Reliability of seagate drives?

I was looking at Newegg.com - Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB USB 2.0 Black Ultra-portable Hard Drive STAA1000100 and it seems people are complaining about the reliability of seagate drives...

Has the reliability taken a dive? 5 years ago seagate was supposed to be pretty good.

 

Newegg reviews aren't the most dependable ones for sure..

 

Yes, reliability has taken a dive.

Products get cheaper and not only as in 'inexpensive'.

I have bought many 'performance' HD's at astronomical prices (>$400) with capacities as low as 60GB. Those drives are still working (even if they're slow by today's standards).

Today's bleeding edge drives are offered for pennies (imo) and something has to give: namely reliability.

I'm not complaining though. I seldom buy one drive at a time anymore, two minimum with one backing up the other. And, this is still cheaper than what I was paying just a few short years ago.

 

There were also comments on a deals forum like

 

On the other hand I have a Seagate 320Gig 7200 RPM hard drive that is 4 years old and still going strong.

Take user reviews on Newegg with a grain of salt. There will always be people that have bad luck or hate a product, and other who love them and never have a problem.

There really isn't a good place to get good accurate data on how reliable each manufactures hard drive.

 

Seagate used to be one of the best HDD makers, but based on the reviews I have read on many sites (not just Newegg), they have been going downhill. I wonder if Seagate's acquisition of Maxtor (one of the worst HDD manufacturers ever) in 2006 played a role.

 

The older seagate drives were good, it are the newer high capacity ones that people have problems with...

 

Honestly, just as reliable as any other manufacterer. I've never had a Seagate fail on me, though I've only owned two noteboook HDDs.

I ordered two desktop 2TB HDDs, so I'll see how that goes.

 

I'm sure the Maxtor tech acquisition has played a role in Seagate getting worse and worse.

Maxtor didn't go out of business for no reason. Yes, selling out is going out of business.

 

Most of the manufacturers seem to be struggling on 1.5-2tb sizes, almost all have mixed reviews, i would say Samsung atm seems to be getting the least bad reviews on their 2tb 5400rpm, but who knows for sure.

Maxtor till today is the only brand that never has failed on me, given that this are old ide drives, its the only brand that never failed on me.

 

How about 2.5" drives...I believe Seagate is the only one with 1.5tb 2.5" drive.

I'm considering getting a 1tb or higher 2.5'" external drive. Are these drive inherently more failure prone than say 500gb drives? Or is there a reliable brand?
Should I stick to 500gb external 2.5" drives?

 

Your experience is quite extraordinary then!

With over 100 clients I recommended Maxtor's to, 100% were forced to return/exchange the Maxtors they bought.

I personally returned over 20 myself for my systems (I had initially bought 10 at once - how foolish!).

 

Look statistically speaking ALL hard drive manufacturers have the same failure rates, yes WD, Seagate, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Samsung.

Now almost all end user rage is against influenced heavily by a past failure. I've only had a Hitachi fail on me, but no other hard drive.

I have noticed a trend of Seagate going downhill. As prices drop, quality does as well. People scream for more hard drive space and cheaper prices, so quality takes a plunge.

 

My oldest fully functional drive is a Seagate. 120GB 3.5" 7200rpm ATA-100 from 2003.

 

When I used to build my own desktops, I used Seagate almost exclusively. I had several of them fail on me, but I never had any problems with Hitachi or Western Digital. Since I started using notebooks I've never used a Seagate so I can't comment on them now.

 

I only personally use and recommend WD.

 

Figures thats why there are deals only on seagate drives, WD are 20-30% more expensive

 

I've had 3 Seagates - 2 desktop and 1 laptop HDDs. 1 of the desktop drives (80GB 7-8 years ago) and the 2.5" one failed (500 GB 5400 RPM). I wouldn't get a Seagate anytime soon.

 

WD isnt a saint, i have had 2 raptors and a black failed on me, not saying they are bad, just the same as all other hdd manufacturers, i dislike WD more since they on purpose dont allow raid on their cheaper drives, forcing you to RE4.... atm my choice for laptops is Hitachi on laptops and Samsung on desktop/whs.

 

Raptors were stupid to begin with. Who wants a hard drive that spins 50% faster, generates 4x the heat for 10% performance gain? What you could do with that 300 GB Raptor take it and invest in an SSD.

Edit: Oh did I also mention the noise? It would be quieter to listen to a jackhammer 2 cm away than to the drone of a Raptor drive.

 

If I had my choice I would go for WD of the main brands, but Seagate's GoFlex system was too hot to pass up, 7200rpm and eSata... as long as I am living in USB 2.0 land, yes please!

Actually no, selling is not going out of business. But nice try on some business commentary.

 

From my understanding and the Seagate training I received, they were planning on phasing out the Maxtor name by the end of I believe 2011.

 

As far as I can tell the Maxtor name has already been phased out.

