Toshiba HDD's

[PowerPie5000]

What are peoples opinions on Toshiba drives? I'm starting to think they're a truly terrible brand when it comes to hard drives (based on my own personal experience). One drive lasted around 8 months of light use before dying, then 2 of the replacements failed within a couple of days or so (all 1TB models). I recently ordered a 2TB Toshiba drive from Scan as the price was good and i thought i couldn't possibly get a duff drive again as it's a different model. I was wrong! It failed after a couple of hours of use and started throwing up SMART errors and making a loud click every few seconds (just like the previous drives). Does anyone know what could be happening? The same PC has been running Seagate and Hitachi drives for a while with no issues at all!

The drive is for a friends PC and she is now refusing to use anything by Toshiba. Scan sent me a replacement but i've not bothered opening it yet and might send it back under DSR... I did originally ask for a refund.

Her PC is about 2 years old and the specs are:

Intel Core i5 3570K
8GB Avexir DDR3 1600 RAM
Asrock B75 Pro3-M motherboard
1TB Seagate SATA HDD
1TB Hitachi SATA HDD
3GB HIS Radeon 7950 Boost
550W Cooler Master GX PSU
Windows 7 64-bit

[icemantaz]

Maybe they have been packaged poorly? I've had no real problems with the numerous toshiba drives I have used. Of course poor packaging wouldn't apply to the drive that died after 8 months but it could be the reason for the other 3.

[jim]

If they were that unreliable, Toshiba wouldn't be in business. I would say that you've just been unlucky, although it's possible that the replacements were from a dodgy batch.

Given that there's so little difference between manufacturers though, it's not worth worrying. If you don't to buy Toshiba, no need to.

[icemantaz]

Aren't toshiba part of WD now? As well as hitachi? I'm sure it's just WD and seagate left for mechanical hdd now.

[watercooled]

No, although some mergers did happen; Seagate acquired Samsung's mechanical disk business. WDC acquired HGST (Hitachi) but for the deal to go through the courts, they had to sell Hitachi's 3.5" drive business to Toshiba. For desktop 3.5" drives, there are now three independent manufacturers.

As jim said, if the failure rate was that high overall, it would be big news and that part of the company would be in serious trouble. Hitachi had some of the most respected drives on the market (apart from the Desktar immediately after that sector was acquired from IBM, but unfortunately that reputation stuck with a lot of people). While the business hasn't really been under Toshiba's control for long enough for us to draw any conclusions, my understanding of it is they're built on the same manufacturing lines etc, so I wouldn't expect quality to be massively different.

[DanceswithUnix]

While the business hasn't really been under Toshiba's control for long enough for us to draw any conclusions, my understanding of it is they're built on the same manufacturing lines etc, so I wouldn't expect quality to be massively different.

That is what I thought, sounded like the entire factory building was sold off as a running unit.

[GoNz0]

Hard drive swaps make up about 5% of the Toshiba up and running calls I get. Not bad considering.

[virtuo]

I pulled a Toshiba drive out of a laptop a few (3?) years ago and it's still going strong. Also got an external Toshiba USB3.0 thing, gets daily use and hasn't missed a beat in over a year.

I wouldn't go out of my way to buy one new, but I've not had a problem with the ones I've used.

[PowerPie5000]

Must be just a strange string of bad luck then. Scan tightly wrap the drives in bubble wrap like a football with no outer box, so i imagine they get bounced around a bit by the couriers. I'd prefer to see a box filled with soft sponge for protection. I can't remember how OcUK packaged the 1TB Toshiba drives as it was a while ago (bought a seagate after sending them back and it's been fine since).

[watercooled]

I had a few HDDs behave strangely, and appear to be failing, on one of my systems. It turned out to be a cheap, nasty power splitter cable I was using to blame. It even caused some SMART errors you'd usually see on a failing drive.