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Results of the first ever Maxtor Hard Drive Challenge (MHDC)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     I wish to thank everyone who has replied to my request for their opinions
on Maxtor drives with emphasis on the 213 meg. model.  All of the responses
I received by email have been included.  I apologize if I missed any replies
on comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.

MHDC Rating System
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
[Rating system as defined in my original request]

-10 to +10 rating with...

-10 = multiple hard drive crashes, dead drive
+ 0 = It's slow, it's expensive, crashed once, but it works
+10 = It's the best drive for the money!  

Examples (not counted in results)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have a Seagate 40 meg  MFM drive circa 1988.  It's loud, it's slow (39 ms),
it
loses files every couple of months.  But no hard drive crash or unexpected 
death.   Rating: +2 (2 points from 0 for not crashing or dying)

The Maxtor is quick, reliable, and cheap ($450 in September).  I still have
megs available and money in my wallet.  No crashing or losing files.
Rating: +8  If I bought it at today's prices, I would give a +9. 

[The rating system will be more refined in the future]

Histogram
~~~~~~~~~ 

Score     # of responses
----------------------
-10.0
- 9.0
- 8.0
- 7.0
- 6.0
- 5.0
- 4.0
- 3.0
- 2.0
- 1.0
  0.0        
+ 1.0        
+ 2.0        
+ 3.0        1
+ 3.5        1
+ 4.0        
+ 5.0        
+ 6.0        1
+ 7.0        1
+ 8.0        3
+ 9.0        5
+ 9.5        1  
+10.0        3

N=16
Average=8.000

NOTES: A response like an "x or y" got the average of the two.  Eg. "I rate it
a 3 or 4" is a 3.5.  I also did not differentiate between Maxtor models.  I
wanted to get the general opinion of Maxtor drives.

Below are the responses.
---------------------------cut-here------------------------------------------

From dlowe@world.std.com Fri Jan  1 22:37:35 1993

I bought 8 Maxstor drives in May and have had one failure after 7
months....

Overall i'd give them a 3 or 4 but after I just lost the one... I'm 
not sure it's lower.

[Scored as a 3.5 - John]
---

From terapin!jesse Sat Jan  2 02:30:33 1993

After a month of the MAXTOR 213 I experienced READ errors and GENERAL FAILURES.
 I bought the HD back for exchange and 'puter tech told me there were some
problems with early MAXTOR 213 drives.  My MAXTOR213 was made, SEP 92?!?

My new MAXTOR213 date is AUG92, and 2 months it- no problems so far.


---

From zygot!ravel!duncan Sat Jan  2 13:52:09 1993

I'm not sure exactly how to quantify my own Maxtor 213 MB experience
under your system.  My present unit seems fine; it is  fast and
reasonably priced; it never causes any problems at all in my 486
running ISC 3.0 and receiving 3 - 8 MB of news daily (for almost a year
now).  Conservatively, I'd give it a +9.

HOWEVER, this is the warranty replacement I got when the original unit
died fatally after just a few weeks of use...  

---

From sheldon@iastate.edu Sat Jan  2 18:26:23 1993

 I'm sorry, but I gave up accepting the opinions of service techs at sleazy
peecee  clone stores when one of them told me that heat does not do any
damage to CPU's.

 I have a Maxtor 213 Meg IDE harddrive in my computer.  My computer happens
to be an IBM PS/ValuePoint 433DX.

 Considering the general quality of this system, I'd say that the Maxtor is
a good choice of harddrive or IBM wouldn't have used it.

 By quality I mean the case is solid, and easy to access(no screws to get
inside), AMP connectors used extensively, all wires are wrapped and routed
neatly, the 486 chip has a heatsink, etc.

 But considering Western Digital and Conner drives are similarly priced
today, I'd give the Maxtor a fairly average rating.  Say a 6.

---

From terapin!jesse Sat Jan  2 14:10:31 1993

Hmmmm, I rate it a '3' from a scale of -10 to 10.  Price wise it's a steal here
in California from $359-$399.

---

From msmith@beta.tricity.wsu.edu Sat Jan  2 19:46:28 1993

I have the Maxtor 7213A and your "friend" is full of crap!  The drive
installed quickly with no problems.  It's not the fastest, but when I
bought it late this spring it had the best price/performace ratio on the
market.  You can get them for $380 plus shipping.

Rating +9  I'm buying another one and it should arrive this week!  (2 of
them in one system!).

Mark

---

From rjg@engr.uark.edu Sat Jan  2 23:32:52 1993

I've had an 80 meg Quantum IDE for two years now and finally broke down
and bought two of the Maxtor 213 meg drives. Couldn't resist @$379 each.
Have had them installed for about a month now and couldn't be happier. I
