In article ,
Java Jive wrote:
As long as you steer clear of the Seagate rubbish, you shouldn't suffer
too many problems especially if you check the SMART stats every other
week or so and don't *just* rely on smartmonctrl sending you an email
about imminent failure. :-)

Yes, Seagate has had a terrible reputation in the last few years, due,
they claim, to a bad batch each of two particular models. Certainly,
I can confirm that I've had three 3TB Seagates go down in my NASs in
each of the last three years, and another replacement for the first of
these that was DOA.

By contrast, most other brands of HD seem to keep marching on.
Recently, I've had a WD HD in a PC go down, but it was 12 years old
and had been swapped between PCs often, and it died the last time it
was swapped, so, though obviously a nuisance, I deemed that an
entirely acceptable failure, even though I have another WD drive that
was purchased at the same time and with much the same history that,
touch wood, is still going.

Most recent failure I've had was an Hitachi DeskStar. Used in the old
Acorn, so doesn't get the same thrashing as a PC. It's off at a specialist
to be recovered - fingers crossed. The other smaller HD in the Acorn is
over 20 years old which is why I'd got a bit lax with backups. But I've
learned an expensive lesson now. ;-)

--
*I'm not as think as you drunk I am.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.