Funny thing.
A friend of mine just brought a failed 250GB Seagate HD for inspection (and this one was made in Thailand too). Luckily I read this thread and now I don't think I will even plug that brick into my PC.
Otherwise, I have been more than satisfied with Samsungs for almost 