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144 Comments
- TheMachine1, on 01/21/2009, -5/+59I always find a catastrophic hard drive failure liberating when I realize how I did not need any of that data in the first place.
- TomKarpik, on 01/21/2009, -3/+44...
External hard drives are just internal hard drives from Maxtor/Seagate/WD/whoever in a plastic box, and a USB to SATA bridge.
Do you have any idea what you're talking about? - bittermang, on 01/21/2009, -0/+27I just want the fixed firmware to be released, properly.
- sjvn, on 01/21/2009, -0/+21All hard drives fail eventually, but the new Seagates really are failing much sooner than they should be.
- upick, on 01/21/2009, -1/+21Well there's no guarantee you'll recover 100% of your data but at least they are compensating
- amnesiac096, on 01/21/2009, -1/+15you're an idiot. RTFA... it's a firmware issue which is completely a Seagate issue and isn't killing the drives, just rendering them useless til the firmware is fixed, they're not dead.
- Homerr, on 01/21/2009, -1/+15It's all fun and games until you realize you lost the last 5 years of family photos, and that you don't have a real backup solution!
- JanK1, on 01/21/2009, -0/+13I ordered 8 Seagate 7200 rpm, 1TB drives. When they were hooked up and ready to rock, 3 of them died.
=( - samcrut, on 01/21/2009, -0/+12External drives die more often because they're handled and moved around while internals rarely move at all once they're put in. Also, there are more parts to fail. Most all of the external drives that I've fixed have been blown out bridge boards. The drive is fine, it's the enclosure that fails.
- xciton, on 01/22/2009, -0/+9The article isn't really correct. There are TWO separate issues.
1) 1.5 TB drives had 30 second freezing issues. A firmware for 1.5 TB drives (ONLY) was released. The problem was fixed for those drives that had that problem. The drive never died with the faulty firmware.
2) Another issue was found where by the drive would stop and not respond, not even in the BIOS screen. This effected a lot of 7200.11 drives (ie 500,750,1000,1500). A firmware fix was released to fix this. After the drive was updated, some drives would also stop working. The firmware was pulled.
Two separate issues, two separate time lines. The article got it wrong. The article misses the point that Seagate screwed up TWICE.
This latest event from Seagate could very well put Seagate out of business in the next 6-12 months. - humanjhawkins, on 01/21/2009, -1/+9Lol. The reliability difference COMES from the enclosure. Not the parts. Any external (whether you put it together or not):
- Adds at least one additional cable junction
- Often has a bridge chip
- Uses a different (usually lower quality) PSU for the drive.
- Has longer cable runs
- Has an external cable that is more prone to damage than internal ones
- Has lower quality connections at two points in the chain. (Computer to cable and cable to enclosure)
Buying your own enclosure and drive doesn't resolve any of these issues. Do you really think Seagate builds different drives for their externals than their internals? (Well, they dont.) - andrewtheart, on 01/21/2009, -4/+12Mistakes happen, but at least they're taking responsibility and compensating for them (unlike a lot of other companies). In other words, I agree with upick.
- Kershek, on 01/21/2009, -0/+8RAIDing two 7200.11s may not get you out of the woods.
- krellor, on 01/21/2009, -0/+7They also probably put their slowest crappiest drives in there, but I can't tell because if I open it I void the warranty. If I buy a quality drive and put it in a good enclosure at least I know what I am getting. Usually for the same price, sometimes cheaper.
Oh, and if the enclosure fails, I can RMA it or replace it myself with mailing it off somewhere or voiding the warranty. Also, I can recycle my old internal drives after I upgrade to make more external drives. - inactive, on 01/21/2009, -0/+7nothing worse than losing data. especially rare stuff you've had for years. It feels like you've just had a heart attack
- ctrlfreak13, on 01/21/2009, -0/+7Only thing is they're not really recovering the data in the same way those services do, because there is no damage to the actual platter. Regardless, it probably still is a time-consuming and thus costly process.
- robbob, on 01/22/2009, -0/+7I had a RAID1 and both of my drives failed at the same time. I'm still in $hock
- NealKasper, on 01/21/2009, -1/+7Yep, it's obscenely long, and the layout is messed up..... dick.
- xciton, on 01/22/2009, -0/+6Mistakes happen? Like three bad firmwares in a row?
1) original factory firmware defective
2) replacement firmware defective
3) 2nd replacement firmware defective
Yea, mistakes happen..... This is a sign of a much larger root problem at Seagate than "mistakes happen". - Meor, on 01/21/2009, -1/+6Worst correlation ever.
- Atxguitarist, on 01/22/2009, -0/+5always make a back-up of your back-up
- rabbitmo, on 01/22/2009, -0/+5they released drives with a faulty firmware. the problems were going on for months and people lost all their data because of a firmware bug. The drives were dying from one moment to another within one or two months.
Seagate kept denying that there is any problem at all until there was finally coverage two weeks ago in the mainstream press. For months they were deleting discussions about the problem on their message boards and were even filtering private messages with links to another message board. You only had the option to send your drive in to get a new one or to pay xxxx USD to receive data recovery. The new drive was just at the same risk of dying of course.
To fix a drive is just a matter of a few mouse clicks by the way, but it requires professional tools which are not available to a normal user. Its not a hardware problem. It is a simple firmware bug.
Now they are pissing in their pants because they can't ignore the problem anymore and had to get a fixed firmware out within a few days. - crowbar77, on 01/21/2009, -1/+6Nice of them to do that? It shouldn't be happening in the first place and the only reason their doing it is to get some positive PR out of this mess.
