Seagate 1TB Hard drive failure - Heads up

rat156 · #1 14-05-2009, 02:53 PM

Hi All,

After having one of my drives stop working yesterday I've researched the problem a bit more.

Apparently I'm not alone.

So if you have a Seagate 1Tb HDD in your computer there is a firmware update that should stop the problem occuring.

More information here

Cheers
Stuart

Sentinel · #2 14-05-2009, 03:41 PM

My 500Gb Seagate Barracuda stopped working last week as well. Less than 1 year old. BIOS could not find the drive.

No Data loss...it was in a Windows Home Server storage pool.

Replaced the drive immediately with a Western Digital R3 Server Drive. A new drive is also coming from the supplier that sold me the Seagate.

acropolite (Phil) · #3 14-05-2009, 08:08 PM

Interesting, thanks Stuart, I had a 500Gb Seagate sATA drive fail a few weeks after install, seems that it is just one of several affected. My current primary drive is one of the affected versions. I'll download the firmware and update my drives.

rat156 · #4 14-05-2009, 11:09 PM

Thanks to Mac OSX and Apple Time machine, I didn't lose a thing, except for the time taken to restore the Tb volume.

Yay!!!

Go Apple!!

I also noticed that the backup software has got a copy of the Windows hard drive and both other drives I have in the machine. I feel very safe now, the only drive I have to worry about now is the external backup drive.

Yet another reason to buy a Mac!

Cheers from a very relieved
Stuart

dpastern (Dave Pastern) · #5 15-05-2009, 08:30 AM

I'm not a fan of these larger drives - larger drives means more platters, more closely spaced together, which means heat and friction become major issues. Hard drive quality started nosediving seriously when drives got larger than 80gb.

This reminds me that I need to pull my WD 500GB drive that's faulty (and pretty much has been since a week after I bought it, about a year ago rofl, gee I'm lazy!!!) out of my raid 1 setup...Still leaves me with plenty of room ;-)

Dave

toryglen-boy (Duncan) · #6 15-05-2009, 03:10 PM

i hear lots of stuff from people saying "avoid this drive, or this make of drive" and TBH, i have not found any that borked more than the other, that is, i have never found any really bad make.

WD drives tend to sound like the head has fallen off the platter, and is banging against something.

Seagate drives can sometimes make a loud click before jumping into operation, and i remember Fujitsi and Samsung drives making a loud whine. the bes thing to extend the life of drives, is cooling. I have a 12 cm fan that moves about 22CFM of air at 17dba over a raid array, and my drives seem ok, they never get over about 42 degs.

so, there you go, there are no trully 'bad' drives. its just a lottery

kinetic (Steve) · #7 15-05-2009, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sentinel

My 500Gb Seagate Barracuda stopped working last week as well. Less than 1 year old. BIOS could not find the drive.

No Data loss...it was in a Windows Home Server storage pool.

Sorry for the OT post, but this post reminded me of a question that was nagging me a while back....

If I have a 5-way switch sharing my Broadband Wired LAN in my
house and other PCs show up and allow file sharing...
can I use the drives on another PC as the destination for
a system backup of the main PC?

Steve

acropolite (Phil) · #8 15-05-2009, 07:10 PM

I have to agree with Duncan re the reliability thing, all brands have their moments, this years reliable drive is often next years dud.

As for reliability of larger drives I have a couple of 300Gb drives that are over 3 years old and still going strong.

turbo_pascale (Rob) · #9 15-05-2009, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kinetic

Sorry for the OT post, but this post reminded me of a question that was nagging me a while back....

If I have a 5-way switch sharing my Broadband Wired LAN in my
house and other PCs show up and allow file sharing...
can I use the drives on another PC as the destination for
a system backup of the main PC?

Steve

Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: depending on your switch, assuming it is has a 100Mbit port, and depending on how much you want to backup, it could be awfully slow. You also want to use a proper backup program to do this, not just "copy" the files across unless you want to monitor it for messages etc.

I prefer some sort of external backup hard drive enclosure for home. Something you can switch off readily so it doesn't have to be on all the time.

spearo (Frank) · #10 16-05-2009, 07:33 AM

I have a Maxtor external that has been on continually for about 3 years now...never missed a beat
frank

Zaps · #11 17-05-2009, 08:28 PM

The newer large drives, aside from being far more value than old, small drves, also have greater reliability stats on average, hence the long warranties manufacturers are willing to offer now. (Unlike the bad old days of $600 100MB hdds with worthless short term warranties, and which were like Russian roulette.)

Yes, Seagate drives have had a firmware issue recently (this has been old news for a few months now), but very rapidly released a fix and honoured any-and-all warranty claims.

kinetic (Steve) · #12 17-05-2009, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by turbo_pascale

Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: depending on your switch, assuming it is has a 100Mbit port, and depending on how much you want to backup, it could be awfully slow. You also want to use a proper backup program to do this, not just "copy" the files across unless you want to monitor it for messages etc.

I prefer some sort of external backup hard drive enclosure for home. Something you can switch off readily so it doesn't have to be on all the time.

Thanks Rob!

Steve

leon · #13 17-05-2009, 09:28 PM

Have to agree spero, I have Maxtor externals, on both desktops and they are on continually, for the last two and a half years now and there has never been a problem.

Leon