Class Action Lawsuit Against Seagate

[fleshconsumed]

You are a little off base there. When a government starts to control or strong-arm private business, it has the ability to pick winners or losers... that's really the problem with American business right now... too much government interference and regulation. It's obvious you don't understand the principles of a free market economy, so I'm not going to waste my breath.

It is your responsibility to make a correct purchase, including what will happen if it goes bad (i.e. warranty details or return policy.) People knowingly buy substandard products all the time (cheap crap from China vs better made American product, for example) because they place the emphasis on price over quality. I bought my 3TB Seagate because it was the lowest priced drive at the time, even with the understanding it only had a 1-year warranty. I could have spent twice as much and got a WD Black with a 5-year warranty, but I didn't. If my drive dies tomorrow, well, OK, I'll junk it and go get something else.

Except in this case they didn't. Sure, years after we now know that 3TB Seagates are complete crap, but people buying those drives then did not know it because if you buy a single drive and it fails you don't know if it's a fluke or part of larger systemic failure. Seagate on the other hand must have known about the problem early on since it has a much more complete picture with detailed RMA stats and all and it looks to me like Seagate chose to ignore the apparent problems and just kept churning out defective hard drives.

This anti-government regulation rant is totally inappropriate in this case. There are multiple examples when private businesses start ripping off consumers by putting out shoddy products and hoping they don't notice or that the product lives long enough just past the warranty (IBM deathstars, Crucial Ballistix DDR2 RAM, nVidia bumpgate, Seagate 1TB drives, and now Seagate 3TB drives) while advertising high reliability or even worse when private businesses start controlling marketplace by colluding (the music CD settlement, the LCD price collusion, the RAM fixing collusion). You, as a consumer cannot do anything about it because a) when buying a brand new product you don't know how reliable it's going to be and b) often enough you don't have a choice to go to competitor because it's either duopoly or outright collusion. There are rightful examples of overreaching government regulation, but this is not one of them. If you want to assign the blame, assign it to these private businesses that are so intent on ripping off consumers that government stepping in is the only recourse.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Backblaze use case should be considered low load. It is mostly write once and forget. If a hdd cannot handle that, then it should be called a floppy disk.

Even floppies were more reliable.

But even so, one should still be able to use a consumer drive in an enterprise environment and have it not die so easily. It might not be quite as fast, and it might lack some features that enterprise might look for, like extra error correction or something, but it should not outright fail. Especially in this day and age of home based mass storage from small 4 bay NAS boxes to bigger 24 bay setups like I have, hard drives should be designed to run in such settings provided adequate cooling.

 

[redzo]

a little off topic,

Well, historically speaking, sometimes too much freedom leads to disasters: I'm for regulating the hell out of the banking sector, btw.

When you end up with a giant octopus(monopoly) consumers are screwed. You'll never know if the price is right, since there's only one big player setting up the prices. Governments have to do everything that's possible so that competition is still there.

... and no cartels: businesses targeting the same market should be competing with each other and not loving each other(fixing prices).

 

[Charlie98]

The actual problem is that the average person is ignorant and irrational. AKA people are not qualified to participate in a free market society beyond the simplest kind of things the human mind can manage. The human brain did not evolve to make sound decisions in modern complex environments.

...and that is somehow the manufacturer's fault??? You can fix ignorance by research and knowledge... the fault is the average person isn't willing to put in the time to research something. Again, the burden of product knowledge is on the consumer prior to a purchase. BTW, your statement above is bordering on insanity... the same humans that purposefully designed a product like a hard drive, are the same humans that aren't even able to make a sound purchasing decision?

If you want to assign the blame, assign it to these private businesses that are so intent on ripping off consumers that government stepping in is the only recourse.

Oh, just stop it. Private business is intent on selling a product or service at a competitive price, that's why they are in business, not specifically at ripping off consumers. So, Seagate met in a secret meeting and said: 'Hey, guys, we need to design a drive that will likely fail in short order.' Don't think so.

