Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 MTBF?

[Ian St. John]

Hi,

Does anyone have a reliable estimate of the MTBF for a Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 8?

Here's my story. In 2001, I purchased a 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE and built
a triple boot system around it; Win2000, WinME and Linux. Then within a year
it failed because the hard disk controller could no longer detect it. I was
mad as hell because I lost a lot of work. It wasn't a complete lose because
I had a good working backup system using a 2 GB Removable Castlewood Orb. (I
had to return the first Castlewood before I got a working model.) Anyway, I
went out and purchased a reliable 40 GB IBM IC35L040 AVVA07-0 to use as a
system drive. Now when a manufacturer produces a lot of defective parts,
that manufacturer is likely to go out of business. My 40 GB Quantum Fireball
SE was still under a one year warrantee when it failed. When I checked, I
found that Quantum had been acquired by Maxtor. So I contacted Maxtor with
my beef and I was impressed by their honesty. Maxtor promised to replace my
dead 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE free of charge. All I had to do was to return
the failed disk to them. They paid all the freight. So I installed their
replacement drive, a 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 in my system as a spare
drive.

Now after four years my 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 has suffered the same
fate as my original 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE, the hard disk controller can
not detect it. However, I'm not stupid. I didn't lose anything valuable this
time, since I did not trust the reliability of Maxtor's replacement. The
only thing of note that I stored on the 40 GB Maxtor (other than system
backups) was a four year collection of porn that I downloaded from the
internet. When I was a kid my stamp collection was stolen by professional
thieves and I cried. But several gigabytes of downloaded porn is no big
deal.

Maxtor may have requested return of the failed Quantum Fireball in order to
improve their manufacturing. The Maxtor DiamondMax is long out of warrantee.
However, there may be some engineering types reading this message who would
like to take on the challenge. Contact me if are willing to pay the freight.

Roger Coppock
2600-3600 State St
San Diego, CA 92114-3035
(619) 465-9525
rcoppock@adnc.com

[Rod Speed]

Ian St. John <istjohn@noemail.usa> wrote in message
news:Rcsoe.1590$EP2.8286@newscontent-01.sprint.ca...
Does anyone have a reliable estimate of the MTBF for a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8?

No one does, in spades with it in your system.
Here's my story. In 2001, I purchased a 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE and built a triple boot system around it; Win2000, WinME and Linux. Then within a year it failed because the hard disk controller could no longer detect it. I was mad as hell because I lost a lot of work.

Smart move not backing up what you cared about losing.
It wasn't a complete lose because I had a good working backup system using a 2 GB Removable Castlewood Orb. (I had to return the first Castlewood before I got a working model.)
Anyway, I went out and purchased a reliable 40 GB IBM IC35L040 AVVA07-0 to use as a system drive.

Plenty found that particular drive one of the worst around at that time.
Now when a manufacturer produces a lot of defective parts, that manufacturer is likely to go out of business.

Its more complicated than that with hard drives, and Quantum
did go bust, and IBM flogged their hard drive operation to Hitachi
essentially because it wasnt making any money for them.
My 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE was still under a one year warrantee when it failed. When I checked, I found that Quantum had been acquired by Maxtor. So I contacted Maxtor with my beef and I was impressed by their honesty. Maxtor promised to replace my dead 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE free of charge. All I had to do was to return the failed disk to them. They paid all the freight. So I installed their replacement drive, a 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 in my system as a spare drive.
Now after four years my 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 has suffered the same fate as my original 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE, the hard disk controller can not detect it. However, I'm not stupid. I didn't lose anything valuable this time, since I did not trust the reliability of Maxtor's replacement. The only thing of note that I stored on the 40 GB Maxtor (other than system backups) was a four year collection of porn that I downloaded from the internet. When I was a kid my stamp collection was stolen by professional thieves and I cried. But several gigabytes of downloaded porn is no big deal.

And losing it might save you from ending up blind.
Maxtor may have requested return of the failed Quantum Fireball in order to improve their manufacturing.

Or they just offer a warranty.
The Maxtor DiamondMax is long out of warrantee. However, there may be some engineering types reading this message who would like to take on the challenge. Contact me if are willing to pay the freight.

Easier to get the porn off the net themselves.

[J. Clarke]

Ian St. John wrote:
Hi, Does anyone have a reliable estimate of the MTBF for a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8? Here's my story. In 2001, I purchased a 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE and built a triple boot system around it; Win2000, WinME and Linux. Then within a year it failed because the hard disk controller could no longer detect it. I was mad as hell because I lost a lot of work. It wasn't a complete lose because I had a good working backup system using a 2 GB Removable Castlewood Orb. (I had to return the first Castlewood before I got a working model.) Anyway, I went out and purchased a reliable 40 GB IBM IC35L040 AVVA07-0 to use as a system drive. Now when a manufacturer produces a lot of defective parts, that manufacturer is likely to go out of business. My 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE was still under a one year warrantee when it failed. When I checked, I found that Quantum had been acquired by Maxtor. So I contacted Maxtor with my beef and I was impressed by their honesty. Maxtor promised to replace my dead 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE free of charge. All I had to do was to return the failed disk to them. They paid all the freight. So I installed their replacement drive, a 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 in my system as a spare drive. Now after four years my 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 has suffered the same fate as my original 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE, the hard disk controller can not detect it. However, I'm not stupid. I didn't lose anything valuable this time, since I did not trust the reliability of Maxtor's replacement.

