Seagate 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST31000340AS by Seagate
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Digital camera reviews of Seagate 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST31000340AS
Digital camera Review: Hopefully it doesn't die on me... Update: One down, one to go.
Summary: 3 Stars
I got two of these for Christmas (for a software RAID) and immediately knew that something was off. The BIOS took a while to scan one of the SATA ports and eventually failed, unable to find a drive. "Great, DOA" I thought.. After a few reboots, the system did find the drive, but it also said there was a SMART failure. smartmontools showed a failing drive with a Spin_Retry_Count of 54, along with a number of concerning values on other attributes, and the drive was unable to pass short self-tests. Oddly enough, long self-tests passed. After some research, I booted the SeaTools CD and did a low level format, then rebooted. The drive passed the SMART check in the BIOS and short self-tests as well.
Seagate's phone support, while fairly nice, wasn't particularly helpful. I was regularly put on hold over the course of a 45 minute call as they conferred with coworkers. I would have liked to get some answers on values of several SMART attributes, especially the high spin retry, but they didn't have any. In the end, they said that if the drive passed self-tests, it was good to go.
It's been a few weeks now, and although the Spin_Retry_Count has increased by 2 on both and other attributes are fluctuating daily, the drives appear to be functioning normally. Hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
*Update* 01/30/2009: The drive with the high spin retry just died on me. It doesn't appear to be the bricking problem reported by so many, supposedly fixed by the SD1A firmware (which both drives were flashed to), just a regular old drive failure. Against my better judgment, I assembled a raid5 using these and a new 1TB WD Caviar Black, when uncorrectable sectors started to appear, *just* as I was finishing the file restoration. A few minutes later smartmontools reported a failing drive and mdadm pulled it. Hopefully the remaining Seagate drive holds up until I can get a second WD Black in.
This was the first time I've used something other than WD for my main system drives, and it's been a terrible experience. Sure, every manufacturer produces drives that fail at one time or another, but this combined with my initial problems and their firmware fiasco has scared me away. I definitely won't be buying Seagate again anytime soon, and I suggest you steer clear of their 1 and 1.5TB (AS) models, for now.
Digital camera Review: I will NEVER Buy another Seagate Hard drive
Summary: 1 Stars
I will never buy another Seagate internal hard drive memory ever again. In the past, I have purchased about five of these internal drives and in the end I've had to RMA two back to the manufacturer and now I have another one that I need to send back because it has failed, to be more specific I have differing numbers of the barracuda series 7200.10, 7200.11, either the 750 GB or 1 TB sizes and I haven't seen any trend in which ones fail and which ones don't, but I'm not very impressed with any of them. I must admit that Seagate customer service is usually very good and they are very quick to replace my old drive, but they replace it with a certified repaired HDD. Regardless of the fact that Seagate replaces the drive, there is no way that they can recover the information on the drive and unless I have backed it up, I have lost the information forever. There is nothing more frustrating than having to think about whether or not you have backed up your music files or your important family pictures.
I guess I never really thought that there was a difference amongst the different hard drive manufacturers, and I hate to pick on just one manufacturer, but all of the problems and failed drives that I have had in the past have been Seagate. Don't get me wrong, when you first get to drive, they run great, they are fast and quiet and they do exactly what they are supposed to do, but after several months of use and as the drive becomes more filled with your important information, it becomes extremely frustrating when you start hearing the ticking sound since that is probably the first indication and that is when you know that the drive is starting to fail and that you have only a short amount of time before you have to back up all of your data before you lose it.
In the past, I've usually purchased storage drives based on whichever one was on sale or was the bargain at the time I needed to add to my storage, but from now on I will take into consideration the name brand as I have now vowed to never purchase another Seagate hard drive. I must admit that Seagate usually had the best price, therefore I usually ended up with more of them in the past, but I have also have purchased Western Digital, Hitachi and now Samsung. I've never had such problems with any of my other big, 1 TB, storage drives which brings me to the conclusion that it must be the manufacturing of the drive and the poor quality inspection as well as the inferior work mention of the drive and that is the reason why it fails.
I've noticed that filling my storage drives close to 750 GB increases the likelihood that it will begin to act strangely, and if the drive is going to fail then that is usually when I begin hearing that infuriating ticking sound which only gives me a little time to "backup" my information. This experience has now made me paranoid so I backup and backup my backups so don't lose any information.
Digital camera Review: I wouldn't buy anything else
Summary: 5 Stars
Seagate has always been my go-to brand for drives. A smarter friend of mine recommended them and I've been mostly successful buying only Seagate. I do have a few Western Digital drives (I always buy their externals because I'm a sucker for their design, but I've owned a few internals as well) and the Seagate drives have ultimately been more reliable.
I only have three of these drives, which seems like a lot when I write it here but it isn't. I mean, you have to use more than just one of the drives to get a feel for the quality because it's not uncommon to get a dud. I have yet to get a bad Seagate drive, but I've certainly seen some unhappy first-time customers who ended up with a dud and paid the $20 for Seagate's immediate replacement plan. They always seem to think it's a rip off.
Well, if I got a DOA drive I wouldn't want to pay $20 more just to have a quick replacement, but if you have a drive that dies later in its life--any time within their 5 year warranty--Seagate will replace it free of charge. If you want to pay the extra $20 to have an immediate replacement then it's a very nice option to have. If you're not backing up your computer and/or do not have any redundancy in your setup, that $20 option can make your life a lot easier if your drive dies. In my case, I used these in a Drobo so if one dies I'm okay and can wait until the replacement comes. I generally keep an extra drive around the house for when one of the drives inevitably fails.
You're going to, at some point, have a drive that dies. I've been very lucky in that I've only had one hard drive die on me in my entire life (aside from a DOA Maxtor drive I got in a Lacie external Porsche drive many years ago). That one drive was a Seagate 500GB drive. It died after two years of life and was one of the seventeen 500GB drives I bought from Seagate. It was in a RAID 5 array and I just swapped it out with another--no harm done. The others are still fully functional and in, at least, their third year. While I trusted my friend, I wasn't fully sold on the Seagate brand until having such reliability proven to me through use.
So far the three 1TB Seagate drives I'm using have performed very well. They're fast, they're so far reliable, and I've had no issues whatsoever with them. They work great in the Drobo (the newer model with FW800) and are safely archiving my data so the only thing I have to worry about is a natural disaster (or the unlikely occurrence that I lose two drives at the exact same time).
It's a hard drive so there's only so much I can say about it. I trust Seagate to continue manufacturing quality products. My experience has been very good with them and many of their drives. These 1TB drives are doing their job very well. Seagate's had a chance to refine their 1TB model and with prices as low as they are, I think it's a good time to adopt the 1TB drive over the 500GB drive. Overall, highly recommended.
Digital camera Review: It just keeps on reading and writing
Summary: 5 Stars
Good product; reasonably priced
I installed this drive in a HP Media Vault and expect it to still be running in five years when the warranty expires.
Digital camera Review: Junk Drive
Summary: 2 Stars
Worked fine for 2 months before it crashed. I think this is a sign of poor quality. I've never had a drive die so soon. DOA would have been better. One hundred dollars and a lot of time down the drain. I'll pass on trying another. Don't care to chance having another crash soon after getting all my software setup again. Better make sure to backup your files regularly with this drive.