ANOTHER seagate drive failure! Now 4 drives replaced! - GoFuckYourself.com

rowan · 04-19-2007, 01:57 PM

A little more than a month after a previous failure, yet another drive has failed.

I've now had...

* 1 drive DOA - replaced
* 1 drive failed within 24 hours - replaced
* 1 drive failed with bad sectors last month - replaced
* 1 drive failed with bad sectors yesterday - will be replaced

This brings the total to 4 failed drives out of 8 (once it's replaced). In other words, out of my original purchase of 4, all have needed to be replaced. A 100% failure rate!!!!!

More fucking around with RMAs, finding suitable packaging, paying postage, and waiting for the replacement while my system chugs along with a degraded array...

I am SO glad I chose to set up RAID, at least there has been no data loss and I can continue using the PC in the meantime (although I'll be taking it easy, and doing more regular backups)

For those curious about cooling and power, I don't think it's that... I'm using a Coolermaster Stacker with fan cooled bays, and a 500W PSU. The hardware configuration has been static for over a year so I'm at a loss to explain the most recent two failures. Maybe I should have just returned the lot after the first two failures.

woj · 04-19-2007, 01:59 PM

ouch, that sucks man :-/

Phil · 04-19-2007, 02:00 PM

fuck seagate. my 200GIG backup crashed 2 weeks ago. I'm still trying to recover shit off that Baracuda drive with Kernel software

rowan · 04-19-2007, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CAMOKAT

fuck seagate. my 200GIG backup crashed 2 weeks ago. I'm still trying to recover shit off that Baracuda drive with Kernel software

...if it's a backup then why do you need to recover data?...

Phil21 · 04-19-2007, 02:18 PM

sometimes you simply get unlucky, unfortunately. Many more failures however, and I'd start to take a look at your environment. Your failure rate definitely falls outside of the curve a tad

In a hosting operation, we have thousands of Seagate drives in production. We also have thousands of Maxtor drives previously deployed in production before our wholesale switch to Seagate. Maxtor has a somewhat higher historical failure rate than our Seagate drives in production - but in the end it's pretty close. The factor in choosing Seagate (before the maxtor was bought) was due to both the 5 year warranty vs. 1 year, and the fact that Seagate tended to be on the upper end of the performance and technology curve.

Seagate has been great in our book, lower than "average" failure rate, and RMA procedures that are simple to do bulk returns with. Hard drives should always be treated as something that is about to fail - as that is exactly what they are.

I also strongly urge keeping a spare disk around for your array

A drive is much more likely to fail during the rebuild process, as that is when they are the most stressed. When you get into 15+ disk arrays, you start to see interesting mathematical probability issues - such as uncorrectable error rate per million sector reads. Doing the math someday can be a pretty wide eye opener.

Ah well, good luck!

rowan · 04-19-2007, 02:47 PM

If I had known that 4 drives were going to fail within 18 months I would have purchased a fifth drive as a spare.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to buy the same model now... and given these issues I'm not sure I'd want to.

latinasojourn · 04-19-2007, 03:29 PM

sounds like an outside variable.

don't think it's HDs per se.

check easy stuff first, overheating, bad fan(s), line surges, line spikes, other conditions on same household circuit (like air cond cycling on and off).

good luck.

BitAudioVideo · 04-19-2007, 03:33 PM

ive had a bunch of seagates arrive DOA or die within the first 5 minutes.. but i have yet to have one fail after that point (knock wood) - probably have 60 seagates between 250 and 750gb

digifan · 04-19-2007, 03:35 PM

Drives are sassy.. so I don't do backups at all but a few progs, installers, pics. Let it be... I am a fatalist. ;)

Phil · 04-19-2007, 03:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rowan

...if it's a backup then why do you need to recover data?...

Content was on it.

RawAlex · 04-19-2007, 03:38 PM

yeah, with that many drives failing, you really should look at the other stuff around them. Failures and bad sectors can often occur with power spikes. You might want to make sure you have a good line conditioner / power controller so that you aren't getting any AC spikes. You may also want to closely monitor things like DC power, internal case temp at the drives, etc. You may even want to install an additional fan to suck air away from the hard drives.

