SEAGATE 1.5TB ST31500341AS STAT2 7200RPM 32MB (Bare drive) ($130 plus FREE Ground Shipping!)

[Bozo Galora]

I am still fed up with Seagate over the 320GB AAKS firmware limited performance drives nonsense
The run around I got on the phone just wanting the flasher and firmware to do changeover was unbelievable
That drive new in the box still sits on my desk with the invoice from Fry's

I have been subsequently using the black WD 640GB, and so far so good.
If so much as a single drive fails I will pass on traditional HDD COMPLETELY from then on and its Intel SSD FTW - whatever they cost.

 

[Necrosaro420]

Originally posted by: thelamer
Warning,

This + HD content + Uncapped Internet= a hole in your wallet

I got three already, I am at the point of needing to build a raid array, but I don't know where to dump the data in the mean time.

I remember buying 250s in 3 packs from Woot at 50 bucks a pop and thinking that was a steal.

With drives at this price a hobbyist can build a petabyte cluster in his garage for under 100 grand. I hope they never hit that wall in the hard drive world, where they say to themselves "the average user has no need for this much storage" .

You can dump it at Carbonite.com or someplace...google around and you can find some free codes to get a month or two free

 

[Necrosaro420]

Ive bought 3 of these drives over the past few months...no issues with any of them as usual with Seagates, ill buy nothing else.

 

[reefcrazed]

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
I am still fed up with Seagate over the 320GB AAKS firmware limited

I am guessing you meant Western Digital ?

 

[Bozo Galora]

Originally posted by: reefcrazed

Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
I am still fed up with Seagate over the 320GB AAKS firmware limited

I am guessing you meant Western Digital ?

Nope, you guess wrong, tho you are correct, the first 320GB WD's were also throttled. (I had forgotten about those)
But the whole Seagate thing was much worse - coverups and obfuscation - deliberately misleading the customers, sending back AAK drives when RMA'd multiple times, RAID configs that dropped out, HDD cache not fully utilized, not runnable in SATA II etc. And this spanned both 7200.10 and .11

-------------------
http://forums.seagate.com/stx/...a_drives&thread.id=181
-------------------
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=423144
The Seagate 7200.10 drives with 3.AAK firmware are slow. See this article and this related (non-MR) forum thread for comparative tests and user experience. I think this issue affects all 7200.10 HDs with the 3.AAK firmware, regardless of GB capacity.

If you do buy a 3.AAK drive, good luck getting it replaced under warranty. After buying a 500GB 3.AAK HD for my iMac and sending it back due to sluggishness, I'm on my sixth exchange with Seagate -- they keep sending out replacement HDs with the exact same firmware.
0000000000000
I had this problem, Seagate tech support sent me a firmware update but it killed the drive and I had to send it back anyway. I recently tried a Western Digital aaks and it's the fastest drive I benchmarked on a Mac Pro
--------------------
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-...ther_downloads/cuda-fw
A small number of Barracuda 7200.11 drives with firmware versions SD04 or SD14 may show and utilize only part of the available cache. Please follow these steps to ensure that your system recognizes the full cache.
------------------------
http://forums.vr-zone.com/show...ad.php?t=213448&page=5
I have just upgraded to the 3.AAM firmware and I get an average of 78MB/sec instead of the 51MB/sec I had before!

I have uploaded the update below:
http://www.mediafire.com/?30ddatf19xs

The update will ONLY work with drives that have a P/N that end in 308!
(Example: 9BJ146-308)

It is in the form of an iso so just burn it to a cd and type flash in the command prompt after reading the disclaimer.

It makes quite a difference!
----------------------------
http://www.overclock.net/hardw...rmware-have-odd-2.html
Y'know, normally I might make a comment about preferred companies, fanboyism, etc. etc....but you're actually right.

The seagate drives from benchmarks are not AAK, but anyone buying has a chance of getting an AAK. With WD, you get what the reviews say you get.

