> Does anyone have experience with quantum SCSI disks?  I have had four
> Quantum Empire 1080's (three of which have died).  Now I have a 2.5 GB
> Atlas (about 6 months old) which started giving me medium errors today:
> Sep 26 20:43:51 kyyhky /netbsd: sd0(ncr0:1:0): medium error, info = 260265 (decimal), data = 00 00 00 00 00 3a 6b 40 00 00
> Sep 26 20:47:09 kyyhky /netbsd: sd0(ncr0:1:0): medium error, info = 260265 (decimal), data = 00 00 00 00 00 3a 6b 40 00 00
> Sep 26 20:51:26 kyyhky /netbsd: sd0(ncr0:1:0): medium error, info = 260265 (decimal), data = 00 00 00 00 00 3a 6b 40 00 00
> 
> I guess this one is about to die as well?

If I remember correctly, the "info" field is the sector number, so it's
complaining about one particular sector.  Disks do grow bad sectors from
time to time without being in imminent danger of complete failure. (Of course,
tomorrow it may be ten different sectors, who knows?)  Try mapping out the bad
sector and see if it quiets down.

> Does anyone have ANY Quantum disk (over 1 GB) that WORKS?  I have a few old
> Quantums (80 MB, 170 MB etc) and they work just fine, but these newer disks
> always seem to die within 12 months of purchase.

Let's see, on my UNIX box I have:
<QUANTUM, LIGHTNING 730S, 241E> 699MB
<QUANTUM, VP32210, 81H8> 2103MB
<QUANTUM, FIREBALL1280S, 630C> 1222MB
<IBM, DORS-32160, S82C> 2063MB

and on my Macs I have two more Quantum Stratus 2G drives which are too new
to judge for reliability.  The Lightning drive has been running forever; the
other two Quantums are (I think) three or four years old, and the IBM drive
two years.  (maybe, I forget)  One of the brand-new Stratus drives replaced
a Seacrate drive which has been ailing for some time and finally became too
flaky to survive running Norton Witch Doctor on the Mac.

> Any recommendations for disks that work reliably?  I have a few 1 GB
> Seagates, Fujitsus, one Maxtor etc. and they have never failed.
> I think I'll devote the rest of my life for telling the world how
> useless the Quantum drives are.  ARGH!!!

For just about any manufacturer, you can find someone with a horror story.
I've had a bad run of Maxtors (plus bad luck with one particular Maxtor drive
at a former employer), and like Quantum; someone I know had a DOA Quantum
drive which Quantum replace with subsequent DOA drives twice.  I've heard lots
of complaints about Seagate and Western Digital, and nothing but praise for
Fujitsu and IBM (though I don't doubt there is someone else with the exact
opposite story).

I suspect that the fragmentation of the computer business has removed the
incentive to have consistent quality control.  Too many small lot buyers,
most of whom don't actually care about the disk quality if they can tell
people to just go complain to the disk manufacturer.  The disk manufacturers
then rely of the fact that for every complainer there's at least one or two
equally vocal people saying they've never had a bit of trouble...