Seagate Drive failures - class action

[elsa hoffmann]

http://petapixel.com/2016/02/02/photographers-beware-seagate-slapped-with-a-class-action-suit-over-bad-hard-drives/

Seagate gets slapped with a class action suit over bad hard drives

[John Geerts]

These are huge failure rates.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

That particular 3TB drive from Seagate (ST3000DM001) has earned itself a pretty bad reputation over time. I have personal experience with these failing on me, so recommend *never* to build large RAID systems with such 3TB drives. A RAID 1 (mirror) will do though. Always purchase additional drives for spares. Each time a drive fails, buy 2 equivalent drives (replacement + new spare).

The tabulated data on the linked page is slightly puzzling - what is a failure rate of 222% ??

[PedroS]

Thay explained that if a disk is replaced by a new one under warranty, and it fails again is a twice failure... 200%, thought

[Bjørn Rørslett]

So > 200% means even some of the third disks (in  row) died? Then your backup system and RAID topology become hugely significant.

On the other hand, the metric is of dubious value, as *any* disk eventually fail. Thus seen over a long enough time span, the "failure" rate will go to infinity ....

[Akira]

Appreantly the 1.5GB HDDs are more prone to fail.  I wonder if a 3TB HDD uses two of those sloppy 1.5G platters?

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Currently I have more than 100 drives of the Seagate 2 TB model up and running and they behave very well.

[Jørgen Ramskov]

Backblaze posts some interesting harddrive statistics and does it regularly: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

[Akira]

Currently I have more than 100 drives of the Seagate 2 TB model up and running and they behave very well.

Yes, that's why I thought the 1.5TB platter was a dog.

Jørgen, thanks for the useful link.

[Akira]

I've learned that Seagate drives had failed on two of my friends. 

Another fried of mine who is system engineer says that Seagate drives have in general been crap.  I'll keep that in mind.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The "crap" designation has over time been applied to drives from all makers I'm afraid. IBM/Hitachi for example had a series named 'Deskstar' that pretty soon was nicknamed 'Deathstar'. I can attest to the nickname being highly apt. Western Digital and Samsung to mention two other big makers have had poor products as well.

One simply has to acknowledge the fact that any disk drive, be it HDD or SSD, from any maker, has limited longevity.

[JBPhoto]

I currently have two of the Seagate ST31500341AS 1.5 GB drives, not mission critical but I wouldn't want to lose the data. One is online the other is a copy drive of that online one. So far they are running and get tested regularly via Disk First Aid, Disk Warrior and Onyx.

I gave up on RAID a few years ago when I had a spate of WD drives fail, they were RAID drives too. The problem with getting a matching drive kept my RAID in jeopardy. I now use Carbon Copy Cloner on a copy daily schedule to make back ups. Then if I want to change the size of one drive, no problem. After a shoot I do an immediate backup by clicking one button.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The question of matching drives is precisely why one has to plan ahead and buy a stack of extra drives in the first place. I keep at least 20 drives as spares at any time and always ensure there are matching replacements for my RAID arrays. Plus base them on the same size of drive if possible. Consider it an insurance premium.

[JBPhoto]

Yeah I knew that going in but at the time drive capacity was not where I wanted it and rather than building a huge array I bailed on RAID and use what ever drives are current and big enough for my needs. Thunderbolt 2 is now my connection method and OWC make some nice drive arrays in that format. I also employ a toaster to pop in a drive to back up files and take off-site.

[Seapy]

This is not a new problem.  In my researches for the Commemorative Plant Names book I have come across numerous botanists and researchers who have lost 'life works' and expedition notes and drawings (pre photography) to fire and shipwreck, some are sad tales, sometimes the notes and drawings were passed to others for safe keeping (backup?) but still they were lost.  Large consignments of plants and seeds lost to shipwreck and sometimes frost.

Just trying to add perspective...