AAK is a firmware revision, but it's present on drives with slightly different layouts, making it impossible to flash AAE
-------------------------
http://www.fluffles.net/articles/seagate-AAK-firmware

That is different from my experience.
http://forums.dpreview.com/for...=1023&message=24823363
I have a couple of 7200.10's (the 750GB ones) that were purchased with the AAC revision. There are some known issues with this version, and once (I assume) seagate 2nd level tech support was reached, they forwarded an upgrade binary to get it to the AAE revision.

The upgrade was in the form of some files to export to a DOS bootable floppy, and the process was to boot the floppy on a PC compat with the drives installed. It then proceeded to upgrade the hard drives...

Or so it was supposed so.. for whatever reason the app told me that it was successful uploading, but after a reboot, the drive still told the world it was on AAC...

Never progressed it to far beyond this, instead made the disks 'backup' drives and purchased shiny new faster drives for the primary ones
--------------------
(I could give a thousand links)

 

[htne]

If anyone cares, these 1.5 gig Seagate drives are back on sale at SuperBiiz for $126.99 with free shipping.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?src=eb&name=HD-ST15TAS

 

[Tdavis5432]

Actually i remember in the 1990-1995 time frame seagate had a bad rep as well, then they tightened their acts up and got their rep back and put 5 year warranties on drives... So seagate hasn't always had a really good rep in my book but that's just me, at this point, I would def stay away, this P7811fx came with a seagate, might be time to upgrade it to a 500g 7200rpm or something, or even a 5400 for better battery life...

 

[smackguy]

I double dog dare you *not* to buy this drive.....

I just picked one up at the local Frys B/M the other day, on sale for 129.99, a decent price. It was the retail box with '5 year warrenty' printed on the package, not the OEM bare bones version, so I also got a nice molex to SATA power converter, and an SATA cable with the deal.

I'm going to use this for storage only, and already have my OS on a separate disk for safety. The 1.5TB drive came with the CC1H firmware, which Seagate says is the latest, and does not have the problem. (we'll see....)

Anyway, since I got it at Frys, it has a 30 days refund in case there are any brick issues. Also, the 5 year warrenty is nice for after that....

Drive installed fine, doesn't run too hot, and makes no strange noises. It's very fast too. I'll let you know if I run into any problems.

 

[coxmaster]

I have the same drive.. picked up from Microcenter for the same price a few weeks ago. Says 5yr warranty.. and the online shows 5 yrs left on my warranty..

 

[Cardio]

If you have had any recent experience with Seagate's RMA service, I think you would "second thought" any purchases of this drive thinking you can return it. I have never had worse experiences with any company, ever.

Experience # 1)
Return defective 1 week old drive (in warranty). Drive in stock at TX RMA station, 150 miles away. Paid $35 for immediate cross ship. Replacement drive shipped 23 Days later after at least 6 phone calls, "Yes, it is in stock and your order is processing. It will ship any time now" After total 27 days (took 4 days shipping days to Houston (150 miles) Received a used drive, naturally.

Experience # 2)
Bought Segate External 500 GB drive from BUY.com $121 shipped, no rebate. Would not run. Completely dead on arrival. Applied for and received RMA and, for $35 fee, had cross shipped. Required 8 days to arrive in RMA return box and send defective drive VIA UPS ground same day. About 15 days later received email from Seagate stating had 15 days left to return drive or credit card would be charged $375. UPS had lost the drive.
The drive was listed at the Seagate webstore for $175 which I had no problem paying, but $375 must be a mistake. Called customer service and was told that the $375 was the "market price" for the drive and that's is what I would be charged. I called again and spoke with another rep and was told the same thing. I tried to explain that I coud buy a new one from them and return it for only $175. They said I could only return the drive with the serial # on the original RMA application. I sent 3 emails to corporate office, sales and customer support. All ignored. Paid the $375 plus $40.92 Tax plus the original $121 plus the $35 and had a nice Used 500 GB external for $571.92. UPS refunded $100. (I know I could have insured it for more but you get $100 free and I only paid $121) So the total was only $471.92. I could have filed with the credit card company but this does not really qualify under the law for stopping payment.

About a month later I received an email survey on their service. As there were no options to indicate "We are a bunch of idiots and crooks", I wrote another complaint to the corp office and sent it certified US mail. It was ignored.

