Seagate Hard disks

Rik · Mar 10, 2009, 17:33:06

Recent ones, at least.

Ray · Mar 10, 2009, 19:20:31

I think you could be right, Sebby this is the second one I've had problems with in the last few months.

Rik · Mar 10, 2009, 19:23:44

We can't do without them, but when they are a pain, they are a real pain. Am I talking about computers or women?

Ray · Mar 10, 2009, 19:26:33

Quote from: Rik on Mar 10, 2009, 19:23:44
We can't do without them, but when they are a pain, they are a real pain. Am I talking about computers or women?

Both?

Rik · Mar 10, 2009, 19:29:36

Make room for me, Ray.

Ray · Mar 10, 2009, 19:32:20

Quote from: Rik on Mar 10, 2009, 19:29:36
Make room for me, Ray.

NP, Rik.

BrianM · Mar 10, 2009, 19:40:04

I'll bring you both

every Sunday,

Glenn · Mar 10, 2009, 19:44:05

I've had no issues so far with my 2 750Gb Samsung drives fitted into my WHS Ray, hopefully Samsung will do the same for you.

Steve · Mar 10, 2009, 19:48:23

Quote from: Rik on Mar 10, 2009, 19:23:44
We can't do without them, but when they are a pain, they are a real pain. Am I talking about computers or women?

At least you can re-format a hard drive

Sebby · Mar 10, 2009, 22:11:30

Ray · Mar 10, 2009, 22:33:36

Steve.

Steve · Mar 11, 2009, 08:22:54

Alas my fingers have been broken on both hands. Not that it will help you this time Ray but have you installed system restore on the WHS. I have it enabled for the system partition but not had to use it yet.

Ray · Mar 11, 2009, 08:46:45

Quote from: stevethegas on Mar 11, 2009, 08:22:54
Alas my fingers have been broken on both hands. Not that it will help you this time Ray but have you installed system restore on the WHS. I have it enabled for the system partition but not had to use it yet.

I haven't yet, Steve, but I am just looking at doing so while the disk is still working, I am currently removing the recently purchased Samsung 1TB disk from the storage pool with a view to using it as the system disk if/when the Seagate one fails.

Steve · Mar 11, 2009, 09:59:17

The WHS has a habit of leaving the disk with the system partition on alone for data purposes so you could be wasting a lot of disk space. There is an addin somewhere that enables you to manually balance the data across the drive pool. Not sure how effective it is as I would expect the whs disk migrator to do the opposite again.

Ray · Mar 11, 2009, 11:01:31

Quote from: stevethegas on Mar 11, 2009, 09:59:17
The WHS has a habit of leaving the disk with the system partition on alone for data purposes so you could be wasting a lot of disk space. There is an addin somewhere that enables you to manually balance the data across the drive pool. Not sure how effective it is as I would expect the whs disk migrator to do the opposite again.

Good point, Steve, I think I'm going to get a 250GB Samsung for the system disk now and order another 1TB drive later, then I can ditch another one of the Seagate drives and that would leave me with only 1 Seagate drive in the server.

Edit: 250GB Samsung Spinpoint now on order from Novatech.

esh · Mar 11, 2009, 17:02:16

Well I've not had any problems with Seagate drives of recent, but I don't own many.

I've had 5 Western Digital drives die, a Samsung, 2 Maxtors, an IBM, and a Quantum (they were bought out by someone, I forget who). All the WDC drives that died were the motors though, not the actual media themselves curiously. One of the motors in a 5 year old WDC drive started grinding on start the other day -- putting it in the fridge for 20 minutes let it boot up to do one last backup at least.

Don't ask why that works. But it has done repeatedly for me now. I RAID every system I build now anyway.

Ray · Mar 11, 2009, 19:19:03

I would have agreed with you, Esh, until recently I've not had any problems with them but this is the second one of this particular model that has failed or had problems in the last 3 or 4 months. I think Seagate have had some quality control problems with some of their recent models over the last year or so (both my faulty ones are around a year old) together with the buggy firmware. The only other make that I've ever had fail on me was one of the IBM now Hitachi Deathstars (sorry Deskstars), never had a problem with Maxtor, Samsung or WDs either.

Simon · Mar 11, 2009, 22:01:36

I've got an IBM in my old machine, which had been going strong for about 5 years, so, personally, I would have recommended them.

Ray · Mar 11, 2009, 22:46:24

Quote from: Simon on Mar 11, 2009, 22:01:36
I've got an IBM in my old machine, which had been going strong for about 5 years, so, personally, I would have recommended them.

You must have been lucky and got a good one, Simon, the Deskstar range had a quite a reputation for failure see here for more details.

Simon · Mar 11, 2009, 22:55:38

I don't know whether it was an original IBM, or a Hitachi, but as you say, I guess I must have been lucky, Ray.

Sebby · Mar 11, 2009, 22:56:09

Indeed. They are referred to as Deathstars!

Rik · Mar 11, 2009, 23:10:55

TBH, I've heard bad stories about WDs and Maxtors too - I guess every manufacturer hits bad patches.

Lance · Mar 11, 2009, 23:12:00

Or even bad sectors!

Rik · Mar 11, 2009, 23:13:49

zappaDPJ · Mar 11, 2009, 23:14:15

I remember the IBM 'Deathstar' all too well. I built and sold rather a large number of PCs most of which contained up to four of those devices running as RAID Arrays. The failure rate was horrendous, approaching 50% and I had to recall the lot and fit alternative drives.

I've never had a single Seagate drive fail, they were what we used before the IBM drives but I've not bought any for a number of years now.

These days I tend to buy Samsung as they are fast, cool, quiet and have proved reliable so far.