Used HDD's = Junk + Personal Stupidity

[MRG]

The last time I bought a new HDD, was back in the start of 2002. I spent almost $300 on a WD 250GB Sata drive that lasted only a couple of years before going out in a blaze of glory. Since then, I have been using the old & used HDDs that I pulled from my clients old PC's that they had given to me to use for parts. With the exception of a new 80GB* drive that I had borrowed almost 2 years ago, which died a short time later.

So while i'll admit that I was lucky to have had a somewhat regular stream of used parts to use, they were all for the most part junk. Each lasted 3 to 6 months at most. The last HDD I had & was using was an old 15GB ATA-100 IDE HDD I pulled from a clients old Pentium 3 system. Talk about pathetic performance, or rather lack of.

Well thanks to all the overtime I have been getting at work lately, I have saved up & finally bought myself a cheaper, though new HDD.

From Newegg, I just ordered a:

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 1TB HDD for $81.50 shipped. It got decent overall reviews & I have had good luck with Samsung products.

I plan to Partition 1 250GB segment for the OS & programs, while the remainder will be for storage.

-MRG

*Did you send in that 80GB yet?

 

[VirusType2]

That Samsung is bad ass, I've got some of them. They are literally about 10 times faster than the WD 750GB drives. Well, I guess that depends on what you are doing. They are high density, energy efficient, fast, and HUGE, oh, and a STEAL at $81

Anyway, you make sure you have good cooling on them, and your drives will last much longer. Never lost one personally.

 

[MRG]

That Samsung is bad ass, I've got some of them. They are literally about 10 times faster than the WD 750GB drives. Well, I guess that depends on what you are doing. They are high density, energy efficient, fast, and HUGE, oh, and a STEAL at $81

Anyway, you make sure you have good cooling on them, and your drives will last much longer. Never lost one personally.

I was very happy to read that a member here had/has that drive & that it was good. I am very much looking forward to having a drive that lasts longer than 3 months, that is faster than 5400 RPM like all the old drives I have & one that can hold more than 2 or 3 programs installed.

-MRG

 

[VirusType2]

lol, 5400 RPM, what an upgrade for you.

Forgot to mention that it's cool and quiet as well.

I still recommend fans that circulate directly over hard drives. Something you should look into. Many cases now have this feature. The Antec 900, for example.

 

[Warped]

I had a 250GB External Seagate that took a shit on me only 7months after having it but my 500GB External WD Mybook is doing good. Only have 10GB left but I delete and back up stuff from time to time. I'm just waiting for the External 2TBs to go down to about $100 then I'll buy one. I'm a patient guy now

 

[Dinnesch]

I've got the same 1TB Spinpoint:E
I've also decided to buy it after reading reviews/specs.

Hard drive speed is very important, and IMO the most underestimated thing in PC's. I think PC companies always put crap ones in their PC's so people will buy new PC's.
My Athlon 2800, 1.25GB RAM outperforms my dad's new Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 6GB RAM in booting time, loading times for programs etc.(which of course will change when he buys a faster HDD)

 

[VirusType2]

Yeah, I also really did a lot of reading to make the decision on the Samsung -Spinpoint F1


I'm using an old 80GB WD that came with an eMachines PC from about 2004 for my OS System drive.

I wonder how much a difference I would get from using the Spinpoint for my OS.

Dinnesch?

 

[Dinnesch]

I'm using an old 80GB WD that came with an eMachines PC from about 2004 for my OS System drive.

I wonder how much a difference I would get from using the Spinpoint for my OS.

Dinnesch?

I don't know about your current hard drive's speed. If it's as slow as the average HDD shipped with PC's(some companies put reasonable drives in it) it will for sure make a difference.

Please notice that you will most likely have SATAI on your motherboard(if its from 2004), which is limited to a 150Mb/s transfer speed. To take full advantage of your drive's speed you'll need SATAII(300Mb/s). But the transfer rate isn't the only thing, other things like latency and seek time are very important too so you shouldn't notice a very big difference between SATA1 and 2.

 

[VirusType2]

I've heard something about current hard drives unable to transfer even at 150MB/s yet, but I'm completely unsure.

That would be great if I could upgrade my motherboard to get faster drive performance. I'm using a budget board from about 2007, and yeah, it's probably SATA I - but have been planning to upgrade the mobo after windows 7 is retail.

