Wow, just wow...Seagate 1.5TB drives exceeded my expectations.

[Golgatha]

Edit (06/08/2009) - Drive 2 is working just fine in my main rig and has for a few days now. It is internally mounted and connected to my Intel ICH10R southbridge, so that is a total of two different chipsets (Intel and Jmicron) this drive is working fine with. I did some searching on the Antec MX-1 drive enclosure (exchanged out the drives and wrote down the chipset info) and found the internal chipset information.

http://w3.sunplus.com/ShowFeature.asp?body=SPIF215A

Apparently it is a SATA I compliant chipset, which would explain why I got errors and formatting issues with Drive 2 inside the enclosure, but had it work perfectly fine when directly connected to the eSATA port without an enclosure to my onboard controllers (both onboard controllers are SATA II specification compliant, and the drive was setup by default for SATA II operation). I'll try and jumper my RMA replacement for Drive 1 to SATA I speeds and report back the results when paired with the MX-1 enclosure.

Hopefully I've got this PITA situation figured out now and will be enjoying my upgraded storage capacity soon. Part of this situation was of my own making apparently, as I just assumed the MX-1's chipset was SATA II compliant.

In my own defense however, I did look up the MX-1 specs on Antec's website before trying to put a 1.5TB drive in there, but they must have updated the chipset since I purchased the enclosure (bought it when it first came out) to SATA II, as my enclosure uses the chipset I listed above.

http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NDc=

# Dual output interface - USB 2.0 and eSATA (external Serial ATA) allows you to transfer data up to 480Mbps or 3Gbps respectively # Supports up to 1.5TB SATA hard disk drive

Edit: Yeap, the MX-1 enclosure works fine when the drive is set to SATA I speeds.



Edit (06/02/2009) - Ok, so Drive 2 ran diagnostics fine when I tried to use it inside an Antec MX-1 enclosure, but lost formatting information on cycling power. I formatted it using a direct connection to a Jmicron controller on my motherboard and it seems to keep its formatting after cycling power now. Drive doesn't exhibit any clicks either, so I think I'm ok using it for an internal drive. I tried using Google to search for (also browsed through Seagate's forums) compatibility issues with the MX-1 and Seagate 1.5TB drives. Didn't find anything.

Any other owners of this drive with CC1H firmware have an external enclosure recommendation for this drive or are using it successfully inside an Antec MX-1?


Original Post Found Below Here: (05/31/2009)
Good God! I have never had such a ridiculous set of issues with a particular company's HDDs. I recently purchased two Seagate 1.5TB drives from Dell for $200. Here are my experiences.


Drive 1 - Failed to format a couple of times and then became inaccessible by even Seagate's SeaTools DOS program. Dead within a couple of hours of first power up.

Drive 2 - Formatted fine, transferred data fine, and passes all diagnostics with flying colors (I ran the long diagnostics test after stressing the drive due to issues with drive 1). The problem? The drive comes up as not formatted in Windows after cycling power on the damn thing. Still passes all SeaTools diagnostics with flying colors and I can get at the files with Recuva.


There are some serious QC/QA issues with both the hardware and firmware on these drives IMO, and I will absolutely not be buying Seagate drives ever again until the general consensus on the Internet convinces me to give them another go.

I had 1TB Seagate drives before this with affected firmware and a quick flash fixed all those problems, so I figured it was a one time flub on Seagate's part, which is forgivable IMO. However, after wasting my time yet again, I am gun shy, to say the least, about picking up any more product from them.

I am glad I'm ridiculously anal about backups, as my data was in two different locations before trying to make these 1.5TB drives an off-site home for a 3rd backup. Time to write zeros to drive 2 and send them back to Dell for a refund.

Ok, I feel better. Sorry for the rant, but this was whole lot of work for absolutely nothing getting produced except a huge headache.:disgust:

 

[taltamir]

the last few years seagate has really been slipping, and it shows. I now consider WD to be the reliability king.

 

[n7]

That sux 🙁

I've had a bunch of my Seagates failing of late...

Funny enough though, i have three 1.5 TB Seagates...all are performing beautifully.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: taltamir
the last few years seagate has really been slipping, and it shows. I now consider WD to be the reliability king.

Yes, I own some 750GB 7200.10 series drives and a couple of 500GB 7200.12 series. The 7200.10s are still kicking after 2+ years. We'll see about the newer 500GB 7200.12s. Surely they can't screw up a single platter drive...right? Anyone?! 😉

I've owned several 7200.7, 7200.9, and 7200.10 series drives over the years, and all have been flawless. I've owned and currenly own some WD drives too though, and the only one I've had fail was a 10.2GB ATA66 drive DOA out of the box (obviously this was several years ago). I will most likely stick to WD only from here on out or at least until Seagate gets their ducks in a row. Now that their drives have 3year warranties though, the primary reason I started mainly using Seagate drives is pretty much gone.

 

[Zap]

How are the drives packed when you guys receive them? Reason I ask is that it seems increasingly the drives are being packed poorly and inadequately, which may be a reason for failure. My latest HDD purchases from Frys.com and Tiger Direct were basically just sitting on the bottom of the cardboard box with a tiny bit of packing on TOP of the drives - not even enough to keep them from sliding around. Newegg is only a bit better, with just a thin layer of bubble wrap around it.

