Seagate's Failure Rate a Cause for Concern.

[FootLoose]

I was concerned to read this report about Seagate's high failure rate, even though it appears to mainly affect one particular product, and there may be some problems with the stats, too. All my backup drives are Seagate so I was wondering what other people use and what they like about them.

https://www.slrlounge.com/seagate-fa...eid=983c58ad91

[Shadowman]

Unfortunately they all fail at some point, I think I had the longest luck with Seagate (only had one out of five drives-mostly Toshiba and WD).

[NorthernFocus]

Well that's disconcerting. I use one of the devices noted, the 3TB Backup Plus HDD. I have redundant copies of everything on it but it would be rather annoying if it failed. I use it more as temporary bulk storage than as backup. It is now several years old so I'm living on borrowed time with it.

Thanks for posting this.

[tao2]

Ah have a Seagate 500 gb hard drive. Bought in 2008. Used it solidly as a main drive then as a secondary drive 'til a coupla years ago. It's still used as a tertiary backup for document/photos/program files/apps and various software.

My CrystalDiskInfo tells me it's still 98% and gets a Health Status "Good" rating in the torture test. Life's too short..... etc.

[IzzieK]

Most of my storage drives are Seagates apart from my laptop which is a Samsung SSD. I have never have any failures so far. All of them apart from one Seagate image storage drive connected to my laptop are in storage and once in a while I connect it to my computer to find an image and it is still working...

The lawsuits are restricted to only one place, but then it can be any place here in America. They have a common terminology here in the US -- Sue me! -- which I sometimes hear from my husband when he wronged or when someone wronged out kids. (Sorry Americans, but this is true...)

[Manfred M]

Unless you have that specific model, I really would not get too concerned. These types of issues tend to be model specific and can even be production lot specific (substandard components from a subcontractor, production issues, etc.)

You might want to read an associated article that SLR Lounge links to, which nicely debunks it:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sea...l#xtor=RSS-100

I bought a 3TB Western Digital portable drive as a backup about a month ago. It died within two weeks and I will get a RMA out to WD as soon as I get home again so that it is replaced. These things happen and every HDD and SSD will eventually fail.

No big deal, unless you haven't backed up your data adequately. I'm always surprised by people who worry about being able to read their raw files in 20 years who store all their images on a laptop, that can get lost or stolen as well as have the HDD fail. Go figure....

[Steaphany]

I have retired from mechanical drives for long term storage.

For works still in progress, I use Samsung's Portable SSD T3 drives and for long term archival storage I write finished files to M-DISCs

[DanK]

I have retired from mechanical drives for long term storage.

For works still in progress, I use Samsung's Portable SSD T3 drives and for long term archival storage I write finished files to M-DISCs

I haven't seen the T3, but the T1 is very expensive. My intermediate backup is a Seagate 2 TB external drive. 2TB of storage from T1s would cost 8x as much (at Amazon).

[Abitconfused]

I do not trust external hard disk enclosures as suitable for long term use. These are typically USB connected and what controls spin or spin down? I build computers using obscenely large Corsair cases and equip them with 2TB or 5TB drives. I also use Corsair 1200 watt power supplies that cost almost as much as new computers I see at big box stores. So voltage to my hard drives is stable, very stable. What manages voltage fluctuation in an external enclosure? What incentive is there to place a superior hard drive in a shiny brushed aluminum external case? None. I only buy hard drives with a five year warrantee (WD black). I turn on my system when I am using it and turn it off at the end of the day. I have been consistent about the above for twenty six years. I have had one hard disk failure.

[NorthernFocus]

I do not trust external hard disk enclosures as suitable for long term use. These are typically USB connected and what controls spin or spin down? I build computers using obscenely large Corsair cases and equip them with 2TB or 5TB drives. I also use Corsair 1200 watt power supplies that cost almost as much as new computers I see at big box stores. So voltage to my hard drives is stable, very stable. What manages voltage fluctuation in an external enclosure? What incentive is there to place a superior hard drive in a shiny brushed aluminum external case? None. I only buy hard drives with a five year warrantee (WD black). I turn on my system when I am using it and turn it off at the end of the day. I have been consistent about the above for twenty six years. I have had one hard disk failure.

That's good info, Ed. On the other hand I've done none of the above(consistently) and have also only had one HD failure over a similar timeframe. Yet the first SSD that I owned(in a laptop) failed within two years. Go figure.

Reliability is an interesting thing that's understood by very few people. Thankfully so because it provided me with a lucrative career. There are various approaches to reliability assurance. There's the proverbial "gold plated" method (e.g. Ed's method described above), there's redundancy (as argued eloquently by various CIC members), and there's even gold plated redundancy. Every method is right until it's not, and every method is wrong if it ever lets you down, even once.

No hardware is free from risk of failure. Which is why redundant systems are almost universally accepted as the method of reliability assurance. For the topic at hand redundancy is cheap in the form of external HDs. Is it optimum? Maybe not theoretically but it is affordable and easily understood and managed by common folk. But as with any system, therein lies the rub. The human factor. In my professional experience there is a human factor in nearly all cases when redundant systems fail.

Getting back to the topic of the OP, as Manfred pointed out, who knows what's behind the numbers or whether they are even meaningful. From a practical standpoint, yeah I won't by one of the two models mentioned. But is it an indictment on all Seagate products? No. Will I stop using the 3TB Backup Plus that I already own? No, but I'll make sure that any data on it is backed up elsewhere.

[Steaphany]

Remember, failure is not the only problem that can effect long term archival of your files. Technological obsolescence can render even the most robust storage media technology as useless and if it suffered a failure.

[NorthernFocus]

After reading the article linked by Manfred, it sounds unlikely that there's a technical/reliability issue at all. It's simply a legal "opportunity" for someone.

[mknittle]

Most of my storage drives are Seagates apart from my laptop which is a Samsung SSD. I have never have any failures so far. All of them apart from one Seagate image storage drive connected to my laptop are in storage and once in a while I connect it to my computer to find an image and it is still working...

The lawsuits are restricted to only one place, but then it can be any place here in America. They have a common terminology here in the US -- Sue me! -- which I sometimes hear from my husband when he wronged or when someone wronged out kids. (Sorry Americans, but this is true...)

I once had a neighbor that thought suing was a career choice. Glad he is gone!

[Abitconfused]

Yes, a class action will net the trial layers most all of the "rewards" but do occasionally result in some substantive change. Here in the U. S. a company had better have liability insurance of 12,000,000$ if they hire delivery drivers. I saw one jury decision for that amount because the jury believed the company should have known its driver, shorn over a pedestrian, was a drinker. All this is enough to drive you to drink!