WARNING drives Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB drives!!!!

[fhunter]

My orginal mp3 files alone are just over 8gb and that is not including my picture colection plus other stuff. Plus I am always concerned about what such companies do with the information they are storing.

Adrive.com gives you 50Gb for free, but requires you to use their client. Or gives ftp access and ssl if you pay them. It's about 70$ a year.

And if you are worried about privacy of you files - just crypt them with something like PGP/gnuPG before backing them up. And put you private key somewhere in a safe place.

[IbPervert (imported)]

Just to keep you all informed...I talked to Seagate tech support and they said, "a small percentage" of these drives have the problem. This left me asking myself, "What is a small percentage?" I was referred to another Seagate owned company, and they payed for shipping (over night). This place said they have had a high success rate at fixing the drives (with implication of all the data will be fine). Turn around time they said is typically four to five days. However, I am going to be away from home for the next 16 days so I wont know about the data tell I get back.

Have talked to a number of people I know about this and so far very few have heard about the problem, and those that have purchased one of the drives are physically pulling the drives out to see which version they have. I think this sort of problem should have been picked up by one of the news agencies or something. Will post the results of my returned drive when I get back.

[bobover3 (imported)]

Mozy offers *unlimited* back-up for $4.95 per month.

"Cloud computing" - using computers in the network instead of at home - is the wave of the future. It will be cheaper and better for most people. No worries about the adequacy or maintenance or capacity of hardware or software. Yes, there's an unavoidable security risk, but what do you really think anyone would want to do with your personal files? You could still keep your child pornography and criminal plots on your own machine.

Take a look at acrobat.com for a nice free example.

[curious_guy (imported)]

The serial number on my drive doesn't show up as one manufactured by Seagate. It shows up on the drive itself and has a seagate seal on it and since no one else makes a 1.5tb drive, I can only assume it has to be a seagate and not a forgery. None the less, if I ever need to make a warranty claim over the next 5 years I'll probably have trouble with seagate.

The drive you bought could be a Seagate 500 gig (or smaller) drive that has been reprogrammed to "pretend" to be a 1.5 tb drive. (That is what the thieves do with flash memory.) You will not be able to tell until you fill it up completely and then check to see if all the data is readable.

[micropenis (imported)]

Thank you for the warning. I subscribe to several PC publications/Newsletters and had not read anything on this problem.

I use a two phase back-up method. The first is a Microsoft utility called Robocopy GUI. It copies selected files and folders to an external hard drive and can be set to do it continually while my computer is on. You must start it manually when you boot, but then it copies everything in My Documents folder until I shut down.

Next I have an external hard drive that I use to clone my computer's hard drive. It copies the operating system along with settings and all files/folders. EVERTHING! I connect it weekly and repeat the cloning. If my hard drive crashes I can replace it, then boot from a boot disc (created with my cloning software) then update from my other external drive. I keep this in a fireproof safe. If my house goes up in flames, I would only loose what I had saved since my last cloning.

Both pieces of software are easy to use. Robocopy is free. Active Disc Image can be bought for $39.95. The URLs are as follows:

Robocopy

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/maga ... light.aspx

Active Disk Image

http://www.disk-image.net/

You can't be too careful.

[curious_guy (imported)]

Then again, the affected drives must be what Seagate is using themselves to keep track of inventory. The serial number on my drive doesn't show up as one manufactured by Seagate. It shows up on the drive itself and has a seagate seal on it and since no one else makes a 1.5tb drive, I can only assume it has to be a seagate and not a forgery. None the less, if I ever need to make a warranty claim over the next 5 years I'll probably have trouble with seagate.

I just did some searching on Price Watch.

http://search.pricewatch.com/hard_remov ... .5tb-0.htm

About half the vendors say that Seagate 1.5 tb drives have a five year warranty and the other half say that they have a three year warranty. The advertisements list the same part number.

Also, there are some Western Digital 1.5 tb drives listed. They are about thirty dollars more than the Seagate 1.5 tb drives.

I once bought and returned a 300 gig drive on eBay that had only a one year warranty because it had been removed from an external enclosure.

[twaddler (imported)]

"

I think this sort of problem should have been picked up by one of the news agencies or something.

"

Slashdot kept up with the story for a while.

[Prudence (imported)]

You can check your Drive on Seagate's website, and download a Firmware Update from them if necessary. Unfortunately, you will need to get the Hard Drive out of the chassis (OR, get it to a place where you can see the label -- I suggest taking a picture of it with a cell phone camera or digital camera). Once you have the Serial Number (or can see the label), go to: http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/s ... cId=207931

OR, if that don't work, go to: www.seagate.com

Then click SUPPORT

Then DOWNLOADS

Then "Firmware Recommendations for Barracuda 7200.11, ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22 Drives".

Once you are at this Web Page, follow the instructions (at the bottom you will click either "Click here to use the model number check utility" or "Click here to use the serial number check utility").

We've got 7 of these Seagate 1 TB drives at work, purchased between August 2008 and February 2009. Fortunately, none of ours have had the bad Firmware (all of ours have Firmware Versions "SN04" or "SN05")... HOWEVER, 3 of our 7 have gone bad. After working fine several times, one day it powers up with the infamous "Click of Death"... Each time this happened, the Drive was replaced under warranty without issue. But the data was lost. Fortunately these all came out of RAID1 or RAID5 arrays so this wasn't a big deal -- I seriously dodged a few bullets (or shoes) there...!

All 3 of the Drives that failed were "Made in China". The 4 that kept on working (and are still working) are "Made in Thailand". Coincindence? I think not!! From now on if I ever get any more new Drives "Made in China" I'm sending them back un-opened. Not taking any more chances.

Fortunately for Seagate, all three of the Warranty Returned Drives were "Made in Thailand" (because I would have called them back and raised hell if I got replacement Drives that were "Made in China").

This has really tarnished Seagate's reputation in our eyes, and we will almost certainly buy Western Digital Drives next time... What good is a 5 year warranty (from Seagate) if you have to spend time replacing your Drives and rebuilding a RAID Array every 2 months?!?! I'll gladly pay the extra $30 or more (for Western Digital) if I can get Drives that will actually keep working reliably.

[curious_guy (imported)]

This has really tarnished Seagate's reputation in our eyes, and we will almost certainly buy Western Digital Drives next time... What good is a 5 year warranty (from Seagate) if you have to spend time replacing your Drives and rebuilding a RAID Array every 2 months?!?! I'll gladly pay the extra $30 or more (for Western Digital) if I can get Drives that will actually keep working reliably.

Seagate drives made on 1/3/09 or later

have a three year warranty.

The consensus on comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage is that Samsung drives are the most reliable at this time. Unfortunately, they do not yet sell a 1.5 TB drive.

[curious_guy (imported)]

The consensus on comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage is that Samsung drives are the most reliable at this time. Unfortunately, they do not yet sell a 1.5 TB drive.

I just found a press release on the Samsung web site dated 3/5/09. It says that they are now selling 1.5 TB drives. In a few weeks they should show up on PriceWatch.

http://www.samsung.com/us/business/semi ... ews_id=986