Verify Maxtor Rumour?

[Ketchup]

Originally posted by: Pariah
So what competing company do you work for Subhuman25? Or is that just another handle for baumer? Storage Review has a reliability survey that contains over 30,000 entries from over 13,000 participants, and the results do not show Maxtor worse than anyone but Seagate. Hitachi/IBM is definitely worse and WD is at best even, with smaller companies, Fujitsu and Samsung behind Maxtor as well. As far as I know, that's the largest publically posted sampling of drive failure rates. Now why don't you provide a larger sampling that provides evidence to back up your claims?

I'd be happy if he provided anything to back up his claims.

 

[thermalpaste]

Originally posted by: DGath
Wow... if your drives aren't good enough for OEM's like Dell, that's pretty bad. I'll stick with my Seagates and their 5 year warranties

:thumbsup:

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: baumerz
Tell you what. From now on I will only post to put up nice comments about Maxtor. Anything else I'll keep to myself.

You can post whatever you like, at least up until the mods decide otherwise. My only suggestion is that you Google for "ethical disclosure", as it applies here. Until then, I'll make sure to reply to your threads to make it clear to people what's going on, on the assumption that they haven't read any of your prior threads.

 

[baumerz]

I would have to be disclosing something for there to be any worries about "ethical disclosure" I am only looking for facts to back up the first couple links. More links have been posted. It appears Maxtor for now has a problem which their stock prices also reflect. If you wish to make it more out of it than that, go for it. Yes a while back Seagate was accused of "dumping" drives and now (if you bother to do some research) it appears Maxtor is dumping drives and some news reports (not me) accuse Maxtor of dumping drives that didn't qualify for some customer.

I don't know why it's your job to worry about it. You work for Maxtor?

Fact 1 - I have stated I own Maxtor drives that I have never had a problem with. They were my favorite drive for years.
Fact 2 - I am curious as to why Maxtor appears to be having problems no matter where I work.
Fact 3 - I want the whole industry to make money through healthy competition and ALL HD manufacturers have been guilty of some unhealthy competitive practices.
Fact 4 - Many people are claiming that Maxtor's failure rates have risen. There are even news articles about it. The consumer needs to know no matter what it is or who makes it.

So, IF Maxtor is having trouble with quality and IF their stock is dropping to nothing and IF they are dumping drives AND losing money, consumers should be wary.

 

[baumerz]

Rest assured, if anything newsworthy happens to any HD manufacturer including Seagate, good or bad, I will post it if it's info released to the public and I think it's of interest to others. That's what this forum is for. I do so not because of where I work but because I am a computer hobbiest.

 

[baumerz]

Maxtor's grim forecast leads drive-stocks lower
Thu Oct 21, 2004 01:17 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 21 (Reuters) - A grim financial outlook from computer disk drive maker Maxtor Corp. sent its shares plunging more than 30 percent, leading other disk drive makers' shares lower as the industry struggles for profitability.

"With no indications of price stability and serious pressures on (gross margins), we do not see near-term profitability for the company and as such, we cannot come up with a reason to own the stock," Pacific Growth Equities analyst Brian Alger wrote in a note to clients.

http://olympics.reuters.com/ai...ws&storyID=6573002

 

[baumerz]

Maxtor skids to loss

Hard disk drive maker Maxtor Corp., of Milpitas, says it posted a net loss of $90.6 million or 36 cents per diluted share on revenues of $927.2 milllion for its third quarter ended Sept. 25.

That compares to net income of $29.9 million or 12 cents per diluted share on revenues of $1.065 billion a year earlier.

Included in this year's quarterly net loss was $27.2 million of severance and facilities-related restructuring charges and a $5.1 million charge for the amortization of intangible assets.

"Demand in the third quarter reflected seasonal strength and revenue was above our initial expectations," says Paul Tufano, president and chief executive officer, in a written statement. "Our average selling price declined from $71 in the second quarter to $67 in the third, a 6 percent quarter over quarter reduction."

Maxtor (NYSE: MXO) shipped 13.8 million hard drives in the quarter. Included in this total were 643,000 of SCSI drive shipments and 1,543,000 drives sold to consumer electronics OEMs.


http://sanjose.bizjournals.com...ily33.html?jst=b_ln_hl

Now.....when you ship 13.8 million HDs and loose money on them, isn't that "dumping"????

