Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives said to be failing at an alarming rate
By Donald Melanson 
posted Jan 16th 2009 2:09PM
posted Jan 16th 2009 2:09PM
Rumors flying, sensational headlines, dogs and cats living together. Yes, its another apparent rash of hard drive failures -- this one centered on Seagate's spacious 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 drives. Apparently, the problem lies in a faulty firmware found on drives manufactured in Thailand, which causes them to fail before they're even able to boot up and leaves them completely inoperable, with some extensive data recovery measures the only option for those looking to hang onto their data. What's more, while Seagate is now said to be updating the firmware on newly manufactured drives, it's apparently not possible to update the firmware on the toasted drives, as they're not even able to be detected by the BIOS once they fail. Seagate still doesn't seem to be addressing the issue publicly, however, and as Tom's Hardware points out, they haven't yet issued a recall on unsold drives, so anyone planning on upgrading or building a new PC may want to proceed with caution.
[Via The Register]
[Via The Register]
The 7200.12 drives are out with 500GB per platter. Why would anybody still buy 7200.11 drives?
Because they haven't released the two-platter 1TB drives yet? That's what the article is about, although the 500GB 7200.12 drives are crazy fast.
Where are the stupid Seagate fanboys now?
WESTERN DIGITAL FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WESTERN DIGITAL FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just bought a WB 1TB Black Retail. Opened it up, DOA... Just clicks.
WHERE'S THE WD FANBOYS NOW?!?!?!?!?!?!?/111/1?!?/1/1/?!!?!??!
i've actually had a good working Samsung drive since 10/23/2007 ...i'd really recommend their drives. They always made really good electronics products in all other areas so when i seen that they were making hard drives i decided to go with the name i trusted an i'm happy to say it's worked out great..fast as can be an reliable as the day i bought it..i'd really recommend lookin into them if you're in the market for a hard drive. there's not just 2 companies making these things well people, just keep that in mind
"Where are the stupid Seagate fanboys now?"
Looking with a pleased eye at the 5 year warrenty that Seagate has vs. WD's 3 year warrenty...
True, it doesnt help if you did not back up your 1 TB drive, or at least have it in a RAID array, but those extra 2 years make a heck of a difference.
I love WD, but don't you know that seagate(more like failgate) bought WD.... I still trust WD they havn't let me down once in 20 years
@Paul
Clearly you haven't done your research. Many WD drives have a 5-year warranty.
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp
WESTERN DIGITAL FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where are the stupid Seagate fanboys now?
@James Dumoulin
I don't know where you get your information, but Seagate definitely does not own Western Digital. Maybe it's Maxtor you're thinking of?
In any case,
WESTERN DIGITAL FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Paul
Seagate's consumer level drives's warranty was cut down to 3 years, effectively in 2009.
Clearly, Billy Fiul is the equivalent of an Apple Fanboy for the hard drive area....
@Billy Fiul:
You, sir, seriously need to get laid.
speaking of Maxtor, they have the best...oh wait, no they don't. but they never...oh wait, they always do. They are so much better than...oh wait, no they're not.
Damn it! I was trying to be a Maxtor fanboy just to add spice to the flame war, but noone would believe me anyway.
I CANNOT stand hard drive company fanboys, especially when they say "your drive failed? x company sucks! you should have bought from y company". Every hard drive company is capable of putting out a piece of shit. With almost any manufacturer, you can find a series of drives that is noted for having nothing but problems: whether it be Hitachi/IBM's 75GXP "Deathstar" series, WD's 2.5GB drives a long time ago, or Quantum's problematic drives a very long time ago. For Seagate, the 7200.11 drives are one of them. As for drives that are DOA or die at an earlier time than they should...that can (and does) happen with any make or model of hard drive. I used to have a slight preference for Seagate drives....I'll just avoid the current generation of their drives, but still consider them as long as they prove themselves as a reliable manufacturer in the future.
@ James Dumoulin
Dude, Seagate bought Maxtor. Western Digital is their biggest competitor....
Also, been running 2 250GB WD's for over 2 years now, still running nice and strong. Never given Seagate a try for many have bad Newegg reviews (or just not as many good ones as WD). I hear the Samsungs are good, but they havn't built up a strong enough reputation to be trusted vs. WD or Seagate, depending on if you like Caviar or Barracuda...
@knightsray
5 seagate drives non of them older than 3 years all dead in all different kind of forms
Wait, if the drives fail before the first boot. How would you get data on it that you would need to get off?
