Lost 1500 gigs - Thanks Seagate!

[SteveH]

Ow, ow. A diehard Seagate fan, close enough, since the 200G pricing
ranges (several still running strong), this time up, though, things
were different. Whatever the issue discussed avidly (pro/con) on the
tech forums - Seagate's regardless under close scrutiny. An issue
that, hindsightedly, even clipped my last Seagate, 600G (over $100US
at time, too), where I found that model number within "suspect"
listings of Seagate ROM issue. Thankfully, no problems -- purely
storage and formatted straight-out, full NTFS.

Enough of that.

I bought a WD non-green 750G when dollar averaging in last time for
$70-ish. Not a "big" WD fan, either, but what's the alternative... if
it's no longer an integrity game... Everybody is practically selling
1-yr warranted drives now. I'd don't mind being shaved a few bucks
for a 3-year "put your warranty behind you mouth" assurances, and
reputation, for quality. Ain't happening, though. As other's are
saying -- only assurances going is at double-down, twice the price:
once for a friggin' working drive and another one just in case it's a
piece of 3-world marketed profit taking.

Remember and don't forget Seagates at 20MEG, I always say, 20MEG RLL
and MFM interfaces for initially $350. Hot at the time. Moving along
into IDE interfaces, inevitably, Seagates weren't actually Seagate,
any more, but SEASNAKE. For quite some time, too.

Moral of the story: It's not a bleedin' edge for nothing.

What /are/ you wittering about?

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

(e-mail address removed) (GMAN) wrote:

...


That is a funny thought.

That kid is so upset that he didnt get the response he wanted he is
off crying somewhere. Look the advice is as follows

1. Sad but shit happens. You are not the first and wont be the last.

2. No matter the cost you MUST back up if you care about your data.

3. While I am not a lover of seagate, any and I mean any HD can go bad
no matter what brand it is.

4. The data as was said before is still there UNLESS you formatted
already.

5. If you cant afford to back up your data then you cant afford to
have the data mean anything to you!!!!

Did you understand the last sentence???

If you have 1.5 TB of data and cannot afford to by another 1.5 TB
drive, then here is what you do u get all the other little 300 and 200
GB drives and use THEM to back up your data so that when the 1.5 TB
dies you will NOT have to come here and feel like your questions are
not being answered. If u listen to what I said here anyone will have
to agree these are very good responses to your problem. They may be a
little late but is that really our fault here on the group???
Best wishes...

 

[Conor]

(e-mail address removed)>, (e-mail address removed)
says...

"backing up that much stuff was not an option financially."

Neither is losing it.

Read before you state the obvious please. Sometimes you have so much
data it's just not possible to back it all up.

Bullshit.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message
<7c1e8f60-c5b5-42ee-861f-5a23af9aa69d@s20g2000vbp.googlegroups.com>

"backing up that much stuff was not an option financially."

Read before you state the obvious please. Sometimes you have so much
data it's just not possible to back it all up. Back to the point of
the thread - any suggestions?

There is no volume of data that is impossible to backup or store
redundantly, The amount of data isn't even particularly important, all
that matters is the value of said data to you.

If the value of the data is worth less than $150 then you made the
correct choice to not backup, and you're only out less-than-$150, which
isn't bad.

If the data was worth more then $150 to you, then you should have found
a way to backup or otherwise survive a drive failure.

I'm a SOHO user, probably similar to yourself. I do it with ~5-6TB
here, with more important data stored both on RAID as well as
redundantly on separate machines ensuring that I can survive a drive
failure, controller failure, power supply failure shorting out all
drives, etc. Less important data is stored on RAID-1 (again, across
multiple machines). Finally, unimportant data is kept on local PCs and
will be lost when a drive fails.

How many petabytes do you think Google has? Do you think they have too
much data to store and forego redundancy or do you think they're fault
tolerant?

Going forward, I actually wouldn't suggest RAID at all in most cases,
RAID isolates you from a single drive failure, but not from user error.
Conversely, a backup isolates you from both (unless you make a mistake
during or immediately prior to a non-incremental backup), but risks data
that was written more recently then your most recent backup.

I would definitely not recommend RAID-5 if you're risk-adverse, but
rather, if three drives are in your budget, I'd recommend two drives in
RAID-1 to give you fault tolerance, and one drive as a dedicated backup
to cover you in the event of user error.

In all cases you should keep your backup drive disconnected when not in
use, preferably off-site if feasible, so that whatever event wipes out
your data won't take out the backup drive too.

Don't get me wrong, having a drive die sucks, but as you said in your
first message, you know it happens, it's just a matter of when.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> "Mike Painter"

If Seagate or any other drive manufacturer only put out bad product with
long warranties they would have been gone years ago.

