Seagate is going down the toliet!

[Chesebert]

I have been a loyal Seagate customer for the past 7 years. All their old drives are decent until my recent run-in with the 7200.10 and their crappy customer service

I bought a 400G 7200.10 SATA about a year ago and another one a week ago. With no warning, the new drive started to acting up, ran the self diagnostic test - failed! Since I am still within the return period, I just ship the defective drive back to newegg.

Now the other drive, which has been fine for the past year is getting clicking noises during heavy HD activity (like the head crashed). So I called up Seagate to do an advance replacement. Keep in mine that in the past when I had to RMA a drive back to Seagate, it was the easiest thing; I tell them the drive is bad, I give them my cc number, they ship me a new drive and I put the bad one in the same box the new one came in and that was it.

Now they want a $20 non-refundable charge PER DRIVE to do an advanced replacement on top of giving them my cc. WT!$# RMA practice is that? I was told its their 'new' policy. Seagate now charges customers for advanced replacement service.

I think I am gonna do 2 things:
1. stay far far away from 7200.10
2. stay far far away from Seagate until they get their acts back together.

Way to go Seagate

 

[LightningRider]

Shame. I am thinking more and more of holding off on the 7200.11 series that's coming out now and just waiting for Samsung to release their Spinpoint F1 series which is supposed to be better spec wise. Maybe I will do just that, I've been hearing more and more bad reports of Seagate recently.

And that is a rather stupid return policy.

 

[BDawg]

Glad I chose the Samsung Spinpoint T series.

 

[wwswimming]

sorry to hear that. i've used Seagate a lot, too.

kind of like bank fees going up. seems like a lot of corporations are
doing things that would have seemed extraordinary 20 years ago,
in terms of finding new & creative ways to attach those $$ in your
wallet.

 

[JohnVM]

Originally posted by: BDawg
Glad I chose the Samsung Spinpoint T series.

Just got 6 of the HD501LJ's but I'm so far unimpressed with their ability to not overheat. Mine overheat horribly.

 

[drakore]

hmm that is quite stupid... WD's service has always been good to me, never had to RMA a seagate drive

 

[Auric]

Seagate was good at least early this decade but definitely started to go down the toilet after the 'cuda IV. There is simply no reason a user should be choosing their drives (as opposed to a manufacturer based upon lowest cost). They are featureless, noisy and hot... bottom of the barrel.

 

[Blain]

"So I called up Seagate to do an advance replacement. Keep in mine that in the past when I had to RMA a drive back to Seagate, it was the easiest thing; I tell them the drive is bad, I give them my cc number, they ship me a new drive and I put the bad one in the same box the new one came in and that was it.

Now they want a $20 non-refundable charge PER DRIVE to do an advanced replacement on top of giving them my cc. WT!$# RMA practice is that? I was told its their 'new' policy. Seagate now charges customers for advanced replacement service."

So you're saying a company changed one of their return policies?
* They have the right to do that

The return policy you're crying about is "Advanced Replacement" not a straight RMA.
I guess you'll be a WD customer from now on?

 

[Modelworks]

I will stick with seagate.
I haven't had problems with them and RMA and I've used them for over 15 years.
On the other hand western digital, ibm/hitachi drives have failed me numerous times, although they did rma them quickly.

Most companies charge a fee for advance replacement.
EVGA charges it upfront when you register the video card, before its even hinted at going bad.
20.00 per drive is a bit high to cover shipping cost, unless your wanting it next day shipping.
They are going to want your credit card number because its the only way they have to insure you send them the old drive back.

 

[JackMDS]

One unlucky customer is hardly a Brand going down the toliet!

 

[oynaz]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
One unlucky customer is hardly a Brand going down the toliet!

It's not one unlucky customer, it's corporate policy.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: oynaz

Originally posted by: JackMDS
One unlucky customer is hardly a Brand going down the toliet!

It's not one unlucky customer, it's corporate policy.

The decision to charge $20 is a corporate policy but does not qualify to the "Toilet" statement.

If the next few months you would see hordes of users complaining about Seagate HDs failing in short time, it would qualify as ?going down the toilet?.

Thus far the op experience is not like a general all around plaque.

 

[mindless1]

I agree that the $20 advanced replacement fee is excessive and is one of the reasons I don't prefer Seagate drives anymore unless the particular product happened to be found at a particularly attractive sale price.

While I do require at least 3 year warranty, those other 2 years aren't very important to me relative to price, hassle-free RMA and advanced replacement at no add'l charge. Needing a credit card to secure the replacement is no problem but once they have that securement for the replacement product, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that this is how they treat existing customers.

It was also a bit disturbing when I heard they were ceasing production of the PATA drives, since there are many millions of systems out there which will need replacement drives or supplimental storage capacity in the next few years. I wouldn't recommend PATA for a new system but on the other hand I wouldn't buy a new system that didn't have any PATA support either. If these were niche products it would be one thing but there are only two major PC desktop drive interfaces and I think Seagate doesn't realize that the average system is not using SATA drives yet, most people are not upgrading every <=3 years like we at Anandtech tend to.

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: mindless1I think Seagate doesn't realize that the average system is not using SATA drives yet, most people are not upgrading every <=3 years like we at Anandtech tend to.

You have a very valid point that should be considered by enthusiasts, I doubt that Seagate are Not aware of it.

However, the number of enthusiasts like us amounts to ten thousands, the OEM sales to manufacturers amounts to millions.

Apparently there is No more big demand for PATA in the OEM manufacturing market.

Part of the issue can be resolved by installing PCI SATA cards (very inexpensive product) and the rest, they are probably willing to forgo the business.

 

[JustaGeek]

This is one of the weirdest posts I've seen.