I have bought or controlled purchases for at least 500 hard drives and will likely do even more in the future. I may even buy another Seagate drive ~ but by then HELL will be under more ice than the Martian Poles. But then, the HEX I envoked on them may be paying dividends. Sales of their drives are about the same as those of Buicks.

The relevance of this rant to the original theme of the thread is just to reinforce the DARE made by the OP. This is my opinion based only on personal experience. YMMV

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: htne
If anyone cares, these 1.5 gig Seagate drives are back on sale at SuperBiiz for $126.99 with free shipping.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?src=eb&name=HD-ST15TAS

if you want to save money on tax and are in CA or soething, amazon.com has it for 129.99 free shipping as well.

i had 2 that i bought on newegg open box for $200 (and sold one) both worked great, and i updated to sd1a. hell they werent even opened. thanks newegg.

 

[konakona]

Originally posted by: Cardio
If you have had any recent experience with Seagate's RMA service, I think you would "second thought" any purchases of this drive thinking you can return it. I have never had worse experiences with any company, ever.

Experience # 1)
Return defective 1 week old drive (in warranty). Drive in stock at TX RMA station, 150 miles away. Paid $35 for immediate cross ship. Replacement drive shipped 23 Days later after at least 6 phone calls, "Yes, it is in stock and your order is processing. It will ship any time now" After total 27 days (took 4 days shipping days to Houston (150 miles) Received a used drive, naturally.

Experience # 2)
Bought Segate External 500 GB drive from BUY.com $121 shipped, no rebate. Would not run. Completely dead on arrival. Applied for and received RMA and, for $35 fee, had cross shipped. Required 8 days to arrive in RMA return box and send defective drive VIA UPS ground same day. About 15 days later received email from Seagate stating had 15 days left to return drive or credit card would be charged $375. UPS had lost the drive.
The drive was listed at the Seagate webstore for $175 which I had no problem paying, but $375 must be a mistake. Called customer service and was told that the $375 was the "market price" for the drive and that's is what I would be charged. I called again and spoke with another rep and was told the same thing. I tried to explain that I coud buy a new one from them and return it for only $175. They said I could only return the drive with the serial # on the original RMA application. I sent 3 emails to corporate office, sales and customer support. All ignored. Paid the $375 plus $40.92 Tax plus the original $121 plus the $35 and had a nice Used 500 GB external for $571.92. UPS refunded $100. (I know I could have insured it for more but you get $100 free and I only paid $121) So the total was only $471.92. I could have filed with the credit card company but this does not really qualify under the law for stopping payment.

About a month later I received an email survey on their service. As there were no options to indicate "We are a bunch of idiots and crooks", I wrote another complaint to the corp office and sent it certified US mail. It was ignored.

I have bought or controlled purchases for at least 500 hard drives and will likely do even more in the future. I may even buy another Seagate drive ~ but by then HELL will be under more ice than the Martian Poles. But then, the HEX I envoked on them may be paying dividends. Sales of their drives are about the same as those of Buicks.

The relevance of this rant to the original theme of the thread is just to reinforce the DARE made by the OP. This is my opinion based only on personal experience. YMMV

ugh. sorry for you trouble, really.

Any drive could fail, that's a given. What you bring up is something really matters, how they treat you after things go wrong.

So seagate as of late has:
ho-hum speed
higher noise floor than the competition
higher probability to fail, though there are quite a few happy campers out there
shitty customer service

with great deals on samsungs and WD's, I fail to see why would one get their drive now

 

[EKKC]

have 3 of these. no problems yet (knock on wood)

2 are Mirrored in RAID1 array, another one is holding all my downloaded TV stuff running on a BlacX dock, need to seriously burn all of them onto disc or off to another safe array.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Bobartig
Ever since I had 3 WD drives fail in one SEMESTER at college, I haven't been able to stomach their drives. I didn't even use my computer that much. I eventually sold the 3rd replacement on eBay, then put a Maxtor, or Seagate (not a deathstar) in there and it lasted me the rest of college.