After spending my career in the hard drive industry (most of it Quality no less), and now thankfully out of that business, my experience was that every drive company makes good drives and stinkers on any given day. Newly introduced products are the worst of all. Every company has their disasters on this model or that, and just when you think one company has it together, they fold on the quality on the next model.
The only thing that you can generally rely on is that drives which have been in production for more than 6 months are the most reliable. They do monitor their quality performance and over time do fix issues and make improvements.
The problem is that the companies are under immense pressure to get new stuff to market with ever changing technology, and the first few months production is usually crap. They simply can't take the time to get it right before starting production.
The major computer OEM's (Apple, Dell, etc.) demand extra testing on newer drives and generally are conservative in moving to new models, but obviously Apple isn't conservative enough sometimes. On new models, the distribution and retail markets get the stuff that doesn't meet OEM standards. The add-on storage market, including the external offerings from the drive manufacturers, get the Grade B stuff. So beware.
Bottom line... don't buy the newest and fastest unless you want to roll the dice with your data. Doesn't matter what company you buy from.
Shadar
Oh I've known this for ages. I work at a fairly large Canadian reseller of Seagate drives and they've been coming back in alarming quantities over the last few months. That's why we all guessed they were shortening their warranty period--not only for the cost-cutting, but because their quality sucks now.
The buyers for my company are in a frenzy right now. Seagate is refusing to take drives back, and 50% of our shipped Q4 product is at risk. This also applies to their enterprise drives, I don't know if that's out there yet. Bastards.
It's not just the 1TB drives, either. I ordered a new 650GB drive in November for a new build, and all it did was go "click... click... click...". Got a replacement from the retailer in early December.
Guess what? This week, "click... click... click..."
Not impressed, Seagate.
i feel VERY sorry for anyone losing 1TB of data, thats gota hurt, thats a mistake you'd only make once haha *mumbles backups*
Ooo barracuda!
Duh, duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, duh, duh, Duh....baaannnggg, whoaaiiyyyyyyy....
Mass hysteria!
The solution to this for a DIY PC builder is simple:
Buy Western Digital.
You are 100% correct. When I bought my 1TB last year I debated between Seagate and Western Digital. I'm glad I paid close attention to reviews and bought WD as I normally buy Seagate. The fact is the Seagate has had higher amount of bad reviews on sites like Newegg for a while now.
Yes, clearly one flop with a seagate drive and suddenly they're crap. One flop that erases years of shitty WD drives.
Sorry, I still have no problem with Seagate drives, still running 4 of them in my personal machines and many more else where.
Not once. They had problems with their 80 GB laptop harddrives around 1.5 years ago.
In the last couple of years I bought nothing but 7200.10 & 11 drives. I'm well aware all drives fail, but the number that are displaying the faults outlined above are far above normal.
I'm ready to call this Deathstar V2.0.
Deathstar is a trademark of The Empire Inc. and cannot be used in any way without prior written permission.
Mine failed 2 out of 24, all with the firmware number 15.
i still have a deathstar 45gb running fine ^^
so i hope the wd 1tb green edition is good to go?
Sonce this post is about Seagate, yes, your Western is safe.
Duh.
@Arkenklo
It's spelled since, idiot.
And also, "Duh." is not a grammatically correct sentence, idiot.
funny arkenklo, i know that. but some may want to go shopping rather sooner than later and don't want a defective drive ;)
btw the last part of your name 'klo' means toilet in german :-p
@Grammar Nazi
Starting a sentence with a conjunction (in your case, "and") is not grammatically correct. Idiot.
@GoateeMan
I believe you're incorrect. The conjunction "And" can be used, and is not gramatically incorrect. It is however frowned upon, and preference is given to something like "In Addition".
I might be wrong, but I think GrammerNazi is correct here.
I hope this isn't true about their laptop drives. I'm waiting for their 500 GB 7200 RPM drive which should be out in a month!
People use it a lot nowadays, so it's become sort of acceptable (I don't personally have any problems with it), but it's still *technically* incorrect. Normally I wouldn't comment on something so minuscule, but since GN felt the need to act like a presumptuous ass, I thought I ought to point out that he himself is incorrect. It's also worth noting how much better he could have worded his comment had he omitted the "and" altogether and just used "also" instead.
Have you guys seen Seagate return different model numbers / sizes than the original drives you sent back?
I'm seeing lots of drives coming back from seagate that are totally different than the ones we sent in.
Send in a 400gb drive and get a 500gb back.
Send in a 500gb drive and get a 750gb AS back
Send in a 320GB ES, get a 500GB ES.