- SavageIndustrie, on 07/25/2009, -2/+7Your thinking of maxtor...
- krellor, on 01/21/2009, -1/+5When you buy an external drive you don't necessarily know the brand or type of drive inside. It could be some refitted deathstar for all you know, and if you open it up to find out, you void the warranty. I would also be inclined to say that externals die faster than internals, because of the movement, but also I suspect because low quality drives are put inside them.
- SirvenomItsac, on 01/22/2009, -0/+4or all the university summaries that you spent hours typing....
- Pake, on 01/21/2009, -2/+6Seagate was an amazing company, but since their acquisition of Maxtor, it seems they laid off too many Seagate employees and kept too many Maxtor ones.
- cowboy86, on 01/21/2009, -0/+4Jesus Christ.
- morcheeba, on 01/22/2009, -0/+4With these drives all failing the same way, they can really automate this process. I wouldn't be surprised if it took more time to handle the fedex deliveries (making sure the drives got back to the right people) than it did to actually recover the data.
- antdude, on 01/21/2009, -0/+3If it gets recalled, then do I get another HDD before sending mine (assuming unbricked) in?
- DeepFriedFetus, on 01/21/2009, -2/+5I recently had to yell on the phone for almost an hour at the Seagate people for refusing to give me an installation download after my (internal) hard drive broke and the installation software (which is required to even use the external drive - wtf?) was lost. Then after they finally sent me a free installation download, the drive didn't even work. Seagate FTL
- ngmcs8203, on 01/21/2009, -1/+4What's the difference except for the housing?
- smashblu, on 01/21/2009, -0/+3True, but they could just say "screw you" and everyone would lose their data. I agree with you, it shouldn't happen in the first place but sometimes defective products roll out.
- spiderman222, on 01/21/2009, -0/+3Wrong! External drives and media are more popular now than ever. Granted, external drives may become solid state, they will still remain popular for a variety of reasons. I'd rather back my stuff up to an external than to scratch-able media like a CD or DVD. Plus, iPods are essentially external drives...how do they compare to CDs these days?
- DJGoap, on 01/22/2009, -0/+3@2uantuM:
I agree, everyone should back-up their data. Perhaps on the new Seagate HD they bought - wait, what? - faizal5k, on 01/22/2009, -2/+5same...I had a 500GB hard drive fail on me, but all I had were just warez, music, and movies which I could download again. I keep all important documents on Gmail and external hard drive.
- swings1940, on 01/21/2009, -0/+3Do you know how much data recoveries cost? That is a fairly good deal. The average level 2 recovery costs about 1600+. Hopefully they are more then gracious about doing recoveries.
- NealKasper, on 01/21/2009, -0/+3Is hard to use english?
- MScrip, on 01/22/2009, -0/+3Are you suggesting that write-once media will replace an easily accessible hard drive?
- unknownpoltroon, on 01/22/2009, -0/+3i just bought one of their drives 4 days ago. Its dead. Like hell im turning over a drive to a company unless its in 1 inch chunks.
- xciton, on 01/22/2009, -0/+3Early production? There's about to announce the next model line shortly, the 7200.11 have been out for ... 6-9 months (or more now).
- ilgaz, on 01/22/2009, -0/+3External drives doesn't have SMART support from OS. Firewire and USB "eats" smart signaling so you don't get alerted at all.
Old fashion bad sector checking/fixing every month is the way to go. - 64bit, on 01/21/2009, -3/+6Good job Seagate. Even though you had faulty firmware, you stepped up and made the problem seem a little less severe. They should, however, replace the faulty drives and put the user's old data on a new drive. We'll have to wait and see.
- failtrain, on 01/22/2009, -1/+4I did! with 2 7200.11s!
- rabbitmo, on 01/22/2009, -0/+3they released drives with a faulty firmware. the problems were going on for months and people lost all their data because of a firmware bug. The drives were dying from one moment to another within one or two months.
Seagate kept denying that there is any problem at all until there was finally coverage about the problem two weeks ago in the mainstream press. For months they were deleting discussions about the problem on their message boards and were even filtering private messages with links to another message board. You only had the option to send your drive in to get a new one or to pay xxxx USD to receive data recovery. The new drive was just at the same risk of dying of course.
To fix a drive is just a matter of a few mouse clicks by the way, but it requires professional tools.
Now they are pissing their pants because they can't ignore the problem anymore and had to get a fixed firmware out within a few days. - coldkill3r, on 01/22/2009, -0/+2I always keep stacks of cd's and dvd's around to backup photos that I take.
- robbob, on 01/22/2009, -0/+2FTA: Hall said he didn't know what percentage of the 7200.11 drives are failing.
I'm at 75% (3 of 4, 500GB drives) and a $2,000 data recovery bill...so far - AReallyGoodName, on 01/21/2009, -0/+2RAID doesn't help when Seagates firmware fix for this problem bricks every single one of your drives at the same time.
Storey about the Seagate update bricking all 3500320AS drives in the system:
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/21/005 ... - rabbitmo, on 01/22/2009, -1/+3if it is time consuming for them then they should buy HD Doctor for 500 bucks. with this tool they just need to remove some screws, click a few times, repartition and they are done.
They could teach anyone in their company to do it. - dafragsta, on 01/21/2009, -0/+2Great... I ordered two 1TB externals and 1 1.5TB drive and I'm pretty sure all three are 7200.11s... good going Seagate. I've never bought any other brand for quite some time because I've never had a Seagate drive go into brick mode. I seriously hope I don't have to wrestle with any of these problems.
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