IBM Hard Drive Conundrum

[Halo]

Anybody have any experience with IBM drives that when setting up only allow you to format in NTFS? I have an IBM 120 GXP that I thought was DOA, because it wouldn't start when I got it 8 months ago. I got it formatted under NTFS but tha past 8 months has been nothing but problems with lock ups and program lockups. For some reason, when running graphic design software it liked to freeze. The system was overhauled with a new heatsink and case fans that ran cooler and quieter, but the problem remained. Recently, I replaced it with a Seagate (which by the way is an absolute joy) and have been doing some experimenting on. The IBM had about 3 megs of corrupt sectors, and some boot sectors were messed up. 10 reformats later,I have put it into my new system and have not had a single problem but once again it will only allow me to format in NTFS. Nothing against NTFS, but I'd much rather have it formatted in Fat32. Any ideas?

[Strippy]

IBM drives suck. They're cheap, but they ****ing suck.

Problem with 120GB non-NTFS is that FAT32 partitions can't be larger than 32GB in XP. For one reason or another, if you use the Diskk Administrator in XP, u can only create partitions <32GB. Now, if you took that drive out, and put it into 98, u can partition it to ~120GB without problems (I forget the partition threshold of FAT32)

But I've done NTFS for a while now, and my partition sizes range from 20GB to 120GB, without problems. It's probably your drive.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by Strippy
IBM drives suck. They're cheap, but they ****ing suck.

Problem with 120GB non-NTFS is that FAT32 partitions can't be larger than 32GB in XP. For one reason or another, if you use the Diskk Administrator in XP, u can only create partitions <32GB. Now, if you took that drive out, and put it into 98, u can partition it to ~120GB without problems (I forget the partition threshold of FAT32)

But I've done NTFS for a while now, and my partition sizes range from 20GB to 120GB, without problems. It's probably your drive.

I found this out as well with my LaCie 40Gb pocket drive. Windows XP will not let you format any frive over 32Gb in FAT32. I think Microsoft is trying to push the NTFS file system because it is more efficient and secure. I wound up formatting my LaCie Pocket drive into 2 20Gb FAT32 partitions. I figure if I will be carrying around a portable hard drive, I might as well have be as compatible as possible with current and older systems.

Halo, sorry to hear you are having problems with your IBM hard drive, I know you mentioned in the past you were having trouble. Mine is an IBM as well and I want to get a new drive before this one croaks. I want a Seagate 100Gb+ SATA drive.

[Halo]

Ioman, I bought a Seagate 80 Gb to replace the IBM in my other rig and it is a wonderful HD. Throw the cd in on install and it formats itself and is ready for boot in minutes, compared to the 45 minutes it takes for the IBM to format and be ready. The IBM drive is being recycled for now... in my newest system, and as long as it doesn't give me any serious problems I think I will spare it from the scrap heap.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by Halo
Ioman, I bought a Seagate 80 Gb to replace the IBM in my other rig and it is a wonderful HD. Throw the cd in on install and it formats itself and is ready for boot in minutes, compared to the 45 minutes it takes for the IBM to format and be ready. The IBM drive is being recycled for now... in my newest system, and as long as it doesn't give me any serious problems I think I will spare it from the scrap heap.

So the Seagate just formats better? I wonder if its a full format or some kind of quick erase and master boot creation?

In any case, your drive sounds awsome, I cannot wait to get a Seagate SATA drive for my system. I hope its nice and quiet.

[shagnscoob]

thast poopy, i wanted to get a new hd, since i have only 40gb, i used up 40gb's in less than a month, i could have done it in a week if i wanted too though, anyways, i dont want to have to format all my stuff if i switch over to ntfs, is there a way f doing it otherwise?

[Ioman]

Originally posted by shagnscoob
thast poopy, i wanted to get a new hd, since i have only 40gb, i used up 40gb's in less than a month, i could have done it in a week if i wanted too though, anyways, i dont want to have to format all my stuff if i switch over to ntfs, is there a way f doing it otherwise?