That being said, none of these things equal going out of business.... Seagate gained something by purchasing Maxtor. Maxtor still had something to offer, true, not all companies that get bought out could have survived... but really there is no comparison between going out of business and being bought out.

Obviously Maxtor was not at the top of the HDD market, but I cannot help but be a little shocked at the blunt conviction that "Maxtor didn't go out of business for no reason. Yes, selling out is going out of business."

 

Well I mean they will still have back stock of old Maxtor products. We had Maxtor drives at Micro Center til only about 1-2 months ago. Course it a big sticker on the front said something like part of the Seagate Technology group or something lol.

 

I once worked for seagate in scotts valley ca in the early 90s

at that point in time seagate was a nobody second rate hd company ( although it once had been the worlds largest)
And maxtor was a big first rate company. Seagate has been going up and down since the beggining.
They are now once again the largest hd maker in the world.

Their name was mud for like 10 years and eventually they bought out their biggest rival.
seagate operated out of a cheezy dorm building in a small town and maxtor had a giant greek architecture complex in san jose.

 

ive had 2 seagate hdds fail on me, but i still buy them because they usually have the best specs

anyway, ssds are going to be at reasonable prices soon, so goodbye seagate!

 

Well 3 years ago ssd were not available to the consumer market, they became really popular once win7 was released and that was a year ago. I still think velociraptors still have a market to fill up, someone that edits and encodes too much might find them worth it.

My current velociraptor 300gb its not as noisy as the old gen was, also doesnt run much hotter than WD Black drive. Overall still nice drive, i havent updated cause im wating for intel G3 or maybe a Revox2 to go down in price some, so i invested on the laptop ssd in the mean time. But overall i still think its a good drive, just that WD isnt special, just the same as all manufacturers in bieng reliable.

 

when i worked at seagate the only product they had on the market was the raptor type of drive. Tiny fast spinning drives, thats how they re entered the hd market. no one would touch a seagate for a data drive because they were famously crappy.

IBM maxtor, iomega wd hitachi were the brand names.

 

You sure just 3 years? I remember an Alienware in 2007 with a 64 GB SSD option for like 1000 dollars...cause I was looking at notebooks then for college. Yes unreasonable back then, but I'm sure SSD's weren't as common as even just a year ago.

I own a Caviar Black, Blue and Green. My green is 10C cooler than my Blue, which is 10C cooler on average than my Black. I find the Blacks run too hot for some odd reason because it's still 7200 RPM vs the Blue but the only difference for the most part is the 32 MB cache and longer warranty, but I'm assuming there's additional stuff that makes a difference like the dual processor inside? You can really hear a Raptor drive compared everything else in the system minus the GPU fan. Meh maybe it's just me but I find it significantly noisier than almost anything in a modern computer, and yes I've worked with and heard the 74 GB, 150GB and 300 GB Raptors.

 

I would just be weary of any large company that is in talks for a private buyout.

 

wow.... well it says in the story they were bought out in 2000 and then 2 years later went public. By the same financers no less.

This means the opposite to me. Seagate has something big they dont want to let the public make money off IMO. ( I have a degree in economics btw)

I would not buy seagate stock for what it matters unless you have inside information.

 

Lol, there is a reason we do not use Seagate HD's anymore at the shop I work at. Last year I know we RMA'd over half a dozen of their 250gb models and at least 2 of their 1tb drives that were less than 2 years old. We only use Samsung and WD now with the exception of 2 750gb 7.2k 2.5" HD's the boss decided to purchase without consulting me first.

Keep in mind all of those RMA's were desktop drives. For laptop drives I primarily use the WD BEVT drives for Size/cost/performance ratio and reliability.

 

I've had two 500GB Seagate FreeAgent external hard drives (white/silver model) fail on me in less than 6 months. They both had the famous clicking sound of death that repeated every 5 seconds. It sounded like a dead battery in a car when you turn the key and the car wouldn't start.

My Western Digital My Book Essential, on the other hand, has lasted me for 2 years already. However, I would not recommend the new external Western Digital hard drives due to them not having the "drag-and-drop folder/files" feature like a real external hard drive. You'll have to search Google on how to remove Western Digital's backup software on the new external hard drives.

 

Problem is that you'll run into similar issues with every brand. External USB powered drives people think "fail" when their laptop isn't delivering enough juice through the USB port. I think the WD drives use less power, so less likely to exhibit this, but not necessarily an issue with the drives themselves.

I've had good success with WD and was leary of buying any other brand, until I started using the Seagate 500GB in my Sager (not the XT there now) and it worked great for the year plus it was in there and replaced with the XT.

 

I have the same impression. I've had some Maxtors which all died for no apparent reason and I didn't hear stories about failing Seagates before they took over Maxtor.
On the other hand my current 2.5" Seagate drives work fine so far, but they aren't even a year old.

