5 failed drives, all less than 1 year old!

[IsDanReally]

Have a computer that I put 3 Seagate 7200 RPM 250 GB drives into about a year ago. Starting 3 months ago, I've had each of the drives fail, and 2 of the replacement drives. Since they are all part of an array, no data was lost (and important data was backed up else where), but it is a bit of a pain to having to be replacing them all the time.

The drives all run at about 42 - 48 degrees celcius and sit on top of the computer case (it's an old desktop PIII). The computer is on 24/7. Is it the most likely factor, a bad batch of drives (Circuit City $40 after rebate drives), does Seagate just suck, or is it something else?

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

[dBTelos]

How are they connected to the computer (interface).

 

[PurdueRy]

I think Seagates QC sucks

Although in your case I think it might be a bad power supply

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: dBTelos
How are they connected to the computer (interface).

They are all connected via 80 pin standard length (I believe 12 inch) PATA cables. All are set to master and connected to seperate IDE channels. 1 goes into the motherboard, while the other 2 go into a Promise Ultra100 card.

 

[tjpark1111]

QC cannot be kept perfect in any company, but I guess you just had bad luck. Also, if those drives were kept at 48C that definitely shortens lifespan. Not to mention, if you're piling them up on each other or on an even surface, almost no heat can escape through the bottom, where the motor and other components are.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: IsDanReally
They are all connected via 80 pin standard length (I believe 12 inch) PATA cables. All are set to master and connected to seperate IDE channels. 1 goes into the motherboard, while the other 2 go into a Promise Ultra100 card.

what power supply are you using?

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I think Seagates QC sucks

Although in your case I think it might be a bad power supply

I agree on the bad quality control...on of the replacement drives they sent me was also defective on arrival.

If it's a bad power supply, would it not affect the boot drive as well (a 6 year old Maxtor drive)?

 

[IsDanReally]

None of the drives are stacked on each other I know that would be a bad thing.

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
what power supply are you using?

Standard 170 watt power supply that come with this Compaq small outline PIII 933 Mhz, with build in sound and ethernet, only 1 pci slot being used (for the Promise card) and the 4 hard drives total.

 

[IsDanReally]

Mainly, I'm interested to know if it's worth it to keep RMAing these drives, or if I should just upgrade the array to a new SATA on that I planned on doing this summer after new CPUs come out. If the power supply could be killing them (but not the boot drive?) then I don't want to do that.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Only nugget of wisdom I have to offer here is that My file server used to have an HDD go bad about every 6 months. Turned out the problem wasn't the HDD's it was the crap 300W no name power supply I was using. It would either fry the drives, or not be able to power them reliably.

I upgraded to a vantec 460W PS and the system is running much better.

I don't think that 170W is meant to power 4 hard drives at once. I had 3 drives, once CDRW, AthlonXP 2500, 1GB ram, and a server lan card, and my crummy 300W couldn't handle that reliably.

Also In my experience I've had lots of Seagate drives die on me. But fortunately their RMA process is failry straightforward.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Originally posted by: IsDanReally

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
what power supply are you using?

Standard 170 watt power supply that come with this Compaq small outline PIII 933 Mhz, with build in sound and ethernet, only 1 pci slot being used (for the Promise card) and the 4 hard drives total.

170 watts with 3 7200rpm and a 5400rpm drive is not nearly enough.
I am going to agree with PurdueRy, your PS is killing the drives.

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: phaxmohdem

Also In my experience I've had lots of Seagate drives die on me. But fortunately their RMA process is failry straightforward.

Straighforward, since you can do it yourself after the first time but still costs money in return shipping each time (except they will waive it if the replacements fail quickly).

Good to know about the PSU...I may start building myself a real machine, that doubles as a file server earlier than I had wanted.

 

[essasin]

It is def the power supply!

 

[wpshooter]

You did say 170 Watts ? Did you really mean 470 Watts ?

I wouldn't run a system with just one drive on a 170 watt P/S.

I am sort of suprised that you get it to boot and run at all !!!

Sounds like time to build yourself a new computer. Do NOT skimp on P/S. Probably the most important piece of equipment on the system. For the type of system that it sounds like you are trying to run, get at least a 500 Watt range P/S.

