Why do new hard drives keep failing in Mac Mini OSX Server?
Why new new hard drives keep failing in Mac Mini OSX server?
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6)
Insufficent data to answer.
Allan
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9 replies
8 days ago we installed a new hard drive in Mac Mini Server running Snow Leopard. It failed. At Christmas last year we installed a new hard drive in same sever; it failed in September. Am wondering if this is typical for Mac Mini Servers or how we can be assured hard drive will last. We did not lose data--but needed a lot of tech time to get backups running.
That is not typical.
Havin said that, disks can fail at any time.
Where are you getting them from?
Allan
We got them from New Egg - Seagate Momentus brand
Do they stand behind then when they fail?
What do they say about the failed disks?
Allan
I recommend that you don't use Seagate anymore. Seagate use to be a reputable brand before the days when Maxtor merged with them. Every since after the merge, quality control has gone down and after the Seagate 7200.11 firmware incident, I've lost trust in their drives and have seen many of their drives fail at a much faster rate now.
I recommend Western Digital Drives at this time. If you find that those drives also fail in the same amount of time as the other drives, then perhaps your logicboard is frying them.
But I would at least give it a try with Western Digital Drives .
All this time have you been using Seagate Drives or various different brands?
And is the macmini stored in an area that has decent ventilation?
Thanks for your comments.
Yes, it is in an air conditioned room and is well ventilated. After the first failure--different brand-- we were told we had to take it up with the manifacturer (not New Egg). I haven't yet talked to NewEgg about this failure (but I will!). Are there any other ways of testing if the logicboard is the cause of the failures?
If it only failed in 8 days.. I just return the drives back to newegg and get a different brand like western digital. NewEgg has a 30 day return policy.
If you deal with any hard drive manufacturer now, they will give you a refurbished item and not a new item that you are entitled.
As for testing hardware....
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1509
even if it still passed Apple tests.. it does not mean logicboard is fine..... it just means it passes the tests.
At this point, If i were you, I would just go back to NewEgg and send back the Seagates letting know they are bad and prefer a different brand such as Western Digital.
Install the Western Digitals and see how long they last. If they fail again in a a short amoung of time, it's the logicboard then.
This is based on experience in dealing with repairs with Macs, PCs, and other various kinds of Servers and computers over the last 10+ years.
In fact, One of my clients who has a Dual 4-core Intel Xeon Server with a Supermicro logicboard, one of their SATA drive ports are bad. Every 4 months like clock work the Mirror RAID Drive would degrade on that port. Then after figuring out that the drives are not necessary bad, I swapped to using another spare SATA port and since then no problems.
Worse case if the logicboard is bad, just get the new Macmini that just got released today. Anyway, I have various number of clients that have macmini servers and they seem to be fine, besides replacement of harddrives and I myself have a macmini 2009 server which seems fine too. I'll be replacing it soon too for one of the new Macmini and giving it to my parents so they have have a backup solution for their needs.
Why do new hard drives keep failing in Mac Mini OSX Server?