Seagate? More like Suckgate!

[Jawa Ex Machina]

During the production of MARIANNE, we've used a lot of Seagate drives because they seemed really good. Also, it's a well established brand that people say good things about, and they're low cost.

I bought two 1TB Seagate WS 110 Blackarmor external drives (32mb cache, 7200rpm, eSata).

One of them failed after two weeks of use. Couldn't get it powered up or anything. Just completely unresponsive.

I would have taken that to the shop and traded it in for a new one, but it contained a lot of backup material and according to the shop they don't fix drives. Instead they send it to a third party who then ships it to Seagate. Sometimes, the third party tests the drives, and I didn't want anything potentially leaked so I didn't turn it in.

Instead, I contacted Seagate who told me I could send it directly to them. I would have done this, but because we were still in production there just wasn't time. Afterwards, I suddenly needed a big internal drive and since the shop had told me it probably was the power cable inside the box and that it's a common problem, I decided to take a chance and open it up.
I knew it would void the warranty, but it seemed like less hassle if it worked.
Obviously, it didn't. The problem is with the drive itself.
Okay. Bad move on my part.

So next up, I buy another external 2TB Seagate disc. No blackarmor with eSata this time. A regular, 32mb cache, 7200rpm USB drive, but still. What are the odds of two Seagate drives dying, right?

After three days of backuping everything on that drive, it dies. Three damn days and it's dead.

Now, the other Blackarmor I bought only six months ago is starting to behave weirdly.
I'm afraid I'll lose that too.

Seriously, is Seagate THIS bad??
Is this a common problem?

 

[adkimery]

No drive maker is bullet proof and if a bad batch hits store shelves it can take weeks or months for them to naturally cycle out of inventory.

Also, you have to be really careful with 'consumer' external drives because many times it's the poor quality enclosure that kills the unit not a defect with the drive itself. For example, heat kills and sleek looking plastic shells w/minimal ventilation my be eye catching but it also allows a lot of heat build up. I'm not saying this is what killed your drives but just throwing out an example of what to look out for.


-Andrew

 

[Gary Huff]

Sadly, however, this mirrors my experience in the experiences of others I've worked with in regards to Seagate drives.

I absolutely refuse to purchase that brand.

 

[Jawa Ex Machina]

No drive maker is bullet proof and if a bad batch hits store shelves it can take weeks or months for them to naturally cycle out of inventory.

What's weird is the first two drives were bought in the same city, same store chain but different shops. The third that broke after three days was purchased 6 months later on the other side of the country from a different chain of stores.

I think it's more likely because it's like you say 'consumer'.
At least Seagate has good customer service. I'll get in touch with them and see what they'll do for me.

Still, you'd think they'd last a bit longer...

 

[adkimery]

I've bought about 50 1TB Seagate drives (internal) over the past couple years w/o a problem (other than 5 or 6 having the firmware issue but that was resolved w/o incident). Over the same time period I've purchased about the same number of Wester Digital drives and about a dozen or two Hitachi drives (again, all internal) and none of them have failed (knock on wood). Over the years I've owned Quantum (which was purchased by Maxtor), Maxtor (which was purchased by Seagate), Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi drives and they've all had their good and bad cycles. Ultimately, IMO, they will all fail at some point because they are all man made devices with a lot of moving parts.

I had a pair of 40gig Maxtor drives that almost 10yrs of near daily were still alive and I've had a handful of LaCie's (not sure what HDD brand was inside) fail to make it 12 months with only being used a few times a month.


-Andrew

 

[Jawa Ex Machina]

I've always had really bad experiences with Maxtor. I've bought them a few times (admittedly last time was 2004) and they've all lasted exactly 2 years before crashing beyond repair, taking all data with them.

I've lost a lot of personal photographs, documents and files because of that. Never buying Maxtor again.
Doesn't help that they're the most noisy discs I've owned either.

 

[chromeboy007]

I had a pair of 40gig Maxtor drives that almost 10yrs of near daily were still alive and I've had a handful of LaCie's (not sure what HDD brand was inside) fail to make it 12 months with only being used a few times a month.

I just bought a 2T Lacie man. Don't scare me like that... I have always been happy with WD but switched to Lacie this time cuz I heard WD's 2T's are no good.

 

[P.S.T.]

Internal drives just sit inside your tower and never move. External drives take beatings,weather changes,magnetic waves, etc. I'm scared to death of them. I've seen it a few times that they just die for no reason. I suggest you buy a laptop with plenty of space. Have you tried panasonic's p2 storage? I wonder how sturdy those things are.

 

[Zissou]

i havent had a seagate go (yet) but i have 1-2 yr old 1TB barracuda's; i HAVE had 4 western digital caviar Green drives go, however. all of them started acting weird in RAID10 configs, or would suddenly no longer be available.