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What do people think of Seagate's reliability, these days? I've switched to Western Digital for this reason, but the performance gains of these Seagate models

What do people think of Seagate's reliability, these days? I've switched to Western Digital for this reason, but the performance gains of these Seagate models are tempting. Of course, I'm a bit gun-shy about being an early adopter of a new product line. BTW, Amazon shows them available for pre-order. 500 GB is listed for US$138. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=seagate+momentus+xt&x=0&y=0 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap...

dualboot 16y ago
I switched from Western Digital to Seagate when WD silently switched to 1 year warranties on their retail packaged drives (in the early 2000's.)
- pasbesoin 16y ago
  Interesting. The most recent OEM drive I purchased has a three year warranty, I think. (Their web site shows a bit less, probably because I haven't registered it, along with the sale date, yet.) I should search to check this, but my vague recollection is reading about a backlash to the warranty reduction, which they subsequently at least partially reversed. Is that what ultimately happened?
  - dualboot 16y ago
    They have most likely changed the practice - but any changes were really irrelevant to me when my 160Gb WD Drive died at 16months and was "out of warranty" completely. I'm less concerned with warranty lengths these days because I have a larger budget for computer hardware - but Seagate has been very good for me since 2004 when I stopped purchasing WD (Which I'd been using almost exclusively since 1997.)
    - pasbesoin 16y ago
      I have a 150 GB Seagate external drive that has performed just fine. I held them in good regard and considered them a first choice, until recent incidents such as "the click of death" accumulated to cause me concern. I'd really be tempted by this new line of hybrid notebook drives, particularly to extend the effective lifespan of some older notebooks I and friends and family have. But I would like to know that they've taken good measures to eliminate the underlying conditions that allowed for some of the recent problems to enter into and persist in shipping products. I take your point with regard to the particular situation you describe. I have similar "relationships" with a few companies; they may be "sliced bread" these days, but they screwed me, once, and I'm still voting with my feet. I'm not a zealot. I had some unfortunate experiences with Ford products, but I still drive one (the best option at the time of purchase) and would pick Ford over the other U.S. brands. (Still, if I ever find the engineers and/or quality control who allowed unground, sharp metal edges on my driver's seat frame to destroy the seat's foam and support, for example...)
wazoox 16y ago
I've setup about 3000 seagate drives in 2008 and 2009 (90% are 1TB Barracuda ES2). In the second half of 2009, the quality dropped sharply. The number of disk failures went through the ceiling (from about 1 to 3% per year to 5 to 8% per year) and we switched to Hitachi. I still don't have enough data to evaluate Hitachi drives reliability. Come back next year :)
- pasbesoin 16y ago
  Interesting. It is the "click of death" that is one of the more recent incidents to cause me general concern with the brand. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-bar... http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/352816/seagate-hard-disks-suffer-from-click-of-death http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/352816/seagate-hard-disks-suffer...

dualboot 16y ago

I switched from Western Digital to Seagate when WD silently switched to 1 year warranties on their retail packaged drives (in the early 2000's.)

pasbesoin 16y ago
Interesting. The most recent OEM drive I purchased has a three year warranty, I think. (Their web site shows a bit less, probably because I haven't registered it, along with the sale date, yet.) I should search to check this, but my vague recollection is reading about a backlash to the warranty reduction, which they subsequently at least partially reversed. Is that what ultimately happened?
- dualboot 16y ago
  They have most likely changed the practice - but any changes were really irrelevant to me when my 160Gb WD Drive died at 16months and was "out of warranty" completely. I'm less concerned with warranty lengths these days because I have a larger budget for computer hardware - but Seagate has been very good for me since 2004 when I stopped purchasing WD (Which I'd been using almost exclusively since 1997.)
  - pasbesoin 16y ago
    I have a 150 GB Seagate external drive that has performed just fine. I held them in good regard and considered them a first choice, until recent incidents such as "the click of death" accumulated to cause me concern. I'd really be tempted by this new line of hybrid notebook drives, particularly to extend the effective lifespan of some older notebooks I and friends and family have. But I would like to know that they've taken good measures to eliminate the underlying conditions that allowed for some of the recent problems to enter into and persist in shipping products. I take your point with regard to the particular situation you describe. I have similar "relationships" with a few companies; they may be "sliced bread" these days, but they screwed me, once, and I'm still voting with my feet. I'm not a zealot. I had some unfortunate experiences with Ford products, but I still drive one (the best option at the time of purchase) and would pick Ford over the other U.S. brands. (Still, if I ever find the engineers and/or quality control who allowed unground, sharp metal edges on my driver's seat frame to destroy the seat's foam and support, for example...)

wazoox 16y ago

I've setup about 3000 seagate drives in 2008 and 2009 (90% are 1TB Barracuda ES2). In the second half of 2009, the quality dropped sharply. The number of disk failures went through the ceiling (from about 1 to 3% per year to 5 to 8% per year) and we switched to Hitachi. I still don't have enough data to evaluate Hitachi drives reliability. Come back next year :)

pasbesoin 16y ago
Interesting. It is the "click of death" that is one of the more recent incidents to cause me general concern with the brand. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050374/seagate-bar... http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/352816/seagate-hard-disks-suffer-from-click-of-death http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/352816/seagate-hard-disks-suffer...