3 ms·

I see Seagate is continuing their track record of Being Shit, as usual. Yet again they're the only brand where a couple models are exceeding the normal failure

by paulmd 9y ago

I see Seagate is continuing their track record of Being Shit, as usual. Yet again they're the only brand where a couple models are exceeding the normal failure rate by a factor of 50-100x.

katastic 9y ago
I've had so many die in the last few years, it's not even funny. I even had RMA'd ones die within a week.
- paulmd 9y ago
  They've been shitty for 10 years now. I had a bunch of bad experiences with their 7200.11 drives too. I swore off Seagate forever after the 3 TBs started shitting the bed and I literally haven't had another drive die prematurely since then. It's not worth the risk, I'll pay an extra 10% for Toshiba or WD thanks.
christoph 9y ago
Am I misreading the data (Cumulative 2013->2017) or something? The Seagate 4TB are horrific, yes, but they look to have completely solved their issues above 4TB. e.g. 6TB - BB have 4 times as many Seagate drives (and nearly 4x logged time) as WDC, but more WDC drives have failed. (4.6%WDC versus 1.2%) 8TB - Annualised failure is lower than HGST (1.1% & 1.2% versus 1.7%). Nearly 25,000 Seagate drives and 150 odd failures. 10TB - 0 failures over 13,720 drive days so far 12TB - 0 failures over 500 drive days so far. Maybe I'm misreading something, but it looks from their data that the major Seagate issues have been put behind them now?
- paulmd 9y ago
  > Am I misreading the data (Cumulative 2013->2017) or something? Yes. Per the description, that table is only drives that remain in service as of 2017. There have been "troublesome" Seagate models that failed at such high rates that Backblaze finally just pre-emptively pulled them, and those drives are not in the "cumulative" table they show in the OP. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/ > Maybe I'm misreading something, but it looks from their data that the major Seagate issues have been put behind them now? That's what people said after the 7200.11 series. And after the 1.5 TBs shit the bed. And after the 3 TBs shit the bed. They're good for a while, then Seagate releases yet another model that shits the bed. You can actually see that in the link above. > While this particular 3TB model had a painfully high rate of failure, subsequent Seagate models such as their 4TB drive, model: ST4000DM000, are performing well with an annualized 2014 failure rate of just 2.6% as of December 31, 2014. These drives come with 3-year warranties and show no signs of hitting the wall. 2 years later they've released two new 4 TB models that fail at 50-100x the norm again.
  - christoph 9y ago
    OK - thanks for backstory and information :)
ksec 9y ago
And that causes another problem. Why are all the newer, 8TB, 10TB and 12TB HDD all from Seagate?
Joeri 9y ago
If they’re always terrible why does backblaze keep buying them?
- arsoon 9y ago
  Backblaze has covered that a few times in their hard drive stat blogs: price. While they may have a greater failure rate percentage, the price often offsets that for Backblaze's needs. Your needs may vary.
- paulmd 9y ago
  To add to the other comment, it's not just price but also volume. It's easy enough for me as an individual to buy 10 Toshiba HDDs... but Backblaze would like to buy them in quantities of 10k or more (if at all possible - obviously during the Thailand Drive Crisis they had to deal in small quantities). It's a lot easier to get Seagates in large volumes than some of the other brands - Toshiba specifically is problematic, iirc HGST maybe also. Also, I didn't say Seagates were always shit. But some of their models are, and they are the only brand with these issues, and it's been a repeated problem for them over the last 10 years.

by paulmd 9y ago

I see Seagate is continuing their track record of Being Shit, as usual. Yet again they're the only brand where a couple models are exceeding the normal failure rate by a factor of 50-100x.

katastic 9y ago

I've had so many die in the last few years, it's not even funny. I even had RMA'd ones die within a week.

paulmd 9y ago
They've been shitty for 10 years now. I had a bunch of bad experiences with their 7200.11 drives too. I swore off Seagate forever after the 3 TBs started shitting the bed and I literally haven't had another drive die prematurely since then. It's not worth the risk, I'll pay an extra 10% for Toshiba or WD thanks.

christoph 9y ago

Am I misreading the data (Cumulative 2013->2017) or something? The Seagate 4TB are horrific, yes, but they look to have completely solved their issues above 4TB. e.g. 6TB - BB have 4 times as many Seagate drives (and nearly 4x logged time) as WDC, but more WDC drives have failed. (4.6%WDC versus 1.2%) 8TB - Annualised failure is lower than HGST (1.1% & 1.2% versus 1.7%). Nearly 25,000 Seagate drives and 150 odd failures. 10TB - 0 failures over 13,720 drive days so far 12TB - 0 failures over 500 drive days so far. Maybe I'm misreading something, but it looks from their data that the major Seagate issues have been put behind them now?

paulmd 9y ago
> Am I misreading the data (Cumulative 2013->2017) or something? Yes. Per the description, that table is only drives that remain in service as of 2017. There have been "troublesome" Seagate models that failed at such high rates that Backblaze finally just pre-emptively pulled them, and those drives are not in the "cumulative" table they show in the OP. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/ > Maybe I'm misreading something, but it looks from their data that the major Seagate issues have been put behind them now? That's what people said after the 7200.11 series. And after the 1.5 TBs shit the bed. And after the 3 TBs shit the bed. They're good for a while, then Seagate releases yet another model that shits the bed. You can actually see that in the link above. > While this particular 3TB model had a painfully high rate of failure, subsequent Seagate models such as their 4TB drive, model: ST4000DM000, are performing well with an annualized 2014 failure rate of just 2.6% as of December 31, 2014. These drives come with 3-year warranties and show no signs of hitting the wall. 2 years later they've released two new 4 TB models that fail at 50-100x the norm again.
- christoph 9y ago
  OK - thanks for backstory and information :)

ksec 9y ago

And that causes another problem. Why are all the newer, 8TB, 10TB and 12TB HDD all from Seagate?

Joeri 9y ago

If they’re always terrible why does backblaze keep buying them?

arsoon 9y ago
Backblaze has covered that a few times in their hard drive stat blogs: price. While they may have a greater failure rate percentage, the price often offsets that for Backblaze's needs. Your needs may vary.
paulmd 9y ago
To add to the other comment, it's not just price but also volume. It's easy enough for me as an individual to buy 10 Toshiba HDDs... but Backblaze would like to buy them in quantities of 10k or more (if at all possible - obviously during the Thailand Drive Crisis they had to deal in small quantities). It's a lot easier to get Seagates in large volumes than some of the other brands - Toshiba specifically is problematic, iirc HGST maybe also. Also, I didn't say Seagates were always shit. But some of their models are, and they are the only brand with these issues, and it's been a repeated problem for them over the last 10 years.