Partition the drive into 30Gb partiions?

[dang]

FAT32 is old school. Not using the latest NTFS is like saying you want the latest geforcefx card and throw it in a pentiumII computer. Whats the point?

FAT32 is slow, less secure, and less reliable then the latest version of NTFS. It also lacks many features that NTFS has. There are reasons why MS is limiting FAT32 partitions in XP.

Second, you can upgrade fat32 discs to NTFS w/out losing your data.

Here are some great articles to read up:
Choosing between File Systems (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winntas/tips/techrep/filesyst.asp)

Advantages of NTFS file system (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prkc_fil_duwx.asp)

New capabilities and features of NTFS 3.1(xp) (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B310749)

How to use Convert.exe to convert a partition to the NTFS file system (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B314097)

[Strippy]

There are several advantages to Fat32 over NTFS.

The two most important ones that come to mind is compatibility and ease of use.

We all know Fat32 has been around a while, but because it's old, almost all HD programs will read it, all the way down to a 200KB boot disk. NTFS 5.0 mounts are alittle hard to read and do a simple file copy from one disk to another without OS's..

There are three things that determine the quality of a drive format: security, performance, and reliability.

Security, for the home user is bull****. Why would you want to protect your drive form mulitple user logins? how many of us actually share our computers? Like hell I do. No one touches my box except me. :D

Performance. There was a study done between gaming performance (really, that's all we about care no?) on NTFS and Fat32. Because NTFS checks for all access (Read/Write/Delete/etc perms) on ALL files, it's actually slower (if my memory serves me correctly) than Fat32 by a slight margin. It does make sense becusae there's zero security. But on my gaming rig.... .5% is still .5%

Reliabilty. Sure, there's more reliability in NTFS, but if you raid you rconfiguration with a hardware solution, you should get the same reliability.

So all said and done, my firewire "data" drive, is formatted NTFS, @ full 120GB. But, always, my primary drive, with all my games and applications loaded, are on a Fat32.

But to each his own :D

[Ioman]

Originally posted by Strippy
There are several advantages to Fat32 over NTFS.

The two most important ones that come to mind is compatibility and ease of use.

We all know Fat32 has been around a while, but because it's old, almost all HD programs will read it, all the way down to a 200KB boot disk. NTFS 5.0 mounts are alittle hard to read and do a simple file copy from one disk to another without OS's..

There are three things that determine the quality of a drive format: security, performance, and reliability.

Security, for the home user is bull****. Why would you want to protect your drive form mulitple user logins? how many of us actually share our computers? Like hell I do. No one touches my box except me. :D

Performance. There was a study done between gaming performance (really, that's all we about care no?) on NTFS and Fat32. Because NTFS checks for all access (Read/Write/Delete/etc perms) on ALL files, it's actually slower (if my memory serves me correctly) than Fat32 by a slight margin. It does make sense becusae there's zero security. But on my gaming rig.... .5% is still .5%

Reliabilty. Sure, there's more reliability in NTFS, but if you raid you rconfiguration with a hardware solution, you should get the same reliability.

So all said and done, my firewire "data" drive, is formatted NTFS, @ full 120GB. But, always, my primary drive, with all my games and applications loaded, are on a Fat32.

But to each his own :D

Are you running Windows XP for your home system? If so, do you have multiple HDD partitions for your system? I assume you store data on your external drive and just have games on your internal drive?

[Strippy]

Yeah, since '96 i've run minimum of two HD's... sometimes, only one but with a file server, but i never liked that option as much.

My first drive is the fastest drive I can get my hands on (currently 40GB 7200RPM 2MB Maxtor... i know i know, i want 8MB but oh wells, i spend enough on my comp as it is), and my data drive is the biggest driive I can get my hands on, currently my 120GB data drive.