I still have a 12 years old Seagate drive running perfectly.
An 11 years old WD is running just as fine in the same computer.

I did that too before WD came up with their "IntelliPark" invention. Since then I don't buy WD drives anymore. (No, I do not want to mess around with wdidle.)

 

in Q2 2009 we bought a new SAN that had 16 1tb Seagate ST31400xxNS drives (forget the exact model number, but the enterprise class drives). Since then, 6 of them have failed. I RMA'd the drives, and put them into external enclosures for backups, and replaced them with WD drives, of which none has failed to date.

I've had problems with WD too, but not nearly as much as Seagate the last few years.

Until 2 years ago, all I would buy is Seagate, but their quality has taken a huge turn for the worse since then.

 

lol the other day at work I was backing up data for a customer onto an external. We have a 250 GB Seagate Expansion 2.5" external on sale for 50 bucks. I got 6 that started clicking immediately plugging into the USB port. I got a WD Passport SE 250 GB for 20 bucks more, no problems whatsoever.

 

Was it the same PC? Like I said, lots of laptops or PC's don't always deliver the appropriate power through USB like they should. Seagates run a little more power than WD's, hence the issue.

 

It was a plugged into my workstation, custom built PC into one of the USB ports in the back. And yes that USB port was known working.

 

I'm not saying it wasn't working, I'm saying some USB ports can be known not to deliver power to spec (500mA). More common in notebooks, but even in desktops it happens. Try a Y-cable and see if it works then. Clicking can be from not enough power. My laptop has screwed up USB ports right now and even when I plug in my WD Passport it clicks like crazy. Move it to another USB port known good, or desktop and it works fine.

 

I had tried a Y cable aftewards but the Seagate only came with micro-USB to USB A cable. I also plugged it into 3 different computers to make sure I wasn't crazy.

 

That sucks. I guess it's a crapshoot in general. Thank goodness for warranties though right?

 

I have a mixture of Western Digital, Samsung and Seagate drivers in my computers. I've only had issues with the Seagate 7200.11 design, which I believe was due to defective firmware or design. Additionally the Western Digital drives seem to perform better than Seagate... but that is just anecdotal evidence. It has been a mixed bag, but I don't hold any bias against Seagate, yet...

 

seagate and hitachi tend to have better latency than WD but thats all i know....i never bought WD since back in the day they sucked....but i have heard a lot of good things nowadays

 

While the 7200.11 line had plenty of firmware problems, Seagate appears to be having quality control issues as well.

I have an HP MediaSmart server with four Seagate drives; the original 7200.12 boot drive (1TB) and three 7200.11 1.5TB drives, all purchased November of 2009.

Flash forward to now --two of the three 1.5TB drives have failed (note, all three have current firmware) with SMART errors and bad sectors that exceed limits. The 1TB boot drive is having SMART warnings, with 13 bad sectors relocated, but with spare sectors still available to remap. Seagate's RMA process (note: Hitachi's is no better either, and in fact worse) is somewhat of a pain, and includes a $20 fee if you wish to advance-replace a drive. As Hitachi has no advance-replacement option at all, I will be buying Western Digital for some time to come. My Velociraptor 600GB and Caviar Black 1TB in my desktop system have served me well, as has my 500GB Scorpio Black in my ThinkPad, and Western Digital offers a far more hassle-free RMA policy; they may, in fact, be the last drive vendor to do so.

I will probably sell all three 7200.11 drives when I get my two warrantied ones back, as I just don't trust Seagate at this point. Fortunately, I have an external backup drive for my server with a recent backup. Meanwhile, Seagate continues to sell the 7200.11 1.5TB drive, and markets it as a paragon of reliability, while user reviews say otherwise.

 

Another -1 customer for Seagate! WD is the way to go.

 

if you are worried about reliability I cant say enough good things about the G tech G drive series of external drives. They all have 3 year warranty's. They benchmark with top rated speeds for external drives. Metal finish + fanless silent design. And they actually have 500GB 7200RPM drives that do not require external power. Usually you only see 5400 RPM drives not requiring seperate AC power.

I have a full size 2TB 7200 RPM G drive connected via E-SATA to my desktop and I can get anywhere from 90-105MB/sec transfer speed. It uses some Hitachi drive thats nice and speedy. And it looks really nice just solid metal all around. And totally silent operation.

I've had this drive for close to 2 years and it has worked completely flawlessly not a single problem ever and I keep it turned on 24/7 along with the computer and thats 24/7 of activity on the drive because I am seeding torrents off it 24/7. So 2 years of 24/7 constant drive operation with error free operation.

 

I think it's a WD Green in there.

 

it's funny, since I wrote my comment on 11/29 about the Seagate drives in our SAN, we've lost 2 more. Terrible reliability on a supposed enterprise class drive.

 

I've got 9 years (or something close to) old 40gb seagate drive still rollin' 100% fine in my server