If you trust the reliability of _any_ disk, you're stupid.
The only thing of note that I stored on the 40 GB Maxtor (other than system backups) was a four year collection of porn that I downloaded from the internet. When I was a kid my stamp collection was stolen by professional thieves and I cried. But several gigabytes of downloaded porn is no big deal. Maxtor may have requested return of the failed Quantum Fireball in order to improve their manufacturing. The Maxtor DiamondMax is long out of warrantee. However, there may be some engineering types reading this message who would like to take on the challenge. Contact me if are willing to pay the freight. Roger Coppock 2600-3600 State St San Diego, CA 92114-3035 (619) 465-9525 rcoppock@adnc.com

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

[Odie Ferrous]

"Ian St. John" wrote: Hi, Does anyone have a reliable estimate of the MTBF for a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8?


About 20 seconds.

Or 30, if you're one of the lucky ones.


Odie
--
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

[Chris Hill]

On Sat, 4 Jun 2005 21:04:46 -0400, "Ian St. John"
<istjohn@noemail.usa> wrote:
Hi,Does anyone have a reliable estimate of the MTBF for a Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus 8?Here's my story. In 2001, I purchased a 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE and builta triple boot system around it; Win2000, WinME and Linux. Then within a yearit failed because the hard disk controller could no longer detect it. I wasmad as hell because I lost a lot of work. It wasn't a complete lose becauseI had a good working backup system using a 2 GB Removable Castlewood Orb. (Ihad to return the first Castlewood before I got a working model.) Anyway, Iwent out and purchased a reliable 40 GB IBM IC35L040 AVVA07-0 to use as asystem drive. Now when a manufacturer produces a lot of defective parts,that manufacturer is likely to go out of business. My 40 GB Quantum FireballSE was still under a one year warrantee when it failed. When I checked, Ifound that Quantum had been acquired by Maxtor. So I contacted Maxtor withmy beef and I was impressed by their honesty. Maxtor promised to replace mydead 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE free of charge. All I had to do was to returnthe failed disk to them. They paid all the freight. So I installed theirreplacement drive, a 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 in my system as a sparedrive.Now after four years my 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 has suffered the samefate as my original 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE, the hard disk controller cannot detect it. However, I'm not stupid. I didn't lose anything valuable thistime, since I did not trust the reliability of Maxtor's replacement. Theonly thing of note that I stored on the 40 GB Maxtor (other than systembackups) was a four year collection of porn that I downloaded from theinternet. When I was a kid my stamp collection was stolen by professionalthieves and I cried. But several gigabytes of downloaded porn is no bigdeal.Maxtor may have requested return of the failed Quantum Fireball in order toimprove their manufacturing. The Maxtor DiamondMax is long out of warrantee.However, there may be some engineering types reading this message who wouldlike to take on the challenge. Contact me if are willing to pay the freight.


I don't know what the mtbf is, but I've seen a lot of problems with
the 40gb maxtors. I finally got smart, told people if they wanted
40gb to get one that wasn't a maxtor.

[Jeremy Boden]

In message <hc36a1ddhc1ibie102tmodtc3lmdo5sm6t@4ax.com>, Chris Hill
<hillco@earthlink.net> writesOn Sat, 4 Jun 2005 21:04:46 -0400, "Ian St. John"<istjohn@noemail.usa> wrote:Hi,Does anyone have a reliable estimate of the MTBF for a Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus 8?

....Now after four years my 40 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8 has suffered the samefate as my original 40 GB Quantum Fireball SE, the hard disk controller cannot detect it. However, I'm not stupid. I didn't lose anything valuable thistime, since I did not trust the reliability of Maxtor's replacement. Theonly thing of note that I stored on the 40 GB Maxtor (other than systembackups) was a four year collection of porn that I downloaded from theinternet. When I was a kid my stamp collection was stolen by professionalthieves and I cried. But several gigabytes of downloaded porn is no bigdeal.Maxtor may have requested return of the failed Quantum Fireball in order toimprove their manufacturing. The Maxtor DiamondMax is long out of warrantee.However, there may be some engineering types reading this message who wouldlike to take on the challenge. Contact me if are willing to pay the freight.I don't know what the mtbf is, but I've seen a lot of problems withthe 40gb maxtors. I finally got smart, told people if they wanted40gb to get one that wasn't a maxtor.

MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) is an average across a number of drives.
In your case your particular drive has a MTBF of 4 years (admittedly a
rather small sample).

It's natures way of telling you that all that porn has made your drive
go blind.

--
Jeremy Boden