Lost 1500 gigs - Thanks Seagate!

In article , wrote:
My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days after
filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda (ST31500341AS)
7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn fault for going for
the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing up that much stuff was not
an option financially... I always expected it to fail but I had hoped
it would last a year or two at least, by then I could update to raid 1
or buy a 3tb drive or something...

Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they will
send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really don't want
to go through this again, I will never trust this brand now that I've
been assraped... I'm thinking the only way I can use the new piece of
crap their going to send me is if it is in a RAID configuration of
some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but I'm sooooo not ready to fork out
another $300ish for two more 1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind? Can I
just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring configuration and
then later add the third disk (converting to raid 5 here) and the
fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess I'm asking if you can convert
go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1 setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid
5 setup without reformatting...

....my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed



Seagate will recover the data for you, contact them at
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/


Read this below!!!!



http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

A firmware issue has been identified that affects a small number of Seagate
Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive models which may result in data becoming
inaccessible after a power-off/on operation. The affected products are
Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22.

Analysis of actual field return data indicates there is a low risk, however,
as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction Seagate is offering a free
firmware upgrade which you can download by following the instructions below.

In the event your drive is affected and you cannot access your data after a
power cycle, the data still resides on the drive and there is no data loss
associated with this issue. If your drive is no longer accessible, click here
to contact Seagate directly for further assistance. If the inaccessible drive
is in a RAID array, there may be limitations to the recovery and reinstatement
of your drive, please consult with your Seagate agent for details.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/

It begs the question... What if the original poster panicked and lost
his data, called Seagate, and then came here to whine about it. Maybe
that is why it was his first post under the alias.

* :

With all that said.. my post was about moving forward, not "1980 style
backups for dummies".... I am now forced to back up even this raw data
since we're getting a 1.5 TB free from the warranty but I consider it
a TICKING TIME BOMB.... I am forced to go raid 1 or raid 5 because I
don't trust this model of "McHARDDRIVE"..... but I'm also trying to
look 1-3 (or 10) years forward.... within 6 months I will need to have
more then 1.5 tb on this set of disks... I'd love to be able to just
keep slapping drives in there.... I'd love to start out with mirroring
then move to raid 5 without a reformat..... and I'd love for all this
to be portable.... a RAID 5 enclosure would be sweet.... but I'm on a
serious budget...... so these are all the things on my mind..... I
thought this might be a good place to get some advice.... was I wrong?

If you are really interested in well advice (which I strongly doubt)
then this is the right newsgroup. However, if all you were looking for
was people confirming that Seagate is a product from hell and just sux
then you're wrong.

Fact is that you irgnored some really basic things which are important
for handling data. You can of course continue to ignore all advice that
has been given you regarding proper backup and RAID, and probably ****
up again big time.

Benjamin

* :

With all that said.. my post was about moving forward, not "1980 style
backups for dummies".... I am now forced to back up even this raw data
since we're getting a 1.5 TB free from the warranty but I consider it
a TICKING TIME BOMB.... I am forced to go raid 1 or raid 5 because I
don't trust this model of "McHARDDRIVE"..... but I'm also trying to
look 1-3 (or 10) years forward.... within 6 months I will need to have
more then 1.5 tb on this set of disks... I'd love to be able to just
keep slapping drives in there.... I'd love to start out with mirroring
then move to raid 5 without a reformat..... and I'd love for all this
to be portable.... a RAID 5 enclosure would be sweet.... but I'm on a
serious budget...... so these are all the things on my mind..... I
thought this might be a good place to get some advice.... was I wrong?

If you were really interested in competent advice (which I strongly
doubt) then this is a good place to ask. However, if all you was looking
for is people confirming that Seagate is a product from hell and just
sux then you're wrong. This is not alt.comp.hardware.confirm.my.ego.