 

[baumerz]

Originally posted by: Dopefiend

Originally posted by: baumerz
Quote
============================
You come here and (apparently?) shill for your employer, on these non-commercial forums, and then accuse me of bias, when I point it out publically? (I don't even work in the storage industry, so how I can be biased in this regard? You on the other hand, unless things have changed, do.)
============================
If I cared about you pointing it out, I would change my identity.......If you look at the initial post, it says nothing about my employer. (shilling? really... :-/)
<snip>

Oh for crying out loud learn to use the Quote button.

pfff.....sorry, I knew it was there.........

 

[busmaster11]

I've used Maxtors most often between 8-3 years ago, and they've never failed me. I'd rate them slightly behind Seagate interms of trustworthiness. The Quantum merger did bother me a little though. I'd actually take Samsung before WD and IBM/Hitachi these days...

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: baumerz
Rest assured, if anything newsworthy happens to any HD manufacturer including Seagate, good or bad, I will post it if it's info released to the public and I think it's of interest to others. That's what this forum is for. I do so not because of where I work but because I am a computer hobbiest.

It hasn't exactly been all rosy for Seagate this year either. I don't remember you posted this one:

Seagate to cut 2,900 jobs

 

[DaFinn]

Originally posted by: Subhuman25

Originally posted by: drednox
wow, that is weird. maxtor drives have always worked great for me, they have nice specs and were easiest to install as well.

the only HD i have ever had die on me was an IBM, it was fast as hell for its time, but i guess it paid in lack of durability for that performance.

Like Teauton stated above,if you do some research you'll find Maxtor falls in the "most failed" crowd of HD's.They are notoriously failure prone.Much like the IBM "DeathStar" series were notorious for failure.
Except Maxtor has a much longer history of it than say the IBM's ever lived.
Like I said,I've used Maxtor's several times over the years in various builds,giving them the benefit of the doubt and counting on my past experience with them as a single unlucky event,but over and over I've been disappointed with recurring failures.
Reasons for my choice to go with Maxtor were often a review article or "guide" recommendation such as here on AnandTech.And we all know how either of those can fail you tremendously.Or can you say that everything AnandTech recommends in it's guides are the best and have never failed or disappointed you?
Sure,you may be one of the lucky ones and not experience a problem ... yet,but that doesn't paint an overall picture.The proof is in the many posts,threads,articles of the many Maxtor users you can find all over the web.And the picture ain't pretty.
On the other hand Seagate &amp; Western Digital have built an extremely good reputation in the HD dept. as evidenced.
Also I believe they both have sold more over the years than Maxtor,wich thins out any problems listed anywhere even more so.Perfect they aren't,but far far more relliable.Maybe not always the top performer,but a lot of times HD comparisons are splitting hairs when it comes to performance anyways.So who really cares.A HD's main function is to store data.And that means reliability is your #1 concern.And Maxtor doesn't afford one much assurance of reliability.It's as simple as that.

I have to call BS on that. By any research, maxtor is one of the more reliable drives out there. Also, my company has bee using exclusively maxtor drives (both ata and scsi) since 1998 when we had a bunch of seagates fail on us in very short period of time. All manufacturers have had their problems, some people like another and some the other. Personally I would never put a Seagate in my machines after my experiences, and they are considered a reliable manufacturer these days.

It is ok to talk about own experiences, but to state something like you did as a fact is... BS!

 

[Subhuman25]

OK then, since a few of you won't be convinced I'll settle this once and for all.

Maxtor makes the best drives in the world!They are more reliable than any other drives and will not,can not fail!

You should go out and buy all the Maxtor HD's you can.

When they're all gone and Maxor has folded I'll not have to worry about dealing with a computer that has a Maxtor in it in a year or 2(by then they'll be crapped) LOL

So there ya go

 

[bdmst16]

All I can say is that I work in the IT department of a large corporation (#2 in their field). All new computers ordered come from Dell, and every one of them has a Maxtor drive in them.

 

[Ketchup]

Originally posted by: baumerz


Now.....when you ship 13.8 million HDs and loose money on them, isn't that "dumping"????

No. it's not. I think it's time for YOU to do some more research.

 

[baumerz]

I did mine. Look at all the links.

 

[baumerz]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: baumerz
Rest assured, if anything newsworthy happens to any HD manufacturer including Seagate, good or bad, I will post it if it's info released to the public and I think it's of interest to others. That's what this forum is for. I do so not because of where I work but because I am a computer hobbiest.

It hasn't exactly been all rosy for Seagate this year either. I don't remember you posted this one:

Seagate to cut 2,900 jobs

That is a small percentage of their workforce and mostly overseas. At least they have only had one down quarter and are making a profit.

 

[baumerz]

Not only that but it was about 5 months ago. Old news and it doesn't affect reliability or the consumer in any way.