partitioned one drive 50-50, half for OS/2 HPFS and the other half for
DOS. Been thinking about adding Linux or 386BSD to my system now that I
have plenty of room. 

No crashing or loosing of files. Rating: +9

Would do it again. (Or maybe I'd buy a Toshiba SCSI 1.2 Gig for $1299.)
*Shrug*

---

From faruque@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Sun Jan  3 01:04:50 1993

I bought a Maxtor 7213A (213meg IDE drive) two weeks ago. I am very satisfied
with it. Previousy I owned Maxtor 7080A (80meg IDE) drive and was very
happy with it, that was one of the reason to go for the 7213A instead of
other brands like Western Digital, Conner , Seagate etc. I have no problem
so far with the 7213A drive, I think it is a very good drive for the money
and performance/satisfaction. Although I heard that Conner drives are very
quite, but they are also expensive. I paid $379 for the 7213A, the price may
even less now. I will rate it +10. Please post or mail me the summary, I want
to see other peoples opinion. Thanks.

-Faruque
Email: faruque@sun.soe.clarkson.edu

---

From wlsmith@valve.heart.rri.uwo.ca Sun Jan  3 17:40:00 1993

Once upon a time I bougth a Seagate ST296N, 82 mb, 28 ms, SCSI.  Since
16 bit SCSI controllers were (and still are) too expensive, I got the ST02
8 bit controller.  That drive is on it's second owner now, 2.5 years old,
but it has this anoying 3-chirp thing that it does every 5 minutes.
It gives 450k/sec transfer speed.  I would rate it a +10 (at the time I
bought it), and it's probably a +5 now.

I later bought a Quantum LPS120, 117mb, 15 ms, 256k cache.  Again I'd
rate that drive as a +10 at the time, maybe a +9 now.  That drive went to
my brother because...

I then bought a Maxtor 7120A 123 mb drive, 15 ms, 64k cache.  Again, 
that drive is about a +9 or +10.  It's about 9 moths old, the quantum is
about a year old.  The maxtor gives about 1200 k/sec transfer.  Both
the quantum and maxtor are IDE drives.

A friend of mine bought the 7120A off me, and myself and a friend bought
a couple of Maxtor 7213A's (IDE, your drive I think).  These are about
3 months old, and zero problems.  I find that I can push my bus speed to
12 mhz with the 7213, something I couldn't do with the 7120A.  My
transfer rate with the 7213 is 1400 k/sec.  There is an article in the
latest computer shopper about the Quantum, Conner, Seagate, Western digital,
and Maxtor 200 mb drives, and they differ (mostly) in the size of their
cache, their cache management, and their error/defect management.  The
Maxtor seemed to be the skimpiest as far as these features goes, but
I paid $375 for mine, so I'm not complaining.  I'd rate it a +10, a rating
that will probably last for 2 or 3 years...

[Scored as a 9.5 for the 7120A and a 10 for the 7213. - John]
---

From dfeldman@lookout.it.uswc.uswest.com Sun Jan  3 14:16:15 1993

Actually, are most returns by absolute number or by percentage?
I have had no trouble with maxtor drives although my sample is
rather small. They (maxtor) are included in many home PCs, so
perhaps your friend is reaching his conclusion based on the large
numbers of the drives out there.

Good luck.
Dave

---
From hcy@cbnewsh.att.com Mon Jan  4 06:00:13 1993

         I have a Maxtor 213 Meg drive.  It's very quiet and reasonably
quick.  I will give it an "8" grade.

Hon Yu

---

From carl@Cayman.COM Mon Jan  4 06:41:03 1993

I've installed about 25 Maxtor 7213A's in computers that I've sold.
Other than *one* DOA drive (which could have been the fault of UPS or
some delivery person on the way), all have been running quite happily
under DOS, Windows, Windows NT, Linux, and Netware.

I have heard the exact same rumor (high return rate) about the Western
Digital drives.  WD drives are even less expensive than Maxtors and
several of my distributors dropped them (supposedly because of the
high return rates - they quoted me ~ 12-15%).

I personally have about 8 other Maxtor drives in service (ESDI and
SCSI, 380 and 760) and have never had a failure from them (knock on
wood!!!).

From the way I'd interpret your scale, I'd give them a +9, they could
have a bigger cache and a little faster transfer rate, but the for $$$
they're a great disk.

-Carl-

---

From poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Mon Jan  4 13:28:42 1993

Well, I can't quote specifically on the IDE version, but I presume he refers
to the disk mechanism, not the interface that is no good.

We recently bought 11 UNIX (Sun) workstations with internal disks. They all
happen to be Maxtor LXT-213S (SCSI version of yours), and had one fail within
a week. The rest are OK 3 months later. It was very obvious that soemthing