I can only hope. I just RMA'd my (second) 650GB back to them yesterday.
If they send me back, say, a 1TB with updated firmware, I just MIGHT forgive them ;-)
Does this apply to the 1.5T 7200.11 drives as well?
Figures, the 1TB 7200.11 was the first Seagate product I've ever bought.
I bought one of these drives and it failed within 3 days. Seagate's horrible warranty service has practically barred me from returning it. It's been sitting here dead of almost 2 months now.
reminds me of the maxtor [320gb] hard drives that i keep in hopes to one day recovering the files from them
they were used in my 1st serato setup
hours upon hours of time spent on crate builds, edits & mp3 tags lost
all the more reason to favor SSDs even though the cost is extreme.
the failure rate is less dramatic.
and yes i know you wont get faster data transfer rates by getting a SSD.
it's just more peace of mind for data recovery.
Actually, if an SSD fails it is nearly impossible to recover the data.
i meant that to get to a point to where the [SSD] drive fails takes a whole lot more than powering your system up.
my friend unplugged my external [maxtor] w/out ejecting it 1st.
insta-brick
4 seagate drives going on 2 1/2 years now. western digital was lucky to go past one year. NO THANKS.
Amen! I built my system in 2003 and at the time I bought one of the largest capacities available - 80GB. I fitted 2 in my system to be my C and D drives. My PC is on 24/7 and I only shut it down when I am away on holiday 4-8 weeks of the year in total. These 2 drives have been running for 5 years and never ever failed on me or given me any problems. I retired the C drive in July '08 and I retired the D drive last week since I knew they might go at any time and I didnt want to lose any data. They were however, still working happily till the moment I removed them. Because of this I have always bought Seagate and own over 10 other drives of various capacities which are working fine.
All 6 Maxtor drives I have ever owned are all dead.
I have to admit though after fitting the Samsung F1 SpinPoint 1TB drive in my brothers machine - damn that drive can transfer at alarming rates! I can see why it get so much praise and awards. Definitely one to consider as an alternative.
The old 80GB Seagates were top notch. Things have changed since then.
For example, you say all your Maxtors died? Hey, guess what? Seagate bought Maxtor. There's a little bit of Maxtor in every new Seagate.
Does anyone know if this extends to the 7200.11 1.5TB models too or just the 1TB models?
No, but the 1.5 TB drives have their own set of problems: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-barracuda-1-5TB-freezing,6558.html
Buy Western!
All of you, STFU with this Western Digital c*ck licking.
Good god. I never thought hard drives had fanboys.
Anyways, the 1.5 issue is fixed with the updated firmware.
The thing that is irritating with Seagate is that they rarely admit errors.
But to be honest, ive seen only 2 major failures with Seagate drives.
Yes, it does apply to 1.5TB drives as well as they are also mfr in Thailand, which maybe part of the problem and or the 7200.11 design is just flawed. Though they claim this is just a firmware issue I have found multiples of these drives reporting sector errors and or clicking sounds. And even when drives are replaced by Seagate warranty with new firmware they still report sector errors. And if you read newegg reviews they are so many bad comments newegg dropped the price from $179 to $129 to unload the junk. In short, I think there is a reason why the other hd mfr's are not selling 1.5TB drives. Buyer beware!
I'll recover all your data for a $100 flat rate. I can do it in less time than any of the competition.
"Buy from a different manufacturer" is generally terrible advice to avoid hard drive issues.
Issues like this tend to hit a particular series and revision of drive, and every manufacturer has this type of problem now and then.
The solution is "don't buy a 7200.11".
You are absolutely correct.
I've heard about various problems from nearly every hard disk maker, but in most cases the problems were confined to specific product lines. For instance, IBM drives were extremely solid prior to the DeskStar GXP series. Seagate's Barracuda's were all fine up until recently. I had problems with several older (10GB) Western Digital drives, but their current drives appear to be solid.
In general, for critical tech like data storage, it's best to avoid the "latest & greatest" models until they've proved themselves out in the field for a few months. If you go with the latest & greatest, then you'd better have a good (multi-layered) backup strategy.
Nice way to kill seagate sales in the new year!
I can already see their stock rising on this good news!
Literally just installed a new 1TB drive on Wednesday. Not Seagate, thankfully - Hitachi. Though I'm not 100% sure yet if that's better or not as I've never had a Hitachi (Guess I'm more of a WD guy... 74gb WD raptor, 2x 500gb WD, and external 500gb WD).
