5TB Seagate ext for $180 from Newegg

[Pariah]

Title pretty much tells the story. $20 code on the page expires on the 3rd. The reviews can be ignored if you actually plan on using the drive as an external drive. 3 out of the 4 reviews are bad, but all 3 bad reviews took the drive out of its enclosure and don't seem to know what they are talking about based on the other info in their reviews. Not sure why people do that.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...87&ignorebbr=1

 

[Samus]

Title pretty much tells the story. $20 code on the page expires on the 3rd. The reviews can be ignored if you actually plan on using the drive as an external drive. 3 out of the 4 reviews are bad, but all 3 bad reviews took the drive out of its enclosure and don't seem to know what they are talking about based on the other info in their reviews. Not sure why people do that.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...87&ignorebbr=1

I bought one of these last week when they were a shell shocker. The drive has crippled firmware with aggressive APM set at 64, causing ridiculous head parking. The firmware is so crippled it wont even detect on an AHCI controller, so it can't be made internal unless you run your controller in IDE/compatible mode.

I can't believe Seagate is going to such low levels to prevent people from voiding their own warranty and taking drives out of the case. I had fine luck doing that with the 3TB Barracuda XT's in 2011.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I bought one of these last week when they were a shell shocker. The drive has crippled firmware with aggressive APM set at 64, causing ridiculous head parking. The firmware is so crippled it wont even detect on an AHCI controller, so it can't be made internal unless you run your controller in IDE/compatible mode.

I can't believe Seagate is going to such low levels to prevent people from voiding their own warranty and taking drives out of the case. I had fine luck doing that with the 3TB Barracuda XT's in 2011.

Damn. Thanks for the warning. D: I guess I should have seen it coming as the logical result of only having two hard drive manufacturers - we're being screwed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seems like a lot of trouble for Seagate to go through, just to screw Backblaze and friends.

 

[Kelvarr]

Has Seagate changed their warranty terms? Last I knew, they honored the warranty on the drive, not the enclosure...so even if you took it out of the enclosure, you could still send it in for warranty.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Has Seagate changed their warranty terms? Last I knew, they honored the warranty on the drive, not the enclosure...so even if you took it out of the enclosure, you could still send it in for warranty.

No, that was never the case. If you got lucky, then yes, the internal drive inside the enclosure had warranty on its own. But that was always a gamble. I bought two 4TB seagate externals and when I tried to check warranty using serial numbers on the drives Seagate warranty checker said they're OEM equipment and to contact OEM place for any warranty concerns. So unless you're one of the lucky few, only the enclosure is warrantied and not the drive inside. Given what Samus has said about the new drives, it looks like Seagate is really trying hard to stop people from buying externals and then reusing them as internals. I expect no external drive from now on is going to have a warranty on its own.

EDIT: while seagate has not gone full retard ala WD with USB interface attached directly to the drive, in reality what it's doing is almost as bad. Bleh... stupid hard drive duopoly.

 

[Samus]

Has Seagate changed their warranty terms? Last I knew, they honored the warranty on the drive, not the enclosure...so even if you took it out of the enclosure, you could still send it in for warranty.

Some drives I removed from enclosures back to the 7200.12 and first gen Cuda XT's (up to 3TB) had SN's on the drives you could warranty check online. Most Cuda XT's that are 3TB (CC45 firmware and newer) don't clear the warranty checker with the SN on the drive, only the SN on the enclosure (which is 1 year.)

Seagate is intentionally selling drives that will self destruct in external enclosures with 1 year warranties. The ONLY drives from manufactures now that don't park themselves to death are NAS\DVR drives or some "performance" drives like Hitachi 7K4000 and WD Black. From what I've seen all Seagate drives have APM set at least 128 now, causing head parking. This will destroy a drive if you use it for seeding torrents and constant access.

I miss (the old) Hitachi. It's well documented their Deskstar and Ultrastar drives had the highest long-term reliability. Their 5900RPM drives had higher sustained IO performance than most competing 7200RPM drives!

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I miss (the old) Hitachi. It's well documented their Deskstar and Ultrastar drives had the highest long-term reliability. Their 5900RPM drives had higher sustained IO performance than most competing 7200RPM drives!

+1 It's why I continue to use all Hitachi drives in both my media servers (30x 2+3+4TB).
Nice that we can still buy them (eg. the Toshiba branded 7200rpm 3TB).