I also have my file server @ home, which I'm thinking of rebuilding, and that sucker has ~400GB capacity, ~150GB free. But that will come later if I can get my latest comp upgrade to work :D

[Ioman]

I am starting to see more SATA hard drive reviews on the net, specifically from Maxtor and Seagate. I cannot find an affordable place I.E. Newegg to buy them at though. Any suggestions?

[superart]

I have never used IBM Hard Drives outside of school, and I dont intend to. They are the worst drives with constant bad sector problems and are verry likely to fail

[Ioman]

Originally posted by superart
I have never used IBM Hard Drives outside of school, and I dont intend to. They are the worst drives with constant bad sector problems and are verry likely to fail

Like I have said before. I don't think that any HDD manufacturer has a better process, I think it just depends on the year. IBM used tomake great drives, then Western Digital, now Seagate and Maxtor. it just depends on the year and the batch in my opinion. You will all get burned if you stick with a certain company long enough.

[superart]

Im not saying that maxtor or WD or Seagate never ever have bad hard drives, every company will. In fact, my friend just RMAed his new maxtor recently. What Im saying is that IBM has bad hard drives on a much much much more frequent basis. This is not just a recent phenomenon, this has been the rule rather than the exception for IBM drives for at least three generations now. Basically, what i'm trying to say is, IBM has had a tradition of putting out unstable drives, and while doing so have not been very good about their RMA services. At my school, where i also work as the IT coordinator, out of around 7000 systems with IBM drives, i have to replace about 600-700 a month. I have nothing near this problem with the few Seagate drives that I have floating arrund. I put those drives into the critical machines, like the servers and office computers. The one good thing I can say about IBM drives, is they make descent notebook drives.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by superart
At my school, where i also work as the IT coordinator, out of around 7000 systems with IBM drives, i have to replace about 600-700 a month.

bah you aren't convincing me of that. Sorry...

[RageSlave]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superart
At my school, where i also work as the IT coordinator, out of around 7000 systems with IBM drives, i have to replace about 600-700 a month.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I agree with IOman for a change ;)

If you had to replace 600 HDDs every month, that would be 8.5% over all your HDDs going bad! Since there are 43,200 minutes in a month and replacement time of 45 minutes, with formatting or imaging times 20 bad IBM units, equals 900 minutes out of every 1440 minute day, Seems a little much bro, especially for 1 LAN.

[Cloud]

Originally posted by RageSlave
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by superart
At my school, where i also work as the IT coordinator, out of around 7000 systems with IBM drives, i have to replace about 600-700 a month.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I agree with IOman for a change ;)

If you had to replace 600 HDDs every month, that would be 8.5% over all your HDDs going bad! Since there are 43,200 minutes in a month and replacement time of 45 minutes, with formatting or imaging times 20 bad IBM units, equals 900 minutes out of every 1440 minute day, Seems a little much bro, especially for 1 LAN.

Sheesh way to do your investigating Sherlock. IBM drives do suck from what I hear. But who knows, rumors do not always equal truths.

[superart]

It's not just one LAN, its an entire high school. Replacing a hard drive takes about 20 minutes. To do the imaging, I use an Altaris server that can reimage multiple drives at once. I also have 3 other people that help me out. So if I need to replace 700 drives, at an average of 24 drives a day, taking from 20 to 25 minutes to replace each drive comes to 480 to 600 minutes for each day. Divide that among 4 people, and you get 120 to 150 minutes. That's only 2 to 2.5 hours a day.

[RageSlave]

Originally posted by superart
It's not just one LAN, its an entire high school. Replacing a hard drive takes about 20 minutes. To do the imaging, I use an Altaris server that can reimage multiple drives at once. I also have 3 other people that help me out. So if I need to replace 700 drives, at an average of 24 drives a day, taking from 20 to 25 minutes to replace each drive comes to 480 to 600 minutes for each day. Divide that among 4 people, and you get 120 to 150 minutes. That's only 2 to 2.5 hours a day.