Sosa · 04-19-2007, 03:41 PM

We use Seagate drives in all our new computers. Rarely have one go bad

_Richard_ · 04-19-2007, 03:42 PM

wow.. that's seems fishy

Hope you figure it out

Gerco · 04-19-2007, 04:58 PM

Check the power supply. I would bet money yours is 1. underpowered for the devices your attaching to it or 2. Just plan bad. List all the devices running off the power supply and the power supplies output.

LiveDose · 04-19-2007, 04:59 PM

Sorry to hear. I've have nothing but good experiences with Seagate.

Now Western Digital... That's a whole other story.

dready · 04-19-2007, 06:24 PM

I second double checking your power supply.

SinisterStudios · 04-19-2007, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dready

I second double checking your power supply.

And i 3rd that, low voltage is one of the main reason for failures on hardware

borked · 04-19-2007, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil21

sometimes you simply get unlucky, unfortunately. Many more failures however, and I'd start to take a look at your environment. Your failure rate definitely falls outside of the curve a tad

In a hosting operation, we have thousands of Seagate drives in production. We also have thousands of Maxtor drives previously deployed in production before our wholesale switch to Seagate. Maxtor has a somewhat higher historical failure rate than our Seagate drives in production - but in the end it's pretty close. The factor in choosing Seagate (before the maxtor was bought) was due to both the 5 year warranty vs. 1 year, and the fact that Seagate tended to be on the upper end of the performance and technology curve.

Seagate has been great in our book, lower than "average" failure rate, and RMA procedures that are simple to do bulk returns with. Hard drives should always be treated as something that is about to fail - as that is exactly what they are.

I also strongly urge keeping a spare disk around for your array A drive is much more likely to fail during the rebuild process, as that is when they are the most stressed. When you get into 15+ disk arrays, you start to see interesting mathematical probability issues - such as uncorrectable error rate per million sector reads. Doing the math someday can be a pretty wide eye opener.

Ah well, good luck!

Great post

Catalyst · 04-19-2007, 11:31 PM

one of my 500 gig drives just died.. I have not even has time to pull it out of the computer yet.. but tomorrow I will pull it and see what type it is..

96ukssob · 04-20-2007, 12:27 AM

this shit makes me nervous. Ive had 2 WD drives crash, luckily (knocking on wood) ive never had a problem with Maxtor or Seagates 300GB or below.

Ive learned from my mistakes and I back up my back ups regularly. I bought a HDD case from frys for $80 and holds up to 4 HDD up to 1TB. Its easy to copy and move to the other drives

rowan · 04-20-2007, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bossku69

this shit makes me nervous. Ive had 2 WD drives crash, luckily (knocking on wood) ive never had a problem with Maxtor or Seagates 300GB or below.

Ive learned from my mistakes and I back up my back ups regularly. I bought a HDD case from frys for $80 and holds up to 4 HDD up to 1TB. Its easy to copy and move to the other drives

Are they striped, mirrored, or both? If they are just striped then the chances of data loss are actually much greater since any single drive failure will render the array unreadable.

rowan · 04-22-2007, 09:15 AM

I've replaced the 550W PSU with an 850W one. Let's hope this is the last failure.

Brad Mitchell · 04-22-2007, 10:14 AM

Phil's post is right on. You also might want to consider looking at your case and power supply. If the case isn't cooled properly that could contribute to a hard drive failure. Also, if it's a bad power supply regulating voltages that could lead to hard drive failure. Most likely, if all the drives were purchased in a lot it's probably a bad lot due to shipping - I've had that before on a lot of 10 drives I purchased once. They must have played football at UPS with it or something...
Brad

falcao · 04-22-2007, 10:35 AM

I've used and abused a LaCie drive for about a year or more and never had a problem with it.

Star 69 · 04-22-2007, 03:04 PM

Bad story. I am using Western Digital and it works fine for me.

rowan · 04-22-2007, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brad Mitchell

Phil's post is right on. You also might want to consider looking at your case and power supply. If the case isn't cooled properly that could contribute to a hard drive failure. Also, if it's a bad power supply regulating voltages that could lead to hard drive failure. Most likely, if all the drives were purchased in a lot it's probably a bad lot due to shipping - I've had that before on a lot of 10 drives I purchased once. They must have played football at UPS with it or something...