Fact is that you irgnored some really simple and basic things which are
important when handling data. Yes, Seagate gave you a defect hard drive,
but it's you who messed up in caring for your data properly. Hard drives
are always prone to die, and not always they warn you in advance that
they are going to stop working. People here are not recommending backup
for nothing. You can of course continue to ignore all advice that has
been given you regarding proper backup and RAID which you find useless,
and very likely **** up your data again in the future.

Benjamin

wrote:
My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days after
filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda (ST31500341AS)
7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn fault for going for
the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing up that much stuff was not
an option financially...

Don't blame seagate: if you don't back up your data it's your own fault.

I always expected it to fail but I had hoped
it would last a year or two at least, by then I could update to raid 1
or buy a 3tb drive or something...

Drives fail - it's the price we pay for having economical data storage.
If you want a drive manufactured and tested to the point where it will
remain patent for 5 years 99.9% of the time, you're going to be paying
massively more per drive. Backups remove the necessity for that.


Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they will
send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really don't want
to go through this again, I will never trust this brand now that I've
been assraped...

You did it to yourself and you enjoyed it.

I'm thinking the only way I can use the new piece of
crap their going to send me is if it is in a RAID configuration of
some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but I'm sooooo not ready to fork out
another $300ish for two more 1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind? Can I
just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring configuration and
then later add the third disk (converting to raid 5 here) and the
fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess I'm asking if you can convert
go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1 setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid
5 setup without reformatting...

...my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed

Suggestions:

1. Stop acting like a drama queen. You're frustrated, we get it, but
enough already.

2. Backup your data

3. Buy a second 1.5 drive and put it in an external enclosu always
store backups away from the PC. A RAID configuration is NOT a backup.
RAID is good for when you need to hot swap a drive back in and have it
auto-repopulate. It is NOT a backup method. A PSU failure, burglary, etc
can remove all the drives in the PC's case at once so having a backup
elsewhere is vital.

Good luck,

Ari


--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply
Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor and literally save someone's life:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

GMAN wrote:
In article , wrote:
My 1.5 TB harddrive just blew after about 4 months... a few days after
filling it too.... Thanks Seagate! [Seagate Barracuda (ST31500341AS)
7200.11 SATA 3.0Gb/s 1.5TB] ... It's my own damn fault for going for
the best gig/$ deal I guess... and backing up that much stuff was not
an option financially... I always expected it to fail but I had hoped
it would last a year or two at least, by then I could update to raid 1
or buy a 3tb drive or something...

Anyways.... this piece of crap is still under warranty, and they will
send me another piece of crap to replace it... but I really don't want
to go through this again, I will never trust this brand now that I've
been assraped... I'm thinking the only way I can use the new piece of
crap their going to send me is if it is in a RAID configuration of
some sort.... RAID 5 looks nice but I'm sooooo not ready to fork out
another $300ish for two more 1.5 TB drives

What are my options - with redundancy and scalability in mind? Can I
just start out with some kind of 2 disk mirroring configuration and
then later add the third disk (converting to raid 5 here) and the
fourth and fifth in the furture? I guess I'm asking if you can convert
go from a two disk x 1.5 TB raid 1 setup to a three disk x 1.5 TB raid
5 setup without reformatting...

....my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed



Seagate will recover the data for you, contact them at
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/


Read this below!!!!



http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/cr...p?DocId=207931

A firmware issue has been identified that affects a small number of Seagate
Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive models which may result in data becoming
inaccessible after a power-off/on operation. The affected products are
Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22.

Analysis of actual field return data indicates there is a low risk, however,
as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction Seagate is offering a free
firmware upgrade which you can download by following the instructions below.