In principle, Seagate dropping from 5 to 3 year warranties doesn't
inspire confidence. In practice, mine either die within the first 6
months, or are depreciated and pulled out of service due to need for
more capacity before they die.

That being said, I do take care to buy drives in small batches and stage
them into service so that should I get a batch that all decides to die
after 4-6 months in service, I'll have enough time to get one RMA back
before the next craps out.

OTOH, I've got 10 Seagate drives sitting in customs right now waiting
for clearance, and another couple on order from a local supplier, so
it's not like I'm ditching Seagate despite the 3-year warranty, they're
still on-par or better then the competition, and cheaper too.

Seagate has treated me well, both in terms of drive priceerformance
and lifespan, as well as the lack of hassle when I have had a drive die.
No begging or pleading or digging up years old invoices, just 5 minutes
on a web form, ship it out and get a return shipped out a week later (so
far always within 15 business days round trip)

 

[Guest]

In message <[email protected]> "Mike Painter"


In principle, Seagate dropping from 5 to 3 year warranties doesn't
inspire confidence. In practice, mine either die within the first 6
months, or are depreciated and pulled out of service due to need for
more capacity before they die.

That being said, I do take care to buy drives in small batches and stage
them into service so that should I get a batch that all decides to die
after 4-6 months in service, I'll have enough time to get one RMA back
before the next craps out.

OTOH, I've got 10 Seagate drives sitting in customs right now waiting
for clearance, and another couple on order from a local supplier, so
it's not like I'm ditching Seagate despite the 3-year warranty, they're
still on-par or better then the competition, and cheaper too.

Seagate has treated me well, both in terms of drive priceerformance
and lifespan, as well as the lack of hassle when I have had a drive die.
No begging or pleading or digging up years old invoices, just 5 minutes
on a web form, ship it out and get a return shipped out a week later (so
far always within 15 business days round trip)

Seagate and other drive manufacturers have (at least) two separate
production lines: one for junk (home/soho users) and the other for
corporate/server use. This latter production line has much higher
quality standards and uses much better components.

Long story short, don't even consider drives with 1-3 year
warranties. Seagate's higher-end server drives still come with a
five year warranty, for good reason.

 

[Conor]

In principle, Seagate dropping from 5 to 3 year warranties doesn't
inspire confidence. In practice, mine either die within the first 6
months, or are depreciated and pulled out of service due to need for
more capacity before they die.

So you've just countered your own statement. A 5 year warranty is
pointless because they either die in the first 6 months or go on for
years.

 

[DevilsPGD]

Seagate and other drive manufacturers have (at least) two separate
production lines: one for junk (home/soho users) and the other for
corporate/server use. This latter production line has much higher
quality standards and uses much better components.

Long story short, don't even consider drives with 1-3 year
warranties. Seagate's higher-end server drives still come with a
five year warranty, for good reason.

I am aware that the consumer grade drives tend to be cheaper and more
likely to die, and I agree. However, I disagree completely about buying
more expensive drives.

You must proceed under the assumption that you *will* experience a drive
failure, the only question is one of *when*.

If you're storing 5-6TB of data redundantly (9-12TB typical raw storage
needed), all other things being equal, you're better off buying cheap
drives and having more hot-spares on hand, then shipping off dead drives
for RMA as needed.

Now all other things are not equal if you're looking at drives with
different performance characteristics, different interfaces, etc, but if
you're looking at the "RAID edition" or "enterprise edition" version of
consumer 7200.11 type drives, go cheap and have hot spares (and possibly
cold spares too) so that when a failure occurs, you're closer to
recovering.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Conor

So you've just countered your own statement.

Not at all.

A 5 year warranty is
pointless because they either die in the first 6 months or go on for
years.

Bingo -- I was pointing out that although a warranty decrease doesn't
fill me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about their product, recent
experience does, so as a result I'm still buying Seagate.

 

[Conor]

In message <[email protected]> Conor


Not at all.

Yes you have.

Bingo -- I was pointing out that although a warranty decrease doesn't
fill me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about their product, recent
experience does, so as a result I'm still buying Seagate.

So to sum up, **** all has changed so what was the point again?

 

[Mike Painter]

In message <[email protected]> Conor


Not at all.


Bingo -- I was pointing out that although a warranty decrease doesn't
fill me with a warm and fuzzy feeling about their product, recent
experience does, so as a result I'm still buying Seagate.

All solid state devices are known to fit this profile to a limited extent.
The problem is not nearly as bad as in the early days when the difference
between a new computer (64k CP/M running at 4.77 MHz) and one burned in for
48 hours might be as much as $1,000.00.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Conor

Yes you have.


So to sum up, **** all has changed so what was the point again?

Seagate is sending a bad message... That's significant.