My Hitachi is still going stong after 2.5 years. Unfortunately, not many store have hitachi in stock. most of them are either seagate or western digital.
Raptor has always been known as a very well built device.
I bought that drive a few months back for around $100... At the time, Dell was shipping two versions -- One from China, and one from Thailand. Word was that the ones from China are fine.
It sounds like that's still the case (Mine was marked "China" on it, and seems to be working fine after almost 3 months -- Plenty of time to poop out, though)
Well, that makes my 1TB hard drive shopping a little easier... still trying to choose a model...
Hmm. I have one of these drives, and at the moment it's working. What's the recommended course of action? Seagate doesn't seem to have downloadable F/W updates.... Buy a different drive in a hurry and backup, I guess....
I bought two 1TB drives, one had bad sectors from 500GB up to 1TB and the other would read then freeze for a couple of seconds, so I returned them to Seagate adn got back referbs, but they work.
I will buy WD from now on.
I have been a avid comp builder since 03' and have only had zero problems with WD
funny, Ive been had Nothing but problems with all my WD hdds. I'll never buy again
The 1TB 7200.11 come with two model numbers: ST31000340AS & ST31000340AS. Are they both affected by this?
I've got four of the ST31000340AS in a Promise RAID unit. A month ago, one of the drives failed on a write command, which caused the RAID to reset it and rebuild all the data on it. No problems since, but it's made me a bit nervous about that drive, and I certainly wouldn't trust it outside of the RAID. I wonder if this was the firmware bug trying to raise its ugly head on me.
"ST31000340AS & ST31000340AS" should have been "ST31000333AS & ST31000340AS"
Looks like my model )340AS) is affected, based on readings on other forums.
This applies to the 1.5TB, I would assume, but that is based purely on the horrific reviews on newegg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
I have updated the Firmware on my 1.5TBs and I am sending them back one at a time to be replaced.
I recently popped in a Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB and I'm very impressed - I've read on Newegg when I was shopping that 7200.11 were a bad batch of drives, not just the 1TB. Seagate normally has STELLAR reviews, 5 stars, all that good stuff. But when I saw 4 stars overall (out of 1500 ratings or so) and a general lack of satisfied people that had bought them, I opted for the the WD and it's been running solid for a couple weeks now. Very happy with my purchase.
However, that doesn't mean I won't return to Seagate in the future if they QC improves - my first build was a Seagate 20GB drive that's still going well over 5 years later.
wait i just built my new computer and i have one of these in my computer, been running fine and theres no problems with the hard drive yet.
is it ok since its allready running or will this problem affect it still. or do the failing ones never boot up in the first place?
Say NO to $eagate, I lost over $20k in over 3 months of very hard work.
3 out 4 750GB failed almost on same day. They aren't recognized on BIOS anymore.
Every 7200.11 is doomed !
your fault for storing sensitive data without a backup! :-p
Can confirm this.
My 1Tb 7200.11 died in november, losing all data on it.
A friend also lost a 7200.11 1Tb as well.
Very pissed.
you just saved me $100! I was gonna pick one up this weekend!
I had the same problem with my 750GB 7200.11 drive I bought a few months ago. From the beginning it made a weird clicking noise when powering on and off but I figured it was normal. Eventually a few times when I went to boot the drive would not show at post or in windows. Upon powering down and back on it worked again. Then one day it just stopped posting completely. I lost 650GB of data. I received an RMA from Seagate for the same drive but a refurbished unit. This time I made sure to install software that detects errors. HD Tune shows some warning signs in the health status but Seagate told me it is wrong and to use their software because it is built for that drive in particular and theirs isn't. This one also makes loud clicking sound upon booting and shutting down and sometimes it will throughout the day. I called to get another RMA but they told me to test it with their software and if I'm not satisfied with the results I can get another replacement. Since it showed nothing wrong I couldn't really complain that there is. I am now waiting for this one to fail as well. Hopefully they will be around when it does as the 7200.11's makeup most their product line. I think this problem along with the current economic situation and layoffs may be a sign of the end for Seagate. It reminds me of the constant failing X-Box 360 problem Microsoft had and the failure to admit anything was wrong for quite some time. I won't be buying Seagate anymore, that's for sure.
Can you describe the "weird clicking" noise? My drives in the RAID make a single loud click when they power up or down, but many brands I've had over the years do that to one degree or another. What specifically is weird about your clicks?
