 500Mb drives they had once. It went along the line of if you formatted them in one partition half the drive disappeared. It was a few years back obviously, but I do recall venting a tad at a distributer who was of the opinion they knew of the problem and let them through. Hmmm. Never heard a bad word about Western Digital since mind.
Winchester	The first drives started here