 

[Conor]

Seagate is sending a bad message... That's significant.

Or they are saying that their drives are so good that a 3 year warranty
is sufficient.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Conor

Or they are saying that their drives are so good that a 3 year warranty
is sufficient.

No -- Companies are about profitability, you don't make a change that
customers will potentially perceive as negative unless it's profitable.

If there weren't any drives dying in the 3-5 year range, there would be
no harm in leaving the default warranty longer.

 

[dennispublic]

My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days after
filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda (ST31500341AS)
7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn fault for going for
the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing up that much stuff was not
an option financially...  I always expected it to fail but I had hoped
it would last a year or two at least, by then I could update to raid 1
or buy a 3tb drive or something...

Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they will
send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really don't want
to go through this again, I will never trust this brand now that I've
been assraped... I'm thinking the only way I can use the new piece of
crap their going to send me is if it is in a RAID configuration of
some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but I'm sooooo not ready to fork out
another $300ish for two more 1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind?  Can I
just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring configuration and
then later add the third disk (converting to raid 5 here) and the
fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess I'm asking if you can convert
go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1 setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid
5 setup without reformatting...

....my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed

OMFG!!!!!   It has only been 6+ months that Seagate has had a firmware update
to prevent this from happening and you are blaming them for not notifyingyou?

I have two of those same drives and applied the fix day one!

I also have  750 GB unit.

BTW, the data is still there and they offer a free recovery for you if you
contact Seagate!!!!!!!!!! That is of course if you didnt freak out like ababy
and immediately reformat the drive.- Hide quoted text -

Your data wasnt worth an extra $119 ????? WTF?

It begs the question... What if the original poster panicked and lost
his data, called Seagate, and then came here to whine about it. Maybe
that is why it was his first post under the alias.

GMAN: In the future you might want to read a bit more before you stick
your foot in your mouth so deeply.

If you had actually read the links you provided you would see that the
firmware issues affected "A SMALL NUMBER" of these drives. Mine was
not one of them - it was shipped with the latest firmware. Don't
assume. And no: the data was not valuable enough to justify paying
twice as much, the hope was that the drive would last more then 6
months. If you had read this thread fully you would have seen that
too.

This drive has a lot more problems then just firmware. After your foot
removal I suggest you educate yourself more, maybe check out the
specific reviews for this specific 1.5 TB Seagate model (not the
750gig model you have) on Newegg.com

Goodluck.

 

[GMAN]

My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days after
filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda (ST31500341AS)
7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn fault for going for
the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing up that much stuff was not
an option financially... =A0I always expected it to fail but I had hoped
it would last a year or two at least, by then I could update to raid 1
or buy a 3tb drive or something...

Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they will
send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really don't want
to go through this again, I will never trust this brand now that I've
been assraped... I'm thinking the only way I can use the new piece of
crap their going to send me is if it is in a RAID configuration of
some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but I'm sooooo not ready to fork out
another $300ish for two more 1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind? =A0Can I
just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring configuration and
then later add the third disk (converting to raid 5 here) and the
fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess I'm asking if you can convert
go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1 setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid
5 setup without reformatting...

....my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed

OMFG!!!!! =A0 It has only been 6+ months that Seagate has had a firmware = update
to prevent this from happening and you are blaming them for not notifying= you?

I have two of those same drives and applied the fix day one!

I also have =A0750 GB unit.

BTW, the data is still there and they offer a free recovery for you if yo= u
contact Seagate!!!!!!!!!! That is of course if you didnt freak out like a= baby
and immediately reformat the drive.- Hide quoted text -

Your data wasnt worth an extra $119 ????? WTF?

It begs the question... What if the original poster panicked and lost
his data, called Seagate, and then came here to whine about it. Maybe
that is why it was his first post under the alias.

GMAN: In the future you might want to read a bit more before you stick
your foot in your mouth so deeply.

If you had actually read the links you provided you would see that the
firmware issues affected "A SMALL NUMBER" of these drives. Mine was
not one of them - it was shipped with the latest firmware. Don't
assume. And no: the data was not valuable enough to justify paying
twice as much, the hope was that the drive would last more then 6
months. If you had read this thread fully you would have seen that
too.

This drive has a lot more problems then just firmware. After your foot
removal I suggest you educate yourself more, maybe check out the
specific reviews for this specific 1.5 TB Seagate model (not the
750gig model you have) on Newegg.com

Goodluck.

FU!!! If you talk this way towards everyone who tries to help, you deserved to
lose your data!!!!!


BTW, I have both a 750GB, and a pair of the same 1.5TB retail Seagate drives
you own.