The most troubling aspect is Seagate's lack of timely response. Much data storage is critical ... not to address the problem ASAP is irresponsible on a personal level and probably raises liability issues on a corporate level ... especially if "due diligence" cannot be demonstrated. It's one thing to unknowingly market a defective drive. To do so knowingly ...
seagates never failed me plus I back up to disc anyway. bought to 500 externals when the first came out still going strong after a few years, have 2 750gb externals i bought when first released still going strong after a couple years have a 1tb internal going strong after a year and a half have 2 of the new 5oogb silver ones no problems over the last few months and just picked up a 1tb external for $109 on new egg a few weeks ago all segates and so far so good. I heard problems about the 1.5TB which I asked seagate about in which they replied the 2TB will be out may 2009 so Ill stick with the 1TB till then as the one Ive had almost two years is fine and Im sure the internal is the same kind they use in the externals
How are Samsung harddrives? I had a couple in my desktop, and they lasted, but I didnt own the system for longer than 2 years. So thats not a real reliability check. Anybody have any ideas about Samsung 500gb drives? Do they have 1tb ones?
My Samsung Spinpoint drives have been working great for years now. They are also very quiet.
Im pretty much living this nightmare. Built a box with a raid of 3 500GB seagates. They have now all drived and been replaced one by one. Bunch of dead ones sitting on my desk waiting to go back to seagate for RMA/
Luckily its a RAId and they failed one at a time, so i was able to recover data, but what a f'ing nightmare.
Can anyone explain the difference between the 7200.12 and 7200.11 is it just a matter of different drive series i.e. the 2009 series of 7200rpm drives or what exactly is the deal with this designation. Also, any idea how to upgrade firmware or prevent this issue?
lol back it up to discs, even if its a terabyte+, most of you are on a pc all day any way whats 200 blank discs cost $40, well worth the time even if you just do a few discs a day, every time I get 4.3GB worth of data it goes onto a disc then an external drive, its not rocket science people, just laziness. what you think 10 years from now the drive will work maybe be but all drives will eventually fail. Back It Up
Class action lawsuit anyone? Where do I sign up, I want my money back and not another bad drive that will fail in a few months. This has been bothering me a lot lately since getting another 7200.11 750GB that seems to have the same issues the last one was having but isn't dead yet. I hate paying for these advanced RMA's and getting crap back. I need a system that works and I can count on. I went off on the tech for a half hour after refusing to send me another unit until I tried their software instead of the other software I had on my machine to test failing drives. The freaking hold time there is at a minimum of 40 minutes, it frustrates me so much. GRRR.. ME MAD!!! WANT CRUSH SEAGATE!! GRRR..!
o wow, now id be really scared to buy a seagate, i was even lookin at there 1.5 TB drive to, but since this little incident will be paranoid in my mind now im leanign towards that new WD 2TB drive there jsut released and who knows when it comes out
The difference between Seagate and WD is this: It is a once click web operation to get an RMA from WD. Enter serial number. Click. print. Done. Never regsitered the drive? Doesn't matter. Three years old? Doesn't matter. RMA, get replacement.
Seagate? Good luck.
That's b.s. I have 4x 7200.11 drives in my RAID 5 system. One failed and I went on Seagate's site, entered my serial # from the drive, it said my warranty was good until March 15, 2013. Clicked the RMA, printed the info and was done. Got my replacement drive a few days later.
How about being responsible and backing up your data....?
That solves most gripes about any HD failing.
Right now that isn't an option for me to go buy another TB to back up my other drives, money always comes in as a factor. I guess for someone who has a lot that wouldn't be a problem but I am out of work till I can find another design or tech job which has been slim to nothing lately.
I generally bought whatever was on sale at Best Buy at the time, so I have a mix of WD, Seagate, Maxtor and I've even got a 40GB IBM "Deathstar" drive still kicking around. I had two drives in seperate computers die in the last couple weeks, I believe both were Maxtors (from the '02/'03 time period). One was in my PVR server and the other, my music server, which both have been running pretty much continuously for the last 4 years. I'm planning on picking up a Spinpoint RAID edition for the music server now. I've already got a Spinpoint 500GB in the PVR. Definitely going to avoid Seagate for the time being, even though I've had decent luck with them in the past.
I believe this would be the same drive they use in the ONE TOUCH 4 - line of external drives as well.
I don't like them taking Razer's name. Besides, a hard drive in general doesn't fit the Barracuda name.
I think Seagate has been using it long before Razer ever thought of it.
Not that I don't like Razer, I love my Deathadder (good thing the Mamba is too expensive right now).
LaCie uses seagate half the time, makes me wonder what's going to happen with them, if they used this model and it's starting to massively fail I'm guessing they'll sue seagate.