Bij Hexus.net staat een interessant artikel over de vele IBM-harddisken die het loodje schijnen te leggen. Dat bepaalde versies uit de vorige serie (de 75GXP's) gevoelig voor storingen waren, was bij de meeste tweakers wel bekend (zie ook ons forum). De situatie lijkt zich echter te herhalen bij de nieuwere 60GXP-versies! Vooral in RAID-configuraties vallen ze bij bosjes neer. De schrijver laat weten al 5 van zijn 11 IBM-schijven te hebben verloren, en sommige retailers schijnen een nóg hoger uitvalpercentage te hebben:
We have about 11 IBM drives used in the Hexus systems. So far 4 have failed, and one last night corrupted itself.
I have spoken to some local retailers to me here, and we are getting reports that they are getting 15 failures a week and they only sell around 60 systems a month, this is nearly a 100% failure. Most companies are suffering from 65 -> 70% failure. Not all drives will fail but a HIGH percentage are failing. Hasten to say they have now moved to Quantum drives again, which they had moved away from after the Maxtor buyout.
The biggest issue, which faces these companies is that, their customers don’t expect JUST a new hard drive they want more. They want all their data recovered. This is a "NIGHTMARE" for them, they thought that IBM had solved the issue with the introduction of the GXP60 range but these are dieing even more so now. [break]De oorzaak van het probleem zou bij IBM's 'Giant Magneto Resistive' of GMR-koppen liggen, die erg veel hitte genereren als gevolg van de hoge dichtheid waarmee de data op platters wordt weggeschreven:[/break] The main fault is down to the IBM GMR heads; this stands for 'Giant Magneto Resistive'. The point is manufacturers want as much data per platter as they can get, as this leads to cheaper drives with less plates. BUT! The data is too densely packed, and this causes heat problems. The constant heating/cooling cycles contaminates the data on the adjacent plate, and this means the head ends up reading / writing the wrong track, then you get the kkktch-click -click-lcik.
Meer info over deze zaak lees je bij Hexus.