BeeJesus man! If your hardware sux so bad that you are spending 2 hours every day on Harddrive recovery and reinstallation, then when do you have time for coffee and donuts? What do you do with 600 harddrives anyway? I've been in the computer realm for almost 15 years, and I have yet to see 200 individual harddrives, let alone a pile of 600 of them every month! You dude, are an amazing IT machine! Do you RMA all those or what? BTW, what controller chip is it? c447 or a g9336? I am interested to know.

[superart]

I dont have time for coffe and ougnuts, because the rest of the day Im still I student. Ive been doing this since my sophmore year, and Im finishing up my senior year now. I basicly handle the repair and servicing of machines and let the guy that gets paid work it out with the manufacturers and suppliers. I also have the 3 other guys that help out.

[RageSlave]

what controller chip? I am curious.

[superart]

The IDE controller on the mobo?
I dont know off the top of my head. I can check on monday and tell you.

[RageSlave]

The chip that the harddrives use to interface with the mobo. The controller is integrated with the HDD. The chip on the mobo is only an interface for the controller.

[gRimLocK]

my 60GB IBM hard drive just took a ****......it's gone......bye bye.....I was at a LAN last night and at 0330 hours, my game crashed. I thought it was my PC locking up. I went to reboot, and it no come back up. :(. Had to leave the LAN early and go home. No longer is it the IBM DeskStar, but the IBM DeathStar. That's the 3rd one that I've known gone bad from people I personally know.

I replaced it with an 80GB Maxtor 8MB Buffer drive. Has UDMA 133 on it too. Now i can use that feature on my mobo.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by gRimLocK
my 60GB IBM hard drive just took a ****......it's gone......bye bye.....I was at a LAN last night and at 0330 hours, my game crashed. I thought it was my PC locking up. I went to reboot, and it no come back up. :(. Had to leave the LAN early and go home. No longer is it the IBM DeskStar, but the IBM DeathStar. That's the 3rd one that I've known gone bad from people I personally know.

I replaced it with an 80GB Maxtor 8MB Buffer drive. Has UDMA 133 on it too. Now i can use that feature on my mobo.


Sorry to hear that man, total bummer. I just got a 160Gb Serial ATA Maxtor drive and this HDD smokes man! You can read my review of it here: http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review48.html

[RageSlave]

Bummer Grim, Hope all is better now. Personally I have dual 80 gig WD with 8 MB cache and I like them alot. I hope you have better luck this time.

[superart]

The chip that the harddrives use to interface with the mobo. The controller is integrated with the HDD.

I dont know. I never really thought it mattered. Where would I look to find out? Would it be printed on the sticker?

[superart]

I just got a 160Gb Serial ATA Maxtor drive and this HDD smokes man!

Would you recomend getting it over a WD 160GB w/ 8mb cache? I was going to get that and use an ATA-to-SATA converter. Do you have a wd 8mb cache that you can run through the ringer and post the results?

MaximumPC did a comparison between the WD2000JB and Maxtor Ultra 200GB, both with 8MB cache, and the WD came out on top slightly.

I kow that its a different Maxtor drive than what you reviewed, and that MaxPC hasnt always had the most "trustworthy" results, thats why im asking your opinion. Do you think the maxtor you reviewed would be better than a WD with 8mb cache?

[gRimLocK]

I think Maxtor has put the best drives out there right now. This drive screamz with speed....This drive is also UDMA 133 instead of 100 like the WD 8MB buffer drives. Serial will be later when it gets to 300+. I just don't see paying that much more for the small increase to 150 at this time. Serial ATA will take over when the 200 transfer rates and higher are hit in my opinion.

[superart]

I know that going to 150MB/S instead of 133 or 100 wont offer a performance increase, but im going with SATA for 2 reasons.

1.) For the small cable and better airflow

2.) I want to use the 2 IDE channels for a CDRW drive and a DVD-ROM drive, both set to master. This should, in theory, increase the transfer rate between the two.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by superart
I know that going to 150MB/S instead of 133 or 100 wont offer a performance increase, but im going with SATA for 2 reasons.