Hi Brad,

3 out of the 4 were purchased on the same day, but they were manufactured in 3 different factories (countries even). Still, it's possible they were delivered on the same truck later in their travels... or at least handled by the same "players"

In terms of cooling, they're in a full tower with a dedicated 120mm fan for each of 3 HDs (two bays in total), plus an additional 4 chassis fans. Their cases run cool to the touch.

I've (hopefully) pre-empted the next failure by replacing the PSU, see a few posts above. I have also placed the PC on a dedicated UPS. If a HD fails again after incurring these additional costs then I'll be taking it further...

D · 04-22-2007, 03:53 PM

For over 15 years, I've bought nothing but Western Digitals for my home use..

And in all that time, i've only had one drive crash on me... one.

And that one was a 420 meg after about 12 years of constant use.

I'm a loyal Western Digital and Logitech man.

Dirty Dane · 04-22-2007, 04:10 PM

Never had problems with them

TGVinny · 04-22-2007, 04:49 PM

I've never had a problem with Seagate drives. And the Seagate drives I have are their betas (Lots of Family Members that are engineers for Seagate). So long story short, I'm using Seagate HD's that have been beat to hell and I've had no problems. It has to be something else if you're going through HDs like that!!

RegUser · 04-22-2007, 06:13 PM

I had a similar problem 4 drives failed within 18 months..............the culprit Power Supply

Steve Awesome · 04-22-2007, 07:28 PM

I have something like 10 Western Digital drives and never had a problem. Drives will fail more easily if they get too much heat, so manufacturer is probably something to think about -- but the heat! Keep things cool. Your equipment will be all the better for it.

SuzzyQ · 04-23-2007, 05:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bossku69

Ive had 2 WD drives crash, luckily (knocking on wood) ive never had a problem with Maxtor or Seagates 300GB or below.

I have had the totally opposite experience. I will never buy a Maxtor again and WD's have been good to me (knock on wood).

SuzzyQ · 04-23-2007, 05:49 AM

Also,

I also have an exhaust fan on my computer, a voltage regulator and surge suppression. No spikes get to my computer. I have had the thing still on during lightning storms. The regulator chatters but, the machine never burped.

04-19-2007, 01:57 PM	#1
rowan Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 17,393	ANOTHER seagate drive failure! Now 4 drives replaced! A little more than a month after a previous failure, yet another drive has failed. I've now had... * 1 drive DOA - replaced * 1 drive failed within 24 hours - replaced * 1 drive failed with bad sectors last month - replaced * 1 drive failed with bad sectors yesterday - will be replaced This brings the total to 4 failed drives out of 8 (once it's replaced). In other words, out of my original purchase of 4, all have needed to be replaced. A 100% failure rate!!!!! More fucking around with RMAs, finding suitable packaging, paying postage, and waiting for the replacement while my system chugs along with a degraded array... I am SO glad I chose to set up RAID, at least there has been no data loss and I can continue using the PC in the meantime (although I'll be taking it easy, and doing more regular backups) For those curious about cooling and power, I don't think it's that... I'm using a Coolermaster Stacker with fan cooled bays, and a 500W PSU. The hardware configuration has been static for over a year so I'm at a loss to explain the most recent two failures. Maybe I should have just returned the lot after the first two failures.

04-19-2007, 01:59 PM	#2
woj <&(©¿©)&> Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Chicago Posts: 47,882	ouch, that sucks man :-/ __________________ Custom Software Development, email: woj#at#wojfun#.#com to discuss details or skype: wojl2000 or gchat: wojfun or telegram: wojl2000 Affiliate program tools: Hosted Galleries Manager Banner Manager Video Manager Wordpress Affiliate Plugin Pic/Movie of the Day Fansign Generator Zip Manager

04-19-2007, 02:00 PM	#3
Phil Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 7,659	fuck seagate. my 200GIG backup crashed 2 weeks ago. I'm still trying to recover shit off that Baracuda drive with Kernel software __________________ Ask Phil

