Nikon_DonB Loc: Chicago

Check this out.....Seagate has had so many failures, there is now a class-action law suit. Those here that have them want to see this.
Sure glad I've always used Western Digital. Hope this will help fellow Hoggers.

http://www.slrlounge.com/seagate-faces-class-action-lawsuit-hard-drive-failure/?utm_source=SLR+Lounges+News+and+Downloads&utm_campaign=1a6ca3cee5-Newsletter_92b10_8_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c60190ad3d-1a6ca3cee5-413973701&mc_cid=1a6ca3cee5&mc_eid=12e2816e0c

Blasthoff Loc: Life halved NY and IN

For your reference, about 15 years ago it was just the opposite. WD went through a period when their drives were failing left and right and those that didn't sounded like they were about to. For a long time I wouldn't consider one. Maxtor was very good for a few years and then it was Seagate making very dependable drives. I have at least a couple 10+ years old. Since I've been around computers I've seen hard drive brands go up and down with reliability. You just have to stay on top of things to know whats up and whats not.

Bill_de Loc: US

From what I found, the suit currently has one plaintiff. It also seems to be about one specific drive.

"According to the post on Tom’s Hardware, it appears a major point of contention is the fact that the, “lawsuit cites the Backblaze reliability reports as proof that the units were faulty (only the 3 TB Barracuda models).”

Time will tell how big a deal the attorneys can make out of this. If they are successful, they will make millions and the consumer will get an extended warranty or 10% off a new drive. :)

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RaeRae Loc: Seattle Wa

I bought the 3TB one for my son a number of years ago...He hated it, always froze up on him and wouldn't work most of the time...

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

I have a 1TB seagate. It fits in your pocket so far its working great.

I love class action lawsuits. I was in one for my car a few years ago.

I got $35.00 but the repair that I had to make had cost me over a grand.

when reading the paperwork, the lawyers got something like 18 million ( dont remember the exact number but it was a lot)

WayneW Loc: South Carolina

Funny thing... I have an old WD 500 gb "My Book". It worked for six months, then quit. Worked with it off and on for awhile, then gave up, shoved it in a drawer. I was cleaning up and ran across it and decided to hook it back up once more before tossing it, and WOW...it works and has been working for several years now. Too funny! Go figure-

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Funny you brought this up now. I have a dozen powered and non powered backup drives. They are a mix of 7 WDs and 5 Seagates. They are all less than 5 years old and some are far newer. In the past month or so a powered Seagate 3TB and non powered Seagate 1TB both failed and no data was retrievable. They had to be destroyed. A 3rd Seagate non powered 2TB drive became corrupt and had to be reformated. Luckily, I make lots of backups. I don't Know whether its just been the luck of the draw, but I started buying WD portable hard drives many years ago and not one has failed on me yet. I have several retired ones primarily in the 140 GB to 250 GB range that I simply stopped using because of their size and age. But I recently checked them, and they still work like new. I just purchased 2 new WD non powered drives for my son last week. There was a sale on the Seagates, but right now, my confidence in their products is low.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Fifteen years is a very long time when you are talking about technology.

Basil Loc: New Mexico

I have a couple of WD drives - One is a 8TB MyCloud Mirror and the other a 3TB Passport (Portable). I also have a Seagate 3TB Desktop Drive. The Seagate is the oldest drive I have. It's been running continuously since August 2012. I do have it back up on yet another drive so if the worst should happen...

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

And it's well-deserved (for what good it will do). No question that Seagate Barracudas have recently had terrible reliability. It's not the first time. Many years ago the SCSI & FC Barracuda 7 had millions of failures generating a huge recall. Prior to that, Seagate made some of the fastest drives around and were the drive of choice for performance - sadly no more.

Western Digital's hundred-dollar drives don't have a stellar record either, but nowhere as bad as Seagate.

As of today, HGST seems to have the best reliability of the available consumer drives. Backblaze regularly produces a report of the drive reliability in their data center(s). This year the sample size was >47,000 drives ( a pretty good sample ), and HGST was by far the clear winner:

http://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015.

If you check the above-referenced study, you'll note that the 1.5TB Seagate 7200.11 failed at 23.90%. I'm sure that there are many Seagate users who haven't suffered drive failures, but overall, the failure rate for their 7200 series Barracudas is abysmal - it's been over 20% since 2013. It's somewhat model-specific. Note that the 1.5TB LP has a failure rate of ~10% and the 4 & 6TB models vary from 1.7 to 3.8%. In contrast, the HGSTs tested varied from 0.5% to 1.9% depending on model.

BTW, I have nothing against Seagate. I recently pulled Two 20 year-old Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 4GB (yes, that's GB, not TB) SCSI drives and one 1GB Seagate Hawk out of a drawer, and all spun up and worked! BUT, those were enterprise-class drives that cost about $300 each in the mid 90s. I also had a NetApp NAS running in my basement with 16 4GB Fujitsu drives running for over 10 years without a single drive failure despite less than optimum environmental conditions; but once again, there were full sized enterprise class drives. I've had similar experience with IBM SCSI UltraStars before their drive division was sold. My point is that modern spinning disks are a marvel of cost per capacity, but there's a price to be paid in terms on longevity/reliability when you purchase 4TB capacity for a hundred dollars.

My complaint with Seagate, and perhaps the reason for the class action suit, is that the problem with the 7200 series has persisted for so long. Any company can have a bad run of drives, but this has been going on for 3 years now. For my part, I'm moving to high quality (Intel) SSDs as fast as I can afford it. Unfortunately, even with the recent price cuts, SSDs are still pretty expensive if you need 5-10TB of storage, as many pros do.

hlmichel Loc: New Hope, Minnesota

My very first harddrive was a Seagate--A monstrous 40 mb model. Had about 20 mb of bad sectors.

Over the years, Western Digital drives seemed more stable then Seagate but with less performance. And it seemed that every motherboard eventually had a bios update that solved some problem with western digital

These days, I stick to Western Digital Caviar black drives and all is good.

elf

Desturbing for sure. I am sorry for the rant but there is no such thing as 200%. That number doesent make sence and I am hearing from many places now days. Again, sorry but gee wiz folks.

Basil Loc: New Mexico

And you probably paid more than 2TB would cost these days!

19104 Loc: Philadelphia

seagate bought western digital a while back.

Bobbee

Going to walk the puppies but when I come back going to read this. I am gazing up on a shelf above my computer at a Seagate 3TB that blew on me. First drive every that just 'STOPPED'. Thanks