1.) For the small cable and better airflow

2.) I want to use the 2 IDE channels for a CDRW drive and a DVD-ROM drive, both set to master. This should, in theory, increase the transfer rate between the two.

Read the review of the Maxtor 160Gb SATA drive on Designtechnica here: http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review48.html

There is a very noticeable increase in performance over the ATA100 drives. Most SATA drives are the market are not getting good reviews, noticeably the Seagate drives, but this Maxtor SATA just screams. I have it in my system now and I love it!

[superart]

I read the review, and none of the benchmarks went over or anywhere near 150MB/s. That means that the faster SATA bus had no effect on the outcome.

You could argue that the read burst speeds might have been better off in the SATA-150 since they were "off the chart" but i seriously doubt they broke 133MB/s, and probably didn't go very far past 100MB/s, if they hit it at all.

I think the most important thing to read in that comparison is this:
You can see how much of a performance increase the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y160M) drive holds over the Maxtor DiamondMax D540X 160Gb drive. Keep in mind that the D540X drive has a speed of 5400RPM compared to the 7200RPM speed of the 6Y160M0 Drive. The D540X also has a 2mb buffer and ATA 100 transfer speeds.

You were getting a comparison of a top-of-the-line latest drive with 8MB cache and 7200RPM against an older drive with 5200RPM and 2MB cache. Those drives aren't even in the same weight class. That's like having a fight between Mike Tyson and Billy the Retard from the US Special Olympics Boxing Team.

Like I said earlier, a fairer fight would be to compare it to a WD Special Edition drive. Give Billy a rest, let Leonox Luis step in.

I don't want it to seem like I'm arguing that its a bad drive, on the contrary, I'm both impressed with its speed and that it has SATA. I just want to see how it compares to other drives of its caliber.

[RageSlave]

Christ you are the hard drive wizard aren't you? What suprised you about the test scores. Hish school students get snappier every year.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by superart
I read the review, and none of the benchmarks went over or anywhere near 150MB/s. That means that the faster SATA bus had no effect on the outcome.

You could argue that the read burst speeds might have been better off in the SATA-150 since they were "off the chart" but i seriously doubt they broke 133MB/s, and probably didn't go very far past 100MB/s, if they hit it at all.

I think the most important thing to read in that comparison is this:


You were getting a comparison of a top-of-the-line latest drive with 8MB cache and 7200RPM against an older drive with 5200RPM and 2MB cache. Those drives aren't even in the same weight class. That's like having a fight between Mike Tyson and Billy the Retard from the US Special Olympics Boxing Team.

Like I said earlier, a fairer fight would be to compare it to a WD Special Edition drive. Give Billy a rest, let Leonox Luis step in.

I don't want it to seem like I'm arguing that its a bad drive, on the contrary, I'm both impressed with its speed and that it has SATA. I just want to see how it compares to other drives of its caliber.

Superart....we compared 2 hard drives of similar SIZE not speed. If someone was looking to buy a 160Gb drive, which ones would they buy from Maxtor? These are the only 2 160GB drives they have....which is why they are compared.

Here is another review of the Maxtor DiamondMx Plus 9 HDD: http://www.envynews.com/review.php?ID=402&page=1 they compare it to a comprable Seagate SATA drive and the Maxtor blows it out of the water. They also compare it to a regular DiamondMax Plus 9 drive like we did.

I do not think that most people buy one drive over another due to speed UNLESS both drives are about the same storage size. In my opinion, drives should be compared based on their size first. Most consumers say " I need a new drive because mine is too full" not " I need a new drive because mine is SLOW"....thanks for the feedback though.:)

[ECA]

Found out by hapenstance...

IBM drive HATE it when you have a power splitter on there PS. connected to them.
They fail, untel the Power splitter is removed, ask V8.

[superart]

true, size is he major factor, but all I was saying is that the fact that SATA can support 150MB/s as apposed to 133 or 100, doesnt improve performance.

