Yet another Segate RMA failed

[Elixer]

Ugh.
They have horrible quality control, I booted up my other system, and find that the RMA'ed seagate HD went belly up right at the 92 day mark.
It had less than 50 total hours on it.
Of course, it is out of warranty, so can't do squat with it.

That makes it a total of 4 HDs that have died with zero indications of failure, and each of those were RMAs, and 2 of them were RMAed twice.
Still got 6 WDs, 2 hitachi, and 2 sammys working OK though.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

I've never had any problems with my hdd purchases yet, but these kinds of stories always make me cringe. I've yet to have one fail on me, but it seems like hdd quality is getting worse. I just rec'd another Samsung 1tb that' I'll be throwing into my server tonight when I get home and I'll be crossing my fingers...

 

[PowerYoga]

I tend to stay away from seagates for HDs. WD and samsung for me, hitachi occasionally. I also like to swap out HDs after 3 years, just in case shit happens.

 

[jjsbasmt]

Gee, my confidenace in Seagate just came into question with the OPs' post. Just yesterday I RMAed a Seagate FreeAgent Desk 500 after nearly 3 years of use on a 5 year warranty. It spins with no unusul noise but wasn't detected by 3 different systems even swapping out the USB cable. No blue lights either on the front of the drive. I'll keep you posted on the drive they send to replace it. I haven't purchased a Seagate in several years and in the interim have used WD and Hitachi also.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

I'm using a 2tb seagate external hdd as a backup for my server. It's plugged in all the time and I haven't had issues. I've never used WD, but it seems to be a choice manufacturer. I'm very happy with my Samsungs so far. I've got 4 1tbs in all the desktops and the server in the house that have been working flawlessly so far which is why I went with a 5th to add to my server.

 

[fuzzymath10]

I have multiple brands of drives in my 24/7 machine, and the (notoriously bad) 1.5TB 7200.11 has been running constantly (with a few on/offs) since the beginning of 2008 for me. I'm beginning to wonder if the environment might make a difference, e.g. the quality of the power and the temperature levels/fluctuation.

 

[jjsbasmt]

Rarely have I ever had to replace a Samsung for anyone. I have several old ones lying around and they all are still in operable condition. When I have seen them in systems, they seem to run cool and little to no noise.

 

[PCTC2]

I have multiple brands of drives in my 24/7 machine, and the (notoriously bad) 1.5TB 7200.11 has been running constantly (with a few on/offs) since the beginning of 2008 for me. I'm beginning to wonder if the environment might make a difference, e.g. the quality of the power and the temperature levels/fluctuation.

Same here. Knock on wood, all 7 have run without stop 24/7 for about 2 years now.

There's lemons for every company. Seagate's Barracuda LPs, even Western Digital's Caviar Greens. I have had only two Caviar Greens die on me (I have 5), and no LPs (I have 6), but I have had personal experience with a customer having a Barracuda LP die, and then the subsequent 3 RMA's also die within 2 months of each other. Another customer had 3 Caviar Greens die. And it's not the customers as I have replaced the drives and they have been issue free for a year now.

I never liked the "Low Power" drives. I always expect issues. Comparatively in numbers, I have had to replace many more low power drives than 7200 RPM drives, despite using 7200 RPM drives 10 times more often.

Then I have had 2 dozen 7200.12's with the firmware issue and never had an issue with any of them.

It's really just a crap shoot. Hard drives are moving parts. They're electromechanical precision devices. A few are bound to die. But for every dead, there are 1000 working ones in the wild that you never hear about.

One mainstay in my usage has been my Hitachi Deskstars. Never a single issue. (In addition to enterprise WD RE.3/4's, Seagate Constellations, and Hitachi Ultrastars, but those are made to be better anyways).

 

[jjsbasmt]

PCTC2, I too have used the infamous Hitachi Deathstars with no issues. Just to clarify, wasn't it the 7200.11 that had the firmware issues versus the 7200.12? I even have used the 7200.11s without any issues.

 

[cmdrdredd]

PCTC2, I too have used the infamous Hitachi Deathstars with no issues. Just to clarify, wasn't it the 7200.11 that had the firmware issues versus the 7200.12? I even have used the 7200.11s without any issues.

The Hitachi drives had zero issues that I can remember. It was IBM branded drives with all the problems.

 

[Binky]

I've got a 1TB 7200.12 Seagate with 15,000+ hours on it and almost 500 bad sectors and the damned thing just wont die. Its fully backup up, and its shown bad sectors for at least 2 years, but it just wont die. I keep buying all brands, including seagate.

All brands have bad streaks. Seagate had a very bad streak with some drives. Let it go. Everything fails.

 

[PCTC2]

PCTC2, I too have used the infamous Hitachi Deathstars with no issues. Just to clarify, wasn't it the 7200.11 that had the firmware issues versus the 7200.12? I even have used the 7200.11s without any issues.

I'm pretty sure it was the 7200.12's. I have a 750GB that I marked for firmware upgrade a long time ago and I never did it and it still works fine. I actually did upgrade the firmware for coworkers on about a dozen of them. The 7200.12's had a nice bricking streak for some people with the firmware. Some drive state left the drive bricked, but the updated firmware fixed that bug.

I remember the 7200.11's had some issues too, but it was specific drive sizes. I don't believe the 1.5TB's were affected.

As for the Hitachi drives, they've been the most reliable I have ever used. I have tortured 2 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C's and they're still going strong. I also have 72 Hitachi UltraStars in 4 RAID 60s and none have ever died over long 24/7 backup duties.

On a separate note, I had a Seagate Momentus 320GB die today. A bunch of nice UREs. But it was a dying drive anyways (it started freaking out about a year ago. I formatted it and it seemed fine, but it was old and had been dropped in a laptop a few times, and probably been subjected to a few surges.)