[macsarecool]

I need to replace my current harddrive, a travelstar. I find travelstars to be quiet and relatively fast. However, the last three travelstars I have owned have all failed on me. The first took almost three years, and was replaced under warranty. The replacement, a refurbished unit, then took about a year to fail. This refurbished unit (my current one) is also failing, in under a year's time.

I figure three years of service is marginally acceptable, but the swift decline in the refurbished units concerns me to make me second guess yet another Travelstar purchase. I found a link from 2003 concerning some class action lawsuit concerning travelstars. One of the complainants referred to them as "deathstars" due to their early failures.

Which laptop hard drives are better in your experience? Travelstars or Toshiba? Which are quieter, faster, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, reliable and long lasting?

[macsarecool]

bump-does anyone have comparison info?

[vasu]

I've been using and recommending Travelstars for years and haven't had an issue with any of my drives, or those i recommended to people.

I've also read great things about Seagate Momentus drives, and the Toshiba's I've seen have also been trouble free.

The drives with the highest failure rate I've seen, both in terms of personal drive failure, and those of friends/family/coworkers is Fujitsu. I stay far far away from those.

I usually go Seagate for desktop drives and Travelstar's for laptop drives, but that's mainly cause Seagate's Momentus is fairly new. Seagate's desktop drives are the most reliable out there.

all that said, i say try a Seagate Momentus.

[markponcelet]

I've owned Travelstars and Hitachi drives, and none of them have ever failed on me. (I hate the Travelstar, though, because it was so LOUD. Thank goodness drive manufacturers got rid of that problem with new models!)

The only thing I could find on the net that even came close to comparing the two manufacturers was this: Notebook Drives: Toshiba 60G "GAX" versus Hitachi 80G "GN". It's not much to go on, but maybe it suggests a little about the manufacturers themselves.

As for reliability -- I carry a hitachi drive around in an external enclosure everywhere I go. I'm too lazy to secure it properly in the case, so it rattles around all the time. Miraculously, it hasn't crashed yet! I defy you to run a drive in a more hostile condition.

[tinkered]

Personally, I've noticed that when comparing drives it is very important compare drives of approximately equal size and vintage. A 40 GB drive of purchased today versus one 4 years ago will be much more quite and cool, and much quieter and cooler than a 10 GB drive of 6 years ago. Ultimately, I feel that major manufactures have more variance in their quality then between them.

[macsarecool]

I opted for a hitachi travelstar 120 gb (formats to just under 112 gb). Wow. This sucker is SO quiet. It is also half as thick and apparently half the weight of the old hitachi travelstar 60 gb. I replaced. The drive is also much faster in opening apps. Obviously, since my old hard drive was failing and files were corrupted, it's not a fair comparison, but the specs are different as the new drive is a 8 mb cache.

Overall, I am happy with the drive although I've only used it for less than a day. I can only hope this drive is more reliable then the old. The fact that there are few complaints circulating about drive failures from any manufacturer could very well be a good sign.

I also replaced a combo drive that also failed in my pismo. That new drive is also significantly quieter and smoother than the one it replaced. I can't imagine what a new computer would be like! Smooth as butter probably. For now, I am happy.