 

[John Doe]

r34g2000vbi.googlegroups

My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days
after filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda
(ST31500341AS) 7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn
fault for going for the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing
up that much stuff was not an option financially... ÿI always
expected it to fail but I had hoped it would last a year or two
at least, by then I could update to raid 1 or buy a 3tb drive or
something...

Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they
will send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really
don't want to go through this again, I will never trust this
brand now that I've been assraped... I'm thinking the only way I
can use the new piece of crap their going to send me is if it is
in a RAID configuration of some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but
I'm sooooo not ready to fork out another $300ish for two more
1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind?
ÿCan I just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring
configuration and then later add the third disk (converting to
raid 5 here) and the fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess
I'm asking if you can convert go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1
setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid 5 setup without
reformatting...

....my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed

OMFG!!!!! ÿ It has only been 6+ months that Seagate has had a
firmware update
to prevent this from happening and you are blaming them for not
notifying you?

I have two of those same drives and applied the fix day one!

I also have ÿ750 GB unit.

BTW, the data is still there and they offer a free recovery for
you if yo u
contact Seagate!!!!!!!!!! That is of course if you didnt freak
out like a baby
and immediately reformat the drive.- Hide quoted text -

Your data wasnt worth an extra $119 ????? WTF?

It begs the question... What if the original poster panicked and
lost his data, called Seagate, and then came here to whine about
it. Maybe that is why it was his first post under the alias.

GMAN: In the future you might want to read a bit more before you
stick your foot in your mouth so deeply.

You have messed up the quoting, Dennis.

If you had actually read the links you provided you would see that
the firmware issues affected "A SMALL NUMBER" of these drives.

Wrong... The firmware corrected a problem that effected a small
number of those drives.

Mine was not one of them - it was shipped with the latest
firmware. Don't assume.

Do not tell lies.

the hope was that the drive would last more then 6 months.

Again... Any drive can fail at any time.

This drive has a lot more problems then just firmware.

Says someone who does not know enough to back up his data. Too much
coincidence, Dennis, you should have at least mentioned the firmware
thing in your original whine.

Again... Your complaint about the drive might be valid (it looks
less valid now than it did before), but your complaint about losing
data is just whining since you should always have a backup.

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days after
filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda (ST31500341AS)
7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn fault for going for
the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing up that much stuff was not
an option financially... I always expected it to fail but I had hoped
it would last a year or two at least, by then I could update to raid 1
or buy a 3tb drive or something...

Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they will
send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really don't want
to go through this again, I will never trust this brand now that I've
been assraped... I'm thinking the only way I can use the new piece of
crap their going to send me is if it is in a RAID configuration of
some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but I'm sooooo not ready to fork out
another $300ish for two more 1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind? Can I
just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring configuration and
then later add the third disk (converting to raid 5 here) and the
fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess I'm asking if you can convert
go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1 setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid
5 setup without reformatting...

...my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed

That kid is so upset that he didnt get the response he wanted he is
off crying somewhere. Look the advice is as follows

1. Sad but shit happens. You are not the first and wont be the last.

2. No matter the cost you MUST back up if you care about your data.

3. While I am not a lover of seagate, any and I mean any HD can go bad
no matter what brand it is.

4. The data as was said before is still there UNLESS you formatted
already.

5. If you cant afford to back up your data then you cant afford to
have the data mean anything to you!!!!

Did you understand the last sentence???

If you have 1.5 TB of data and cannot afford to by another 1.5 TB
drive, then here is what you do u get all the other little 300 and 200
GB drives and use THEM to back up your data so that when the 1.5 TB
dies you will NOT have to come here and feel like your questions are
not being answered. If u listen to what I said here anyone will have
to agree these are very good responses to your problem. They may be a
little late but is that really our fault here on the group???
Best wishes...

 

[SteveH]

1. Sad but shit happens. You are not the first and wont be the last.

2. No matter the cost you MUST back up if you care about your data.

3. While I am not a lover of seagate, any and I mean any HD can go bad
no matter what brand it is.

4. The data as was said before is still there UNLESS you formatted
already.

5. If you cant afford to back up your data then you cant afford to
have the data mean anything to you!!!!

Did you understand the last sentence???

If you have 1.5 TB of data and cannot afford to by another 1.5 TB
drive, then here is what you do u get all the other little 300 and 200
GB drives and use THEM to back up your data so that when the 1.5 TB
dies you will NOT have to come here and feel like your questions are
not being answered. If u listen to what I said here anyone will have
to agree these are very good responses to your problem. They may be a
little late but is that really our fault here on the group???
Best wishes...

Can any of you people snip?
And why the feck did you feel the need to repost your tripe again 12
days after the original post?

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

Can any of you people snip?
And why the feck did you feel the need to repost your tripe again 12
days after the original post?

Why did u feel the need to respond to it since it was not meant for u
anyway?