 

[alcoholbob]

Hah, I know it's a solid state drive, but still...for an $850 Intel SSD, Newegg charged me $20 shipping, then mailed it to me via USPS envelope with no packing at all.

 

[Doggiedog]

I just got in that Dell deal too. So far my drives seem to be working except I can't get them to boot under RAID.

 

[taltamir]

i got my last HDD from newegg with a little bit of brown paper stuffed crumpled up around the drive.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Zap
How are the drives packed when you guys receive them? Reason I ask is that it seems increasingly the drives are being packed poorly and inadequately, which may be a reason for failure. My latest HDD purchases from Frys.com and Tiger Direct were basically just sitting on the bottom of the cardboard box with a tiny bit of packing on TOP of the drives - not even enough to keep them from sliding around. Newegg is only a bit better, with just a thin layer of bubble wrap around it.

Dell isn't at fault here. The drives shipped in electrostatic baggies, with a formed plastic carrier around the drive on both sides to prevent movement, inside a box, and then both of those boxes were overpacked in a 2nd box with padding material inside it too. The overpack was marked as fragile, this side up, etc. I'm a certified IATA shipper and I can tell you they did very well with the packaging.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: taltamir
the last few years seagate has really been slipping, and it shows. I now consider WD to be the reliability king.

Not altogether unexpected considering what it takes Q&A-wise to successfully engineer your organization to field a 10krpm desktop product like the raptor series. Once the know-how is generated (learning curve) it can't be helped but for best-known-practices to then "trickle down" to other product groups as they manage their reliability and engineering efforts for the sub-10krpm product lines.

I know you know this, not trying to tell you anything, just supporting your conclusion. Its the same reasoning that goes into the expectations of Intel being capable of fielding a superior SSD versus the competition.

 

[MyLeftNut]

I've had my 1.5TB 7200.11 for about 2.5 months and 2 weeks ago I got my first bad sector, which was reallocated. So I've read many stories of these drives accumulating bad sectors over time and I'm really wondering if my drive will meet the same fate.

 

[MerlinRML]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Not altogether unexpected considering what it takes Q&A-wise to successfully engineer your organization to field a 10krpm desktop product like the raptor series. Once the know-how is generated (learning curve) it can't be helped but for best-known-practices to then "trickle down" to other product groups as they manage their reliability and engineering efforts for the sub-10krpm product lines.

I'm going to disagree with you by pointing out that Seagate has been making Enterprise 10k and 15k drives for just a "bit" longer than Western Digital has. Additionally, the Raptors have not managed to capture any significant portion of Enterprise market share.

It's worthless to try and pinpoint where Seagate's problems came from without knowing what's going on inside the company, but their latest missteps and hardware/firmware problems have vaulted them into association with the likes Maxtor and IBM Deskstars.

Declaration: I'm currently running WD, Maxtor, and Seagate drives in my systems at home.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: MerlinRML

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Not altogether unexpected considering what it takes Q&A-wise to successfully engineer your organization to field a 10krpm desktop product like the raptor series. Once the know-how is generated (learning curve) it can't be helped but for best-known-practices to then "trickle down" to other product groups as they manage their reliability and engineering efforts for the sub-10krpm product lines.

I'm going to disagree with you by pointing out that Seagate has been making Enterprise 10k and 15k drives for just a "bit" longer than Western Digital has. Additionally, the Raptors have not managed to capture any significant portion of Enterprise market share.

I was not talking about enterprise drives or market share. I quite intentionally referenced the raptor as a leading-edge desktop product in my post and there is a reason for this...namely the gross margins environment in-place on the decision teams involved as they evolve to enable reliability within the budget constraints created by that segment.

 

[California Roll]

I've purchased about 30 hard drives in my life. I currently use WD, Seagate, and Samsung. If price/gb was the same, I'd buy WD all the time. Not because of their reliability, but because their warranty/RMA process is top notch. Luckily, I've had only 2 drives fail, and they were both WD. This won't stop me from buying their products tho. I've been gobbling up their 1tb and 1.5tb green drives like a hooker on crack.

I have 3 of the 1.5tb Seagates (all purchased Dell, who does the BEST job in packing their drives). Going on 3 months with them now and no problems so far. I only use them for external storage tho. They get daily use. Most of the problems I hear about these drives seem to be raid related. My only complaint about these is that they get pretty hot after prolonged use.

 

[pjkenned]

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Not altogether unexpected considering what it takes Q&A-wise to successfully engineer your organization to field a 10krpm desktop product like the raptor series. Once the know-how is generated (learning curve) it can't be helped but for best-known-practices to then "trickle down" to other product groups as they manage their reliability and engineering efforts for the sub-10krpm product lines.

Pretty sure my main rig has 11x Seagate 15k rpm SAS drives in both 2.5" and 3.5" varieties. I'm not positive, but I think Seagate sells more 10k and 15k drives than WD hands down (enterprise market). In fact, if you go to enterprise drives on WD's website, the VR is the only one listed over 7,200 rpm. Using the above logic one would most likely be led to the conclusion that Seagate is far ahead... but save the firmware blunder which was really bad, hard drives fail no matter which company makes them.