04-19-2007, 02:18 PM	#5
Phil21 Confirmed User Join Date: May 2001 Location: ICQ: 25285313 Posts: 993	sometimes you simply get unlucky, unfortunately. Many more failures however, and I'd start to take a look at your environment. Your failure rate definitely falls outside of the curve a tad In a hosting operation, we have thousands of Seagate drives in production. We also have thousands of Maxtor drives previously deployed in production before our wholesale switch to Seagate. Maxtor has a somewhat higher historical failure rate than our Seagate drives in production - but in the end it's pretty close. The factor in choosing Seagate (before the maxtor was bought) was due to both the 5 year warranty vs. 1 year, and the fact that Seagate tended to be on the upper end of the performance and technology curve. Seagate has been great in our book, lower than "average" failure rate, and RMA procedures that are simple to do bulk returns with. Hard drives should always be treated as something that is about to fail - as that is exactly what they are. I also strongly urge keeping a spare disk around for your array A drive is much more likely to fail during the rebuild process, as that is when they are the most stressed. When you get into 15+ disk arrays, you start to see interesting mathematical probability issues - such as uncorrectable error rate per million sector reads. Doing the math someday can be a pretty wide eye opener. Ah well, good luck! __________________ Quality affordable hosting.

04-19-2007, 03:33 PM	#8
BitAudioVideo Confirmed User Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: USA, Georgia Posts: 1,246	ive had a bunch of seagates arrive DOA or die within the first 5 minutes.. but i have yet to have one fail after that point (knock wood) - probably have 60 seagates between 250 and 750gb __________________ Hi-Quality Encoding - Bulk Orders - On Time! http://bitaudiovideo.com icq 50476697 - aim n3r0xXx

04-19-2007, 02:47 PM	#6
rowan Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 17,393	If I had known that 4 drives were going to fail within 18 months I would have purchased a fifth drive as a spare. Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to buy the same model now... and given these issues I'm not sure I'd want to.

04-19-2007, 03:29 PM	#7
latinasojourn Confirmed User Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 3,191	sounds like an outside variable. don't think it's HDs per se. check easy stuff first, overheating, bad fan(s), line surges, line spikes, other conditions on same household circuit (like air cond cycling on and off). good luck.

04-19-2007, 03:35 PM	#9
digifan The Profiler Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: ICQ 76281726 and I'm female Posts: 14,618	Drives are sassy.. so I don't do backups at all but a few progs, installers, pics. Let it be... I am a fatalist. ;) __________________ [email protected] Webair Rocks

04-19-2007, 03:38 PM	#11
RawAlex So Fucking Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: In a house. Posts: 9,465	yeah, with that many drives failing, you really should look at the other stuff around them. Failures and bad sectors can often occur with power spikes. You might want to make sure you have a good line conditioner / power controller so that you aren't getting any AC spikes. You may also want to closely monitor things like DC power, internal case temp at the drives, etc. You may even want to install an additional fan to suck air away from the hard drives.

04-19-2007, 03:41 PM	#12
Sosa In Tushy Land Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Nebraska Posts: 40,149	We use Seagate drives in all our new computers. Rarely have one go bad

04-19-2007, 03:42 PM	#13
_Richard_ Too lazy to set a custom title Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Earth Posts: 30,989	wow.. that's seems fishy Hope you figure it out

04-19-2007, 04:58 PM	#14
Gerco Confirmed User Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 2,052	Check the power supply. I would bet money yours is 1. underpowered for the devices your attaching to it or 2. Just plan bad. List all the devices running off the power supply and the power supplies output. __________________ Http://www.extremehole.com ** CLOSED ** 400 HOURS of exclusive custom extreme content, already on external HD in Raw DV ready to encode. over 150,000 exclusive images and more.