If everyone started to complain about any brand after one single problem (which is not even a totally unexpected issue) by opening a post, this forum would be full of complaints.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to add the "Beefs" or "Complaints" category...?

As long as Seagate is going down the toliet and not the toilet, all is good...

 

[LOUISSSSS]

yea seagate isn't going anywhere near the toilet. haha

 

[Arcanedeath]

Personaly I think it's lame that Seagates "corp. policy" is to charge $20 for an Advance RMA. One of the main selling points of Seagate drives is their 5 Year warrenty and if it costs to RMA it in a reasonable about of time that warrenty became quite a bit less valuable IMHO

 

[Chesebert]

Originally posted by: JackMDS

Originally posted by: oynaz

Originally posted by: JackMDS
One unlucky customer is hardly a Brand going down the toliet!

It's not one unlucky customer, it's corporate policy.

The decision to charge $20 is a corporate policy but does not qualify to the "Toilet" statement.

If the next few months you would see hordes of users complaining about Seagate HDs failing in short time, it would qualify as ?going down the toilet?.

Thus far the op experience is not like a general all around plaque.

Had you looked up drive reliability db at SR, you will realize Seagate's reliability has been going down hill ever since .8 came out.

Let's see I bought 3 Seagate drives in the past 1.5 years, all but 1 is still working, albeit its ready to go at any moment now (getting weird HD sounds). If that's not bad i don't know what is. OTOH, I had a couple of 7200.8 in an older machine that have been humming along for years now with no signs of slowing down.

Things are not looking rosy in the Seagate camp; 1st their drive reliability going down, now they charge a fee for advanced replacement (presumably there are too many requests for replacements and they had to charge something to compensate for their losses), which again correlates back to the reliability issue.

At this point I will just do incremental backups on a daily basis and buy pretty much whatever brand that's the cheapest/fastest drive because there is simply no reliable consumer drive out there anymore.

For those think its ok to charge $20 for advanced replacement for a critical PC component - Its not! Seagate is the only company that I know of with this type of hideous practice.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Chesebert
Had you looked up drive reliability db at SR, you will realize Seagate's reliability has been going down hill ever since .8 came out.

Until a couple of years ago, I seldom used Seagates. They were always pricier than other brands, and not easily available.

A few years ago, I started using a lot of Seagates. I've been using almost nothing BUT Seagates since they started the 5-year warranty.

Lately, I've come to a couple of conclusions about Seagates and drive warranties:
a) Hard drive warranties are becoming meaningless. The cost of the drive itself is now tiny compared to the costs of drive failure.
b) Seagate is FAR from perfect. I've had a LOT of Seagate drive failures the past couple of years. I'm concerned when I read about early 7200.10 failures, since I own a LOT of them.
c) Advanced Replacement is about the only thing that makes sense in drive replacement. Nobody can wait for a standard warranty-repair cycle.

 

[JackMDS]

LOL, my first Seagate drive died today.

It started to make the "click clunk" noise few hours ago and died 20min. ago.

Probably "Black Omen" from this thread.

However it is not a big lose, it was a very old 17.2GB with Win2000 and I had a TrueImage backup.

Took 6 min. to Ghost it back to another small old drive.

 

[esquared]

I always bought Maxtor (now Seagate), because of the no-quibble warranty. They always had advanced replacement without charge. You just had to sent your old drive within 30 days. This does leave kind of a bad taste in my mouth.

The 19.99 fee turns out to be a little less because they include a prepaid shipping label. Otherwise you were always responsible for the shipping when sending the drive back


Seagate warranty FAQ

Q. What is the advanced replacement option (ARO)?
A. The advanced replacement option is available in the United States when returning a product to Seagate. For a fee of $19.99, you will receive a replacement drive via 2-day delivery before you send in your original drive. Seagate will include a prepaid return shipping label along with the necessary packaging to return your original drive. Seagate will not charge you for the replacement drive as long as we receive your original drive within 30 days. We accept Visa or MasterCard as payment for the advance replacement option.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
LOL, my first Seagate drive died today.

It started to make the "click clunk" noise few hours ago and died 20min. ago.

Probably "Black Omen" from this thread.

However it is not a big lose, it was a very old 17.2GB with Win2000 and I had a TrueImage backup.

Took 6 min. to Ghost it back to another small old drive.

My first Seagate to fail was a 46MB MFM or RLE (it was 1989) with a stiction problem. But if you gave the PC a couple of good wacks, it would get past the flat spot. Need to find real wood instead of pressboard before I say anything more... [/quote]

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: gsellisMy first Seagate to fail was a 46MB MFM or RLE (it was 1989) with a stiction problem. But if you gave the PC a couple of good wacks, it would get past the flat spot. Need to find real wood instead of pressboard before I say anything more...

Now I am double sad , it brinks back similar memory, similar date, similar drive (only it was thw 60MB model).

Cost me $620 and failed within a year.:shocked:

On a more serious Note, thanks esquared.

$20 is $19.99 - (about $9.99 USPS confirmed) - packaging - time (if it valuable to the person).

So, about $10. For sure does Not qualify for the Toilet.

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with Seagate, have No benefit and do not care if people buying, or Not, their products.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Smells like deceptive advertising. Most manufacturers require that you send in the defective item on your dime. Return shipping is FREE. I could probably ship the defective drive to Seagate for about $6 using FedEx!

Wonder if Maxtor uses this BS game.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Guys this is ONLY for the advance RMA process. I'm sure if you just do a standard RMA they don't charge you anything, just spend your $6 to ship the bad drive to them and they'll fire off the replacement to you after they get it (and maybe test it, not sure if they bother or not). Not that hard. I have no problem with a company wanting to charge a little extra service fee since it is above and beyond the normal RMA process.

I see no problem.