serious was wrong, the drive made the worst screeching noise on power up, or
when accessed.

That would be a 9% failure. It is possible that we just happened to get a bad
one this once, or if this percentage would continue if we bought more units.

---

From DAPARISH@BIIVAX.DP.BECKMAN.COM Tue Jan  5 16:18:54 1993

Personal drive preferences:

Quantum 240 LPS +9  quietest of the drives. Has a quality feel to it, like
               a Swiss watch. Many folks who have bought a quantum,
               will henceforth only buy quantums.
               Despite on board cache not the fastest drive. A little
               pricey (due to Yen/made in Japan?).

Fuji 210. +8   Best performance of the bunch due to intelligent cache.
               (in my home pc).

Maxtor 213.    +8   Occasional drive samples are noisier than others.
               Good solid performer. Widely preferred by many.
               Avoid the old 200 model (LXT200) it is known to be
               unreliable, maxtor have replaced most of these drives
               (with 213's). there are two types of 3.5" 213, the half
               height lxt213? and the third height lxt7213A. 
               Have seen one lxt213 fail when new.
               performance is about the same.
               Have also used the SCSI version.

Conner 170.    +7.5 Good solid performer.

Seagate.  +5   Lost much credibility in marketplace. Supposedly newer
               drives (from CDC/Imprimis takeover) more reliable.

WD 220 caviar. +4   Some system integrators wont touch them, citing highest
               return (failure) rates. Performance quite decent.
               I wouldn't buy one, but - the one in my Gateway PC 
               is fine.

---

From jwl@ferrari.cray.com Wed Jan  6 13:04:50 1993

I have a 210 Mb WD drive.  +10 I guess.  no problems works fine 
had it for a year or so...

Jim

---

From nctams1!pnet16!isecpac@humu.nosc.mil Thu Jan  7 01:29:46 1993

FYI, the Jan 93 issue of Computer Shopper has a write-up on what 
they call "mammoth" hard drives becoming "affordable."  (I would
not call 200 Mb mammoth but what the heck.)

They reviewed the Maxtor, Connor, Western Digital, Quadram and
a few words on a Teac, all in the 200 Mb class.  They mentioned
"ease" of installation, lack of jumpers in the case of Western
Digital, etc.  Also discussed the cache on these machines.

--wally

---

From araki Thu Jan  7 23:23:30 1993

I was a big fan of Conner until recently where I've seen my Returns numbers
Conner Drive seem to be increasing as time goes on. I've convinced my
customers to go with the Maxtor Drives, and I've had good luck.
 
+5 Conner Hard Drives
+7 Maxtor Hard Drives

---

From saleh@dutiws.TWI.TUDelft.NL Fri Jan  8 09:52:08 1993

Hi,

I have been using a Maxtor 213A for about 20 months and it's working good.
With 'using' I mean '5 to 10 hours a day, sometimes a week without turning
it off'. I'm really satisfied with this harddrive, except ...

OS/2 won't work, something with the harddrive cache. After lots of complaining
my IBM dealer took it (OS/2) back and gave me a full refund (desperation 
probably).
A
My drive is probably the older model: LXT-213A, half-height.

My rating: 8 (very dependable, never an error, which my Connor cp-104 had.)

Greeting from Delft, Holland.

Michel.

---

From roger@hpsrrjp.sr.hp.com Mon Jan 11 17:49:46 1993

I rate my Maxtor 7213 a:     +9

It's great!  Very fast, and relatively quiet.
No problems yet.

Roger Petersen
roger@sr.hp.com


------end-of-included-responses--------------------------------------------

John's Interpretation of the MHDC results
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was pleased that the average came out to be an 8.  Unfortunately, I don't
think this survey will completely validate Maxtor as being a high quality / high
value drive for several reasons.  I suspect that most people who gave the
Maxtor high scores only have had it for several months.  There were also a
number of responses which indicated a failure with the 7213.  I also thought
that the scores from people who've seen drive failures were too high.  Despite
all this, I have confidence that those of us who bought or will buy the
inexpensive Maxtor drives will be pleased for the next two to three years
with its performance and value.  Reliability still remains to be the big
question mark.
-- 
John M. Wu                "And if a double decker bus, crashes into us
johnwu@netcom.com          to die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die"
jmw@ocf.berkeley.edu         - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
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