04-19-2007, 04:59 PM	#15
LiveDose Show Yer Tits! Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Somewhere Out there... Posts: 25,792	Sorry to hear. I've have nothing but good experiences with Seagate. Now Western Digital... That's a whole other story. __________________ Scammer Alert: acer19 acer [email protected] [email protected] Money stolen using PayPal

04-19-2007, 06:24 PM	#16
dready Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Toronto, ON Posts: 5,247	I second double checking your power supply. __________________ ICQ: 91139591

04-19-2007, 11:31 PM	#19
Catalyst Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Vegas Posts: 3,243	one of my 500 gig drives just died.. I have not even has time to pull it out of the computer yet.. but tomorrow I will pull it and see what type it is..

04-20-2007, 12:27 AM	#20
96ukssob So Fucking Banananananas Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: If I was in your ass you'd know it Posts: 12,991	this shit makes me nervous. Ive had 2 WD drives crash, luckily (knocking on wood) ive never had a problem with Maxtor or Seagates 300GB or below. Ive learned from my mistakes and I back up my back ups regularly. I bought a HDD case from frys for $80 and holds up to 4 HDD up to 1TB. Its easy to copy and move to the other drives __________________ Email: Clicky on Me

04-22-2007, 09:15 AM	#22
rowan Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Australia Posts: 17,393	I've replaced the 550W PSU with an 850W one. Let's hope this is the last failure.

04-22-2007, 10:14 AM	#23
Brad Mitchell Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Southfield, MI Posts: 9,812	Phil's post is right on. You also might want to consider looking at your case and power supply. If the case isn't cooled properly that could contribute to a hard drive failure. Also, if it's a bad power supply regulating voltages that could lead to hard drive failure. Most likely, if all the drives were purchased in a lot it's probably a bad lot due to shipping - I've had that before on a lot of 10 drives I purchased once. They must have played football at UPS with it or something... Brad __________________ President at MojoHost \| brad at mojohost dot com \| Skype MojoHostBrad 71 industry awards for hosting and professional excellence since 1999

04-22-2007, 10:35 AM	#24
falcao Confirmed User Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: ICQ 176-471-850 Posts: 195	I've used and abused a LaCie drive for about a year or more and never had a problem with it. __________________ Do us both a favor and promote this, please: BrazilianFacials.com

04-22-2007, 03:04 PM	#25
Star 69 Confirmed User Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Russia Posts: 8,602	Bad story. I am using Western Digital and it works fine for me. __________________ e-mail star69

04-22-2007, 03:53 PM	#27
D Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The Valley Posts: 7,412	For over 15 years, I've bought nothing but Western Digitals for my home use.. And in all that time, i've only had one drive crash on me... one. And that one was a 420 meg after about 12 years of constant use. I'm a loyal Western Digital and Logitech man. __________________ -D. ICQ: 202-96-31

04-22-2007, 04:10 PM	#28
Dirty Dane Sick Fuck Industry Role: Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: www Posts: 9,491	Never had problems with them

04-22-2007, 04:49 PM	#29
TGVinny Confirmed User Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 269	I've never had a problem with Seagate drives. And the Seagate drives I have are their betas (Lots of Family Members that are engineers for Seagate). So long story short, I'm using Seagate HD's that have been beat to hell and I've had no problems. It has to be something else if you're going through HDs like that!! __________________ [email protected] ICQ: 384 892 827

04-22-2007, 06:13 PM	#30
RegUser Confirmed User Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,472	I had a similar problem 4 drives failed within 18 months..............the culprit Power Supply

04-22-2007, 07:28 PM	#31
Steve Awesome Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Mid-West! Posts: 1,575	I have something like 10 Western Digital drives and never had a problem. Drives will fail more easily if they get too much heat, so manufacturer is probably something to think about -- but the heat! Keep things cool. Your equipment will be all the better for it. __________________ *The AbbieCash Porn Network. Billing processing by CCBILL. Join our affiliate program today*. RealDollSex \| AbbieTeen \| GamerChicks \| ModelTexans \| HottieCams Nintendo 3DS Porn Blog \| Steve's Adult Industry Blog \| Abbie Bueller's Porn Blog

04-23-2007, 05:49 AM	#33
SuzzyQ Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Along the shore. Posts: 1,557	Also, I also have an exhaust fan on my computer, a voltage regulator and surge suppression. No spikes get to my computer. I have had the thing still on during lightning storms. The regulator chatters but, the machine never burped.