[ECA]

Originally posted by superart
true, size is he major factor, but all I was saying is that the fact that SATA can support 150MB/s as apposed to 133 or 100, doesnt improve performance.

And do you REALLY want to Fdisk, format, a full 120 gig drive. Forget about a surface check, or anything else.
Partition that thing. At least 3-10 times. THEN if 1 part fails you STILL have a hard drive.

[superart]

well, what if someone has a use for a large single partition 120GB drive? Its not too far fetched for someone to rip their DVD collection onto a dedicated media server. If you have a computer in your home thater rack, and you want to share Divx movies with another comuter in the house, what better than a dedicated movie server?

[Ioman]

Originally posted by superart
true, size is he major factor, but all I was saying is that the fact that SATA can support 150MB/s as apposed to 133 or 100, doesnt improve performance.

You are absolutely correct about that. If you check out the ATA Seagate drives, they performed below the ATA 133 drives in a lot of cases. I would not mind getting one of those Western Digital 8MB special edition drives to test against this Maxtor drive. I will see if I can get one, I think we would all like to see that.

[ECA]

Originally posted by superart
well, what if someone has a use for a large single partition 120GB drive? Its not too far fetched for someone to rip their DVD collection onto a dedicated media server. If you have a computer in your home thater rack, and you want to share Divx movies with another comuter in the house, what better than a dedicated movie server?

I wish to ask you if you have EVER looked at the size of most movies or DivX. MOST will fit on a CD size disk, NOT DVD. A 9.4 gig DVD could hold all 3 movies from the first star wars, and STILL have room.
A 20 gig partition would be big enough to store 6-8 movies, and be able to Transfer(while you are playing one movie) from one of the other sections to the one you are playing from. AND if a bad sector pops up, SOMEPLACE, you can reformat, or SCRAP that section, rather then SCRAP the whole drive.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by ECA


I wish to ask you if you have EVER looked at the size of most movies or DivX. MOST will fit on a CD size disk, NOT DVD. A 9.4 gig DVD could hold all 3 movies from the first star wars, and STILL have room.
A 20 gig partition would be big enough to store 6-8 movies, and be able to Transfer(while you are playing one movie) from one of the other sections to the one you are playing from. AND if a bad sector pops up, SOMEPLACE, you can reformat, or SCRAP that section, rather then SCRAP the whole drive.


Plus you can fit multiple movies on a 4.7Gb DVD disc as well...it all depends on the compression quality.

[superart]

tha was just an an example. I was just trieng to point out that it is not completely impossible that somone somewhere might have a use for a large 120 Gig. partition.

[ECA]

Originally posted by superart
tha was just an an example. I was just trieng to point out that it is not completely impossible that somone somewhere might have a use for a large 120 Gig. partition.

I understand that.
But, I have been in the computer arena for over 20 years, sence before hard drives were WORTH putting into a PC(10 megs cost ALOT).
And in MY experience, have a single drive formated that HIGH has NO use except in High resoulution Video Non-linier(sp) production. And for that purpose you DONT want a single drive. You would want an array, so that IF one failed, you would be backed up.
Have you ever TRIEd to recover a failed drive, even 10 GIGS, can be overwhelming(DAYS of work). And if its your system drive, you ARE screwed.

[superart]

ok, your right. it is a bad idea

[RageSlave]

Wait, how many drives a day do you recover from? I thought you had an answer for that

[superart]

20 to 23 drives a day.

[RageSlave]

Originally posted by superart
It's not just one LAN, its an entire high school. Replacing a hard drive takes about 20 minutes. To do the imaging, I use an Altaris server that can reimage multiple drives at once. I also have 3 other people that help me out. So if I need to replace 700 drives, at an average of 24 drives a day, taking from 20 to 25 minutes to replace each drive comes to 480 to 600 minutes for each day. Divide that among 4 people, and you get 120 to 150 minutes. That's only 2 to 2.5 hours a day.

That would be 400 minutes by yesterdays math. Fuzzy math? They teach that in school? I thought you had to be a politician?

LOL!