But seriously, what HDD maker isn't on somebody's blacklist these days? If you remember back far enough, they've all had a quality issue here or there.

... and that's not an apology for Seagate. They gotta get their stuff together. You don't mess around when it comes to hard drives.

True, nowadays I don't go by HDD companies. I look at individual MODELS and research them in depth before going for them. That way you know what sucks and what is good.

Although at the moment I am not touching any seagates until they get their act together, then they are back to "per model research" like every other maker.

 

[lurk3r]

WD did have a few horrible models, but the brand is generally ok, Seagate every single drive I have had has required multiple RMA's (3 different drives, 7 replacements), no horror stories like the other guys, but I have zero interest in owning another Seagate.

 

[Keriokie2000]

I bought 4 of these (1.5TB) for a RAID 0+1 array to replace my 4 Western Digital 500GB in a RAID 0 array when 1 WD failed after 3 months. I have 9 Seagate 320GB drives running several machines and have not had any problems. This was my second WD drive to fail after a short period, so I think the opposite of most here...Seagate is great, WD has problems.

I did have a problem with the nVidia 750i chipset and Mediashield drivers working with these drives. It would not let me RAID 0, 0+1, or 5 all four of these in the same array. It let me set it in BIOS but the drivers and nVidia Control Panel under Windows exits with error and the drives don't show up in Device Manager or Disk Management under the MMC. I was able to use them individually or in 2 sets of RAID 1. Fortunately my DVR software (Beyond TV) allowed me to pool the 2 RAID 1 drives into 1 logical storage directory.

 

[taltamir]

there is a difference between "my drive broke" and "every seagate model released in the last year shipped with defective firmware, which seagate now finally fixed"
Drives fail, thats what we have RAID1 and 5 for. defective firmware is inexcusable.

 

[heavyharmonies]

Got one of these from the Egg. Was the CC1H firmware variety. No problems thus far...

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: Bobartig
Ever since I had 3 WD drives fail in one SEMESTER at college, I haven't been able to stomach their drives. I didn't even use my computer that much. I eventually sold the 3rd replacement on eBay, then put a Maxtor, or Seagate (not a deathstar) in there and it lasted me the rest of college.

But seriously, what HDD maker isn't on somebody's blacklist these days? If you remember back far enough, they've all had a quality issue here or there.

... and that's not an apology for Seagate. They gotta get their stuff together. You don't mess around when it comes to hard drives.

True, nowadays I don't go by HDD companies. I look at individual MODELS and research them in depth before going for them. That way you know what sucks and what is good.

Although at the moment I am not touching any seagates until they get their act together, then they are back to "per model research" like every other maker.

I agree. the 7200.10 models were quite noisy compared to the 7200.11.

I went with the 7200.11 after I found out that there was a flash for the stuttering bug. I mean granted they should not have defective firmware at all, but it did give a lot of us the oppurtunity to get a 1.5tb drive for a really cheap price ($ per gig that is).

If you have flashed the firmware this is a perfectly good, very quiet and fast drive.

 

[taltamir]

mmm, that is a good point. It is a fairly easy fix and the price is right.

 

[lurk3r]

It's been a while, my failures were 80 gig twice, 250 gig 3 times, 320 gig 3 times before I finally abandoned Seagate, paying top dollar to have their defective junk shipped back to them was just unacceptable, how was WD's warranty? Seagate always wanted a CC number up front, and always charged ME the postage and a handling fee, I don't recall exactly what the cost was, but I do remember looking back and deciding a new WD drive was cheaper than loosing all my data for an 8th time and paying to ship another drive.

-- edit btw, the WD 400 I replaced the seagate 320 with has been running for nearly 4 years now, seagates were failing every 6 months or so.

 

[Jabbernyx]

Originally posted by: taltamir
mmm, that is a good point. It is a fairly easy fix and the price is right.

I'd still rather let the current crop of new firmwares run out in the wild for a little bit more before committing to these drives.
Of course, WD's 2TB drives might very well become more affordable by then

 

[taltamir]

heh, I am not buying any until I get an "out of space" error. That policy hasn't failed me yet, the day I am out of space is the day i get into the HDD market.