Good luck.

 

[Steven the Leech]

I have to agree, I would definitely look into the power supply. Did have a AMD setup, and several drives and had several drives fail [>3], and when i switched to intel, kept getting drive failures/corrupted files/array failures intermittently, bought another name brand power supply and the problem dissapeared. I at first assumed it was bad luck etc due to hard drives/overclocking etc.

 

[AllGamer]

All i can say is.... I can only trust Maxtor hard drives

been hearing a lot of Horror Stories with WD and Seagate drives.

All are new, they all die in about roughly a year (give or take) after purchase.

and to add to the irony... all the people i've heard this problem, has lost important work on them and without backup....

I myself had a few bad Seagate drives, and maybe 1 WD, but i've never had any Maxtor problems

oh and lot sof samsung/hitachi problems

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: wpshooter
You did say 170 Watts ? Did you really mean 470 Watts ?

I wouldn't run a system with just one drive on a 170 watt P/S.

I am sort of suprised that you get it to boot and run at all !!!

Sounds like time to build yourself a new computer. Do NOT skimp on P/S. Probably the most important piece of equipment on the system. For the type of system that it sounds like you are trying to run, get at least a 500 Watt range P/S.

Good luck.

Upon looking up the specs...it was a 200 watt power supply, but not much different. I know on systems I build, power supplies are important...this was just a computer I rescued from the trash and added storage to. 500 watts is about what I was looking at for the Conroe system I wanted to build.

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

For 500W look to Seasonic, Enermax, Enhance or Fortron/Sparkle with FSP/GLN in the part number.

For you present comp, http://www.servercase.com/ has some good but cheap Sparkle units.
5V spikes kill HDD logic chips.


...Galvanized

 

[amdskip]

Do you have any fans blowing air over the hard drives? It is your power supply but hard drives do need fans.

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: amdskip
Do you have any fans blowing air over the hard drives? It is your power supply but hard drives do need fans.

No, the hard drives are on top of the case (but not each other) cool simply by convectin / ambient air.

 

[Madwand1]

I had a retail store salesman talk me into buying a "450W" PSU with a graphics card. Nice heft, packaging, and pricing to make me believe that it was a quality product, but it had a lousy 12V rating, and couldn't reliably boot up with 5 HD's. No such problem with 330 and 350W Antec PSU's, which also have better 12V ratings.

A very rough conservative guideline is 25W startup power per HD -- this translates to 100W (8.3A) for 4 drives alone.

JohnnyGuru goes into more detail, and he budgets 18W per HD.

http://webhelp.org/jonnyguru/findingtherightpsu.html

 

[pkrush]

Get yourself an 120mm fan and set it up to blow over the drives. 48C is definitely too hot. Hard drives today won't run for long without some form of cooling. Usually the drive bays are used like heatsinks but in your case that's not possible since you've got them sitting on top of the case. Also, you should probably get yourself a new power supply with at least 18A on the 12 volt rail, but I'd try mounting a fan to blow over the drives first.

 

[Madwand1]

Who doesn't need more blue LED's?

http://www.xoxide.com/thermaltake-icage-module.html

(Alternatives include Cooler Master, Lian Li and Supermicro; can't guarantee blue LED's there though.)

 

[IsDanReally]

Originally posted by: pkrush
Get yourself an 120mm fan and set it up to blow over the drives. 48C is definitely too hot. Hard drives today won't run for long without some form of cooling. Usually the drive bays are used like heatsinks but in your case that's not possible since you've got them sitting on top of the case. Also, you should probably get yourself a new power supply with at least 18A on the 12 volt rail, but I'd try mounting a fan to blow over the drives first.

Seagate specs claim that temp is normal, but I always thought it was a bit warm also. I suppose I can leave a desk fan blowing at them until I get no drives in a real case. There case my clean setup of 2 wires (power and ethernet) going to a headless computer in a walk in closet.

New case will definately have a 120mm fan in front of the hard drive cage, and another in the back. I want good cooling on new hardware, and this time around, I'll consider the hard drives.