Why new HDDs are so unreliable

[LongRunner]

Frustrated by new hard drives failing one after another while most of the 2001-2004 models are still running? There are many possible explanations but I figured this one would be the simplest, and as good as any...

Newer, more advanced designs require more development. That means higher costs. Since it is not sustainable for the market to grow with those costs, the result should be higher prices. Unfortunately, most consumers aren't willing to pay said prices, so the manufacturers end up skimping on development (and we all know how that turns out - see the IBM Deskstar 75GXP and Seagate Barracuda 7200.11). If HDDs were still built with the same quality as they were in 2003, they would have higher prices, not lower.

It's a basic truth that few people are willing to accept. I know some of the consumer advocates in the world are going to hate me for saying this, but in the long run, we would have been much better off paying the price.

[c_hegge]

I'd say it's a combination of consumers who want lower prices, and planned obsolescence. I do agree, though, that I would personally rather pay a few extra dollars than lose all of my data due to HDD failure.

[LongRunner]

Well, it would probably be more than a "few" extra dollars...but still worth it. I blame the usual consumer obsession with upgrading for forcing the prices down and allowing manufacturers to get away with planned obsolescence.

[LongRunner]

Somewhat off-topic but still notable: We would probably be better off if legislation was made by researchers rather than the close-minded politicians we have. There is one law that can ultimately be blamed for the "buy it now" marketing campaigns - the one requiring publicly traded corporations to maximise profits. And I can only describe the result as "we're finished" (or, at least, the general population is).

[shovenose]

I disagree that HDDs are purposely less reliable.
However, even though HDD manufacturers have come up with things to make hard drives more reliable they also need to constantly increase performance and (even more) capacity, which is more difficult and probably puts more stress on things.
I wouldn't say WD RE4 or WD VelociRaptor drives are any less reliable than before.

[LongRunner]

Okay, maybe the expensive high-RPM models are still reliable. But I don't expect current 5400/7200RPM consumer models to be any good at all, and this may well extend to "enterprise" drives based on the same platform (and there are many of those - most notoriously Seagate Barracuda 7200.11/Barracuda ES.2). At least c_hegge hasn't had any luck using what I presume to be Seagate Constellation ES...

[c_hegge]

I think the ones I had trouble with might have been the Barracuda ES.2s. I remember one that died after about 2 years in use. It got RA'd, but the replacement died after about a month. I think I have also built a couple of other mission-critical PCs using them. I think I've had others die young as well. Nowadays, I use WD Blacks if I need a more reliable HDD.

[LongRunner]

If so, I'm not surprised. Barracuda 7200.11/Barracuda ES.2 were the ones infamous for bad firmware.

I hope all goes well with the WD Blacks...

[c_hegge]

I haven't seen a WD Caviar black fail yet, but the one thing I don't like about them is that they are very noisy, so they aren't suited to HTPC use.

[LongRunner]

WD Caviar Blacks seek faster than the lower-end drives. That's why they're so loud in comparison. (Same for the old-style Raptors.) I'm not sure whether they still support AAM but if they do, and it's factory-set to a value of 254 (0xFE) (or just disabled which is functionally identical), change it to 128 (0x80) and check if that reduces the noise.

If they don't support AAM, or if it's already set to 128, you won't be able to reduce the noise.

Still, I'd rather have a noisy drive than one that's not of acceptable quality...(though I mostly use old models myself, many of which are both quiet and reliable)