I find it laughable, though... we are worried about a manufacturer ripping off it's consumers... and we want the government to step in. Just.... wow.

I'm for regulating the hell out of the banking sector, btw.

Governments have to do everything that's possible so that competition is still there.

The government is the biggest reason the banking sector is screwed up right now, anyway, by micromanaging the economy and flooding the investment market with low interest money.

Competition? How does the AHCA fit into that? How do subsidies fit into that? How do tariffs on our exports while allowing tariff-free imports fit into that?

 

[fleshconsumed]

Oh, just stop it. Private business is intent on selling a product or service at a competitive price, that's why they are in business, not specifically at ripping off consumers. So, Seagate met in a secret meeting and said: 'Hey, guys, we need to design a drive that will likely fail in short order.' Don't think so.

I find it laughable, though... we are worried about a manufacturer ripping off it's consumers... and we want the government to step in. Just.... wow.

You've been given specific examples of outright collusion between private businesses, in particular, the music CD collusion, the LCD collusion, the RAM price fixing collusion. You can laugh all you want, you can even bury you head in the sand, but that doesn't make your position any less ridiculous.

 

[ronbo613]

It's a wonderful world when even a defective computer hard drive is controversial.

Have a nice day everybody!

 

[piasabird]

They expect you to have a receipt from 10 years ago to get any money. What a joke.

Just give them a big fat fine.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Best I can tell 3TB drives came out about 5 years ago. I'd bet finding receipts is a lot easier now since so much shopping is done online.

 

[nerp]

They expect you to have a receipt from 10 years ago to get any money. What a joke.

Just give them a big fat fine.

That's why I like buying from Newegg. Complete order history from day 1.

 

[StinkyPinky]

...and the lawyers make all the real money. I think this kind of lawsuit is stupid... what's the point? I have one of these drives... if it dies, I'll go get something else. Jeepers...

At least they brought up the point that Backblaze used consumer drives in a server environment.

The point is that even if we don't see any coin, Seagate will still need to pay out some money and that perhaps in the future they will make more reliable drives.

 

[Charlie98]

You've been given specific examples of outright collusion between private businesses, in particular, the music CD collusion, the LCD collusion, the RAM price fixing collusion. You can laugh all you want, you can even bury you head in the sand, but that doesn't make your position any less ridiculous.

Are you suggesting Seagate was price fixing, or was in collusion with another manufacturer? We are talking specifically about Seagate putting out a drive that has not performed well.... nothing suggests otherwise.

And my incredibly sarcastic comment about our government stepping in to defend the consumer... you must have missed that. Go ahead and stick your head back in the sand...

 

[redzo]

So, Seagate met in a secret meeting and said: 'Hey, guys, we need to design a drive that will likely fail in short order.' Don't think so.

Believe it or not, but this things happen a lot behind closed doors. Do you remember the toyota recall? Those guys did everything within their power to cover it up.

The government is the biggest reason the banking sector is screwed up right now, anyway, by micromanaging the economy and flooding the investment market with low interest money.

The government is too blame for giving bankers too much freedom to gamble with your money. Regulation is needed in order to protect customers and the economy. You are right about the government's blame. The government was incompetent at protecting your economy. The bankers are greedy and going for profit at any cost thinking only about themselves. Give them all the freedom and all the money in the world, then they act by instinct and you pay the bill when the shit hits the fan.

Are you suggesting Seagate was price fixing, or was in collusion with another manufacturer? We are talking specifically about Seagate putting out a drive that has not performed well.... nothing suggests otherwise.

This is so true. At the end of the day, it is a lawsuit and you could bet on the fact that ST will do anything to defend themselves. Who knows? They could be innocent.
From my perspective, this is a cool mechanism to prevent big corps from abusing their customers.

 

[KillerBee]

Anyone know if consumers from other states can join in besides the listed ones
California, New York, Florida and South Carolina?