 

[Corsairpro]

In reply to the actual question of how long they can last... depends COMPLETELY on future revenue growth. Any company that consistently sustains losses will go under. Looking over their income statement / balance sheet.... they look to be fine and just had a poor quarter in terms of sales. Some re-alignment of operations and quality control should help their products pass validation and in turn grow sales.

 

[baumerz]

Originally posted by: Corsairpro
In reply to the actual question of how long they can last... depends COMPLETELY on future revenue growth. Any company that consistently sustains losses will go under. Looking over their income statement / balance sheet.... they look to be fine and just had a poor quarter in terms of sales. Some re-alignment of operations and quality control should help their products pass validation and in turn grow sales.

They have had more than just one bad quarter. But I agree with what you say and if Maxtor picks itself up and gets it together it should be good for the entire industry. It is hard for other manufacturers to compete with a company who sells at a loss with very low margins. Although consumers are not feeling the effects yet, if the current trends continue, they will.

 

[Corsairpro]

Originally posted by: baumerz

They have had more than just one bad quarter. But I agree with what you say and if Maxtor picks itself up and gets it together it should be good for the entire industry. It is hard for other manufacturers to compete with a company who sells at a loss with very low margins. Although consumers are not feeling the effects yet, if the current trends continue, they will.

ROE:

Q3 03 : 17.86%
Q4 03 : 21.75%
Q1 04 : 4.96%
Q2 04 : -14.66%

Sales Growth:

Q4 03 : 7%
Q1 04 : -13.85%
Q2 04 : -15.98%


I think this trend indicates that Maxtor's troubles are from failure to generate / maintain sales (not entirely pricing related).... therefore my previous statement of re-aligning operations / quality control will give something for the marketing dept to push and hopefully grow sales.

EDIT: Well, I read that thestreet.com article and it looks like Maxtor has had 3 straight poor performing quarters. Considering their current ratio is hovering slightly above 1.0, the company is techincally solvent but looks to be in worse trouble than I had first thought. Looks like price competition is a larger part of the problem as well. Maxtor is in a tough spot at the moment but I don't think anyone except the other HDD manufacturers would like to see Maxtor exit the market.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I find Maxtor to be among the most reliable in the market, and I personally build almost all of my machines for myself and for clients using Maxtors.

I think everyone is coloured by their experiences with drives, and people get jumpy when one or two (or three) of their own drives die, even though it doesn't necessarily reflect the overall market.

I shied away from Western Digital for years after a couple of 4GB Caviars died on me; the one in my main machine had bad sectors up the wazoo; after the 2.5 GB mark it was all getting corrupted!!

I only recently jumped back onboard with WD for the Raptors, however the three 80GB Caviars I've purchased recently seem pretty solid.

I also had one of the infamous Deskstar 75GXP's back in the day (as did my aunt and another cousin) and none of the drives died. Yet those were known to have among the highest failure rate around (and for this reason I'm still shy of Hitachi's newly purchased line of HD's from IBM).

I've built about 40 computers using Maxtors, and two of those drives have had problems in that time. Two out of 40 seems a pretty good ratio. Best of all, neither of the users of the drives lost any data; they just experienced a clicking sound and MaxBlast warned about an "immanent failure" on one of the drives. Both transfered 100% of their data to new drives without problem, and Maxtor RMA'ed both of the faulty drives as well.

Another 3.5 year old Maxtor (in a system I didn't build) that I serviced had been making clicking noises in my client's PC for about half a year before I came by to replace it - he also didn't lose anything (although performance was starting to get sluggish, so I told him to tell me sooner next time!).


People who call Maxtor "crap" or "bad quality" don't know what they're talking about. The opinions have heard vary from "mediocre" to "excellent" to "most stable in the business" . EVERYONE has a biased opinion based on their experiences (which again, reflect an insignificant portion of the total number of drives produced). All of the manufacturers produce solid drives out there, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a drive from Maxtor, WD, or Seagate to anyone. I think Hitachi is fine as well (certainly their notebook drives are great).

The hard drive itself's history is more important than brand. If you are buying an older drive that has had one or two prior owners, then you have no idea how they used the drive, what they subjected it to, etc. If you're buying a brand new HD, you really can't go wrong, and faiure is just (un)luck of the draw.

 

[baumerz]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
I find Maxtor to be among the most reliable in the market, and I personally build almost all of my machines for myself and for clients using Maxtors.

I think everyone is coloured by their experiences with drives, and people get jumpy when one or two (or three) of their own drives die, even though it doesn't necessarily reflect the overall market.