You may have different margins on the enterprise side, but you almost have to build a better product because the last thing you want is customers boycott you that are installing drives by the thousands. Plus, a failed desktop drive's value is much less than an enterprise drive.

Although I am a fan of the VR, my desktop workload favors 15k SAS raids.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: California Roll
I've purchased about 30 hard drives in my life. I currently use WD, Seagate, and Samsung. If price/gb was the same, I'd buy WD all the time. Not because of their reliability, but because their warranty/RMA process is top notch. Luckily, I've had only 2 drives fail, and they were both WD. This won't stop me from buying their products tho. I've been gobbling up their 1tb and 1.5tb green drives like a hooker on crack.

I have 3 of the 1.5tb Seagates (all purchased Dell, who does the BEST job in packing their drives). Going on 3 months with them now and no problems so far. I only use them for external storage tho. They get daily use. Most of the problems I hear about these drives seem to be raid related. My only complaint about these is that they get pretty hot after prolonged use.

I agree with that statement... warranty RMA with WD is awesome, seagate, not so much...
One of my friends snapped the SATA plugs off of BOTH his raptors by accident while installing them (put pressure on the cord), he called saying he broke it and ask how much it will cost to fix, they told him they will do it free under warranty...

 

[daw123]

Oh crap. I wished this thread was created 2 weeks ago.

I've just bought a Seagate 1.5TB drive. I'm not having happy feelings about this.

 

[Arik5405]

I purchased 3 new Seagate 1.5TB 7200.11 Hard Drives when I built my new computer less than 3 months ago. None of the drives are supposedly affected by Seagate's "Firmware Issues". The first failed within a month (would be seen as 0 capacity in bios) and the 2nd one is clicking right now and sometimes appears/disappears (it's going to die soon). The third one hasn't shown any issues yet but it has only been used for backup (which sucks because its the only drive I have left that's big enough to hold all of my files until my other 2 drives come back from Seagate, so I am praying to God All Mighty that my 3rd drive doesn't fail for atleast another 2 weeks or never). I hate these fricken drives with a passion and wish I never would have bought them. Seagate, I hate you.

 

[pjkenned]

Originally posted by: taltamir
I agree with that statement... warranty RMA with WD is awesome, seagate, not so much...
One of my friends snapped the SATA plugs off of BOTH his raptors by accident while installing them (put pressure on the cord), he called saying he broke it and ask how much it will cost to fix, they told him they will do it free under warranty...

Does WD have a no-call option like Seagate? 2 of my 3 500GB WD drives are kaput and looking up the s/n's I have to return by July. I would hate to have to talk to someone to get them RMA'd.

Ah cool they do. I wish more PC industries let users do this instead of having to talk to someone on the phone to RMA a device.

 

[taltamir]

yes... you don't even have to register, and you can, more easily, check the serial numbers for warranty... you don't need to show proof of purchase, and their packing requirements are not as stringent.

 

[Mitch101]

I have a pair of Seagate 1.5TB drives and both are working great. They are on 24x7 also. One internal and one in a Thermaltake Black X enclosure.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: taltamir
yes... you don't even have to register, and you can, more easily, check the serial numbers for warranty... you don't need to show proof of purchase, and their packing requirements are not as stringent.

Has anyone checked the packaging requirements? Seagate's are so strict that nearly anyone would invalidate their warranty unless you work for a packaging company and have access to exotic packaging materials. 2in of egg carton type foam surrounding the drive?! Please.

Basically, I think they want to force all users to buy $20 worth of "expedited" service, so they can sell you $2 worth of packaging materials for $20 - the cost of shipping.

 

[legocitytruck]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

I've owned several 7200.7, 7200.9, and 7200.10 series drives over the years, and all have been flawless.

What is the differences between 7200.7, 7200.9, 7200.10, 7200.11, and 7200.12? I assume that the 7200 refers to rpm.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: legocitytruck

Originally posted by: Golgatha

I've owned several 7200.7, 7200.9, and 7200.10 series drives over the years, and all have been flawless.

What is the differences between 7200.7, 7200.9, 7200.10, 7200.11, and 7200.12? I assume that the 7200 refers to rpm.

Mainly just platter data densities and some performance tweaks. The platter data densities is what mainly separates them as far as I can tell. That and the jump at some point from SATA I to II.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: taltamir
yes... you don't even have to register, and you can, more easily, check the serial numbers for warranty... you don't need to show proof of purchase, and their packing requirements are not as stringent.

Has anyone checked the packaging requirements? Seagate's are so strict that nearly anyone would invalidate their warranty unless you work for a packaging company and have access to exotic packaging materials. 2in of egg carton type foam surrounding the drive?! Please.

Basically, I think they want to force all users to buy $20 worth of "expedited" service, so they can sell you $2 worth of packaging materials for $20 - the cost of shipping.

yes... you can only do cross ship if you also upgrade shipping rate... for 20$...

I WANTED to do cross shipping for normal shipping price, but it wasn't available.