In the event your drive is affected and you cannot access your data after a
power cycle, the data still resides on the drive and there is no data loss
associated with this issue. If your drive is no longer accessible, click here
to contact Seagate directly for further assistance. If the inaccessible drive
is in a RAID array, there may be limitations to the recovery and reinstatement
of your drive, please consult with your Seagate agent for details.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/


Good find GMAN, cheers.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply
Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor and literally save someone's life:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

wrote:
On May 17, 1:54 pm, wrote:

...my brain hurts, thanks Seagate

Suggestions welcomed

Ow, ow. A diehard Seagate fan, close enough, since the 200G pricing
ranges (several still running strong), this time up, though, things
were different. Whatever the issue discussed avidly (pro/con) on the
tech forums - Seagate's regardless under close scrutiny. An issue
that, hindsightedly, even clipped my last Seagate, 600G (over $100US
at time, too), where I found that model number within "suspect"
listings of Seagate ROM issue. Thankfully, no problems -- purely
storage and formatted straight-out, full NTFS.

Enough of that.

I bought a WD non-green 750G when dollar averaging in last time for
$70-ish. Not a "big" WD fan, either, but what's the alternative... if
it's no longer an integrity game... Everybody is practically selling
1-yr warranted drives now. I'd don't mind being shaved a few bucks
for a 3-year "put your warranty behind you mouth" assurances, and
reputation, for quality. Ain't happening, though. As other's are
saying -- only assurances going is at double-down, twice the price:
once for a friggin' working drive and another one just in case it's a
piece of 3-world marketed profit taking.

Remember and don't forget Seagates at 20MEG, I always say, 20MEG RLL
and MFM interfaces for initially $350. Hot at the time. Moving along
into IDE interfaces, inevitably, Seagates weren't actually Seagate,
any more, but SEASNAKE. For quite some time, too. :-)

Moral of the story: It's not a bleedin' edge for nothing.

What /are/ you wittering about?
--
SteveH

On Sun, 17 May 2009 15:33:37 -0400, "TVeblen"
wrote:

Don't make such a big deal about it. It sucks - it hurts - it's modern
manufacturing. 2 to 5% defective rate is considered "acceptable" in
manufacturing terms. 1 in 20 or 1 in 50 people will get a bad hard drive -
Yeah, but their real money is in the customers that buy 100's or
more drives.

These customers seeing 1 versus 20 or 50 failures per
thousand is what will drive the disk manufacturers to get their
failure rates down.

(Even among the big customers, probably only Google and a couple
of others don't feel pain for each drive that fails.)
Seagate, Western Digital, whatever. Get your replacement, plug it in, and
use it. Can lightning strike twice? Doubtful.

I always run a new drive for a while before loading it up just in case I am
the 1 in 50 this time.
Most drives now do their own "burnin" for a day to a week, so that is
a good idea. The problem with the recent Seagate drive locking
firmware bug was that the error would take much more than a week to
show up.

On Mon, 18 May 2009 06:03:16 GMT, John Doe
wrote:

(GMAN) wrote:

...

BTW, the data is still there and they offer a free recovery for
you if you contact Seagate... That is of course if you
didnt freak out like a baby and immediately reformat the drive.

That is a funny thought.

That kid is so upset that he didnt get the response he wanted he is
off crying somewhere. Look the advice is as follows

1. Sad but **** happens. You are not the first and wont be the last.

2. No matter the cost you MUST back up if you care about your data.

3. While I am not a lover of seagate, any and I mean any HD can go bad
no matter what brand it is.

4. The data as was said before is still there UNLESS you formatted
already.

5. If you cant afford to back up your data then you cant afford to
have the data mean anything to you!!!!

Did you understand the last sentence???

If you have 1.5 TB of data and cannot afford to by another 1.5 TB
drive, then here is what you do u get all the other little 300 and 200
GB drives and use THEM to back up your data so that when the 1.5 TB
dies you will NOT have to come here and feel like your questions are
not being answered. If u listen to what I said here anyone will have
to agree these are very good responses to your problem. They may be a
little late but is that really our fault here on the group???
Best wishes...

In article 7c1e8f60-c5b5-42ee-861f-
,
says...

"backing up that much stuff was not an option financially."

Neither is losing it.

Read before you state the obvious please. Sometimes you have so much
data it's just not possible to back it all up.

Bull****.

--
Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't
looking good either. - Scott Adams