 

[Ravioli]

I find it odd how i always hear about other people having their hard drives fail regularly and having to buy new ones. I have used the same two hard drives for about 6 years now, and they still work flawlessly :/

I back everything up to external hard drive too so incase they fail i dont loose anything.

 

[Asus]

The only HDD I've had fail on me prematurely while in service was 2x 80GB maxtor 5200RPM drives. Both within the 1 year warranty.

I have had a 80GB WD fail on me but it was after the 3 yr warranty. Now the WDs I own have 5yr warranties.
(except maybe the SE16. But Raptor+RE2 have 5yrs)

 

[Hectic Glenn]

I own the 500gb version of the samsung spinpoint, really like this drive. Extremely quick and has been a reliable friend for near 16 months now. Quiet too.

I do wish I'd opted for the 1TB version now, so I'm thinking about a second 500gb in the near future.

 

[MRG]

It's one thing to read reviews about a product before buying it, but its a whole 'nother ball of wax when people you know, have the same product & say that they like it. Of course since it's "man made" it could fail out of the box. Then again it might well last me longer than 6 months, in which case I would be quite happy, though I do hope it lasts at least as long as it's warranty. The retail warranty is 3 years & the expected life is 5 years.

Thanks for the stories everyone. It has put my mind a little more at ease. Newegg sent me the tracking info today. Estimated time of delivery is 5/20, but since they are here in Ca. it's prob gonna be delivered tomorrow or the next day at the latest. Newegg is so good for that. I am jealous though, that I am semi-always buying new parts for clients & yet I have old parts myself, with the exception of last years stellar birthday gift. (HD4850) Maybe now i'll actually be able to get full performance out my C2D & HD4850.

-MRG

 

[MRG]

UPS delivered the new HDD last night.

It was NOT a Retail HDD as I had ordered. I checked Newegg's site & all 1TB HDD's by Samsung had been changed to OEM. For the first time Newegg has disappointed me. this was my reply to Newegg's customer service:

I have done business with you Newegg for close to 8 years & combining my personal account & those accounts I set up for my clients, I have spent a great deal of money with your company. Until now, I have been 110% satisfied, as you can verify if you look at my past comments/reviews.

However, I ordered a retail SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 1TB a few days ago & instead of a Retail product, I got an OEM product. While it was wrapped in bubble wrap, the bottom of the drive itself had only a 1/2 inch of "popped" bubble wrap for protection, while the top of the drive had close to 3 inches & the foam "peanuts" were on TOP of the packaged unit.

Now I have no Software CD, no SATA2 cable, no product manual & no warranty. I have NOT unwrapped the drive & as such, it is in it's original packaged state. I will be returning the drive for either a full refund or for a replacement of the OEM HDD for a RETAIL drive.

For the first time, you have disappointed me Newegg. I sadly expected much better from you.

Quoted from Newegg's site:

What are the differences between the OEM and retail versions of a product?

Retail versions may come with additional accessories, retail packaging, bundled software and warranty coverage. OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), White Box and Brown Box versions include the product and sometimes the drivers, but not much else. They are packaged generically and do not include software. OEM products are best-suited for system builders who don't require documentation or bundled accessories.

OEM software is delivered in a generic sleeve or container with little to no documentation or instructions. Because the serial number is exposed, OEM software cannot be refunded. Retail software comes with greater warranty coverage, all available retail packaging and accessories.

I will get the RMA tonight once I get home from work. I was so looking forward to this HDD. you should have seen my face once I opened the package. Went from that of a kid in a candy store to that of a kid that just sucked on a lemon...

-MRG

 

[VirusType2]

Well that sucks. I figured you knew that if you're only paying $83. It was $99 only a month ago.

You save quite a bit of money by going with OEM. The cable is only worth about $1.56 + shipping at www.monoprice.com. There is no 'driver' for that drive, you install it through windows. If Samsung makes any, you can download any software for the drive for free. An extended warranty for something that is $80 that will be worth half that in a year isn't really valuable IMO. By that time drives will be 2 and 3 terabytes for that price. You'll have to go to the shipping store, pay to ship that brick across the country, wait a very long time, deal with emails and disappointments. Also, when a hard drive dies, I wouldn't recommend sending your personal information and data (still on the drive) anywhere. And wasn't the box full of packing peanuts also?