I shied away from Western Digital for years after a couple of 4GB Caviars died on me; the one in my main machine had bad sectors up the wazoo; after the 2.5 GB mark it was all getting corrupted!!

I only recently jumped back onboard with WD for the Raptors, however the three 80GB Caviars I've purchased recently seem pretty solid.

I also had one of the infamous Deskstar 75GXP's back in the day (as did my aunt and another cousin) and none of the drives died. Yet those were known to have among the highest failure rate around (and for this reason I'm still shy of Hitachi's newly purchased line of HD's from IBM).

I've built about 40 computers using Maxtors, and two of those drives have had problems in that time. Two out of 40 seems a pretty good ratio. Best of all, neither of the users of the drives lost any data; they just experienced a clicking sound and MaxBlast warned about an "immanent failure" on one of the drives. Both transfered 100% of their data to new drives without problem, and Maxtor RMA'ed both of the faulty drives as well.

Another 3.5 year old Maxtor (in a system I didn't build) that I serviced had been making clicking noises in my client's PC for about half a year before I came by to replace it - he also didn't lose anything (although performance was starting to get sluggish, so I told him to tell me sooner next time!).


People who call Maxtor "crap" or "bad quality" don't know what they're talking about. The opinions have heard vary from "mediocre" to "excellent" to "most stable in the business" . EVERYONE has a biased opinion based on their experiences (which again, reflect an insignificant portion of the total number of drives produced). All of the manufacturers produce solid drives out there, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a drive from Maxtor, WD, or Seagate to anyone. I think Hitachi is fine as well (certainly their notebook drives are great).

The hard drive itself's history is more important than brand. If you are buying an older drive that has had one or two prior owners, then you have no idea how they used the drive, what they subjected it to, etc. If you're buying a brand new HD, you really can't go wrong, and faiure is just (un)luck of the draw.

First off...2 out of 40 is extremely high. That's a 5% failure rate. 1% would be considered extremely high. 5% of customers coming back after losing all of their data can give a PC builder a bad name.

The high failures in Dell's head too? I think they are a little more scientific than that.

 

[baumerz]

Also I have built at least that many PCs and have never had a drive failure. Not to mention the 12 drives I am currently running at home. But this is because I stay away from companies when they are having QC problems.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: baumerz
First off...2 out of 40 is extremely high. That's a 5% failure rate. 1% would be considered extremely high. 5% of customers coming back after losing all of their data can give a PC builder a bad name.

The high failures in Dell's head too? I think they are a little more scientific than that.

They didn't lose any data, and the one that was reporting "Immanent HD failure" (upon it's 4th birthday) has been running in my test machine fine (although I obviously wouldn't trust essential data to it).

The point is that 0% had HD failures and 5% had faults, which were fixed for free with an RMA and which didn't result in failure (on the two in warranty).

It beats my 3/12 WD drives that have failed on me - should I conclude that Western Digital has a 25% failure rate?

No, and that was my point. We purchase a miniscule quantity of drives, and cannot conclude a general failure rate based on our experiences. Heck my family and I was 3/3 for flawless Deskstar 75 GXP's, but I wouldn't touch one now with a 10-foot pole.

Both of the drives which died were Diamondmax 40's; the newer drives have been flawless for me.

Also, I don't think "failing to qualify it's drive for Dell's systems" means "high rate of failure," it just means they didn't meet Dell's standards for one reason or another; perhaps they didn't rate the MTBF high enough or something...

Regardless, I would definately not rate Dell as the authority on anything in the PC market; their PSU's suck and their motherboards are total crap.

Originally posted by: baumerz
Also I have built at least that many PCs and have never had a drive failure. Not to mention the 12 drives I am currently running at home. But this is because I stay away from companies when they are having QC problems.

What is your point? I've never had one of my home HD's fail either, aside from that wonky WD that came with my G3 Mac (my last Macintosh ever). The day you don't back up is the day your drives fail; the very nature of hard drives means you'd be a fool not to back up, regardless of your brand of HD.

HD failures are just a fact of life; an

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: baumerz
Not only that but it was about 5 months ago. Old news and it doesn't affect reliability or the consumer in any way.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the dateline of your first link, 2004-06-28?

http_ // www.bizjournals.com / sanjose / stories / 2004 / 06 / 28 / daily44 . html

The date of your post, and the start of this thread, was on "10/26/2004 03:57 PM". Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's four months later.

Interestingly enough, that was going to be one of my comments when you first posted that - isn't that just 'old news'?

So what motivation did you have, to start this thread, with such an old news headlines? Out of spite? Propeganda? Clearly with such old news, it couldn't have been to "simply inform".