Guys,

[blows whistle sharply]

I didn't mean to start a flame war here!  And really the Deskstar/Deathstar
debate is beyond the scope of my discussion.  I am just trying to buy a
**laptop** hard drive.  I see lots of you like the zipzoomfly.com website
and their prices look very good.  But I am a newbie here with laptops.  Am I
safe buying from zipzoomfly?  And apparently they sell at really good
prices.  I just wonder about  buying a "bare" hard drive...is this safe...is
it just a matter of locating the documentation online?

Also, in general, should I be able to return a drive that doesn't work due
to compatibility reasons...or is buying such drives more like buying
RAM--once you buy it, you own it?

Mike


"Dan Foster" <usenet@evilphb.org> wrote in message
news:slrnce14q1.1ae.usenet@gaia.roc2.gblx.net...
> In article <otp0e05082j8n7eog9f3vonfj71kpup1jv@4ax.com>, chrisv
<chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote: 
[vbcol=seagreen] 
>
> That's pretty funny because I've got a fixed 75GXP in my main
> workstation (where I'm composing this), and the servers that I run are
> 49% IBM-based... figure about 500-600 IBM drives? My co-workers also
> sometimes accuse me of being way too pro-IBM. ;)
>
> My 75GXP drive in this workstation:
>
> # smartctl -P show /dev/hda
> smartctl version 5.26 Copyright (C) 2002-3 Bruce Allen
> Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
>
> Drive found in smartmontools Database.  Drive identity strings:
> MODEL:              IBM-DTLA-307075
> FIRMWARE:           TXAOA50C
>
> For the server class HDs that I have, the longevity is about the same
> amongst the various manufacturers I have, IBM included -- typically
> about 5-6 years for the 10K RPM server class SCSI drives that I have...
> but we weren't discussing *these*.
>
> You ever looked at the 75GXP firmware fix list? Any of them look like
> direct responses to the observed issues?
>
> I don't think dealers would be pulling a product off their shelves (at
> the time) for a non-existent phantom issue. It's not a bad product per
> se, just had real teething problems for a while... eventually the issue
> got straightened out. I've got no issues in buying new 75GXPs today, as
> you can see from the fact that I have one in this machine.
>
> Before IBM sold the disk business to Hitachi, they would come out with
> frequent revisions to disk firmware -- I'd apply updates to the server
> class drives that I had. I didn't take it to be a negative issue; the
> problems they fixed were mostly minor, or the occasional major one that
> wasn't easy to trigger in normal conditions. The 75GXP issue was
> different in that it was apparently pretty easily triggered for many.
>
> IBM makes pretty good stuff, but they're not immune to the occasional
> goof. That's just a fact of life in engineering, for most any consumer
> product.
>
> I have no agenda, other than to point out my honest recollections. I'm
> too busy running several hundred servers and supporting tens of
> thousands of users to have time for silly agendas, sorry.
>
> I also have no affilitation with any storage vendor other than as a
> customer.
>
> -Dan

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