IMO, OEM is the way to go, but I can understand how it feels to not get what you asked for.

 

[MRG]

Well that sucks. I figured you knew that if you're only paying $83. It was $99 only a month ago.

You save quite a bit of money by going with OEM. The cable is only worth about $1.56 + shipping at www.monoprice.com. There is no 'driver' for that drive, you install it through windows. If Samsung makes any, you can download any software for the drive for free. An extended warranty for something that is $80 that will be worth half that in a year isn't really valuable IMO. By that time drives will be 2 and 3 terabytes for that price. You'll have to go to the shipping store, pay to ship that brick across the country, wait a very long time, deal with emails and disappointments. Also, when a hard drive dies, I wouldn't recommend sending your personal information and data (still on the drive) anywhere. And wasn't the box full of packing peanuts also?

IMO, OEM is the way to go, but I can understand how it feels to not get what you asked for.

Very well said Virus & of course quite correct.

1) I have never had to use any of the software that came with a HDD I have ever bought. Even for partitioning or RAID. I only mentioned that to state a fact.

2) I have... (Counting) ... 15 SATA cables here in my Office. They are all the older SATA style though & I wanted a new SATA2 cable just for the locking feature. I know there is no difference between the actual cable itself & the amount of data it can transfer.

3) Newegg has a 30 day warranty on that OEM drive. With my crappy luck, i'm sure it'll fail in 31 days. That is the only reason I wanted the Retail drive. As for the manual, who actually reads them?? Save a tree. If you actually needed to read through the manual, you may want to have someone else work on your PC for you. I mean no offense meant to anyone of course.

4) Yes the box had the shipping peanuts, but only on top of the drive. The HDD was wrapped in bubble wrap, but the bottom bubbles were all popped, so all that was between the bottom of the box & the outside world, was the thickness of the cardboard of the box & a very thin layer of wrapped plastic. There was however, no visible damage to the box or the drive itself. Still, a sharp drop on a flat surface may not show.

5) I also don't like OEM, because there is no "proof" that the drive is new. Over the years, I have bought so called "new" OEM parts, only for me to later notice "markings" that someone else had left. For what reason, I don't know. But I did once see a very small written date in ink that did not match the date of manufacturing of the product or the date of my order. Possibly someone else had a problem, marked the item & then sent it in. Marked it so as to check if the company sent them their original drive back to them saying it was new. I do that if I send in something to be exchanged. Finding such markings has happened to me more than once over the years. Though NEVER from newegg.

Update: - I just got done using Newegg's live chat feature & I explained to them what my concerns were. Bottom line, I was worried about the Warranty. Ended up I didn't need to be. I somehow had either mis-read or mis-understood their policy of OEM. Below is the very end of my convo with Newegg:

10:28:07 AM CustomerJeff
Just so i'm clear, if the drive dies 31 days from now, I would contact Samsung directly & they would honor the warranty, even though I bought it from you as OEM. The drive DOES have a warranty, just through Samsung directly. I would just need my sales receipt from Newegg as proof & to show the day of purchase. Is that correct?
10:29:15 AM AgentJay
That is correct. If they failed to help you, you can also contact us back for further assistance after 30 days.
10:30:16 AM CustomerJeff
Ahhh... Ok. That is excellent. You have put my mind at ease. Once again Newegg has offered excellent customer service. Thank you Jay for your help & have a great day.

Woooot!!

-MRG

 

[VirusType2]

If I drive is going to fail prematurely, I hear that it's usually very prematurely.

About the manual - the Samsung OEM does come with a little booklet inside the blister pack, and it does have a unique way to install from WD, but it does the same thing, and doesn't require a download of software like WD. Actually, I'm sure you could use Windows to install a WD drive too, but they don't mention it.

 

[PimpinPenguin]

When i got my Samsung OEM drive it came in a very thin envelope with no protection and as such it got a big dent in it. I complained took a picture of the drive and envelope and they admitted it was stupid sending it with no protection and gave me a brand new drive and let me keep the dented one. To this day it's still works perfectly which is a surprising seeing all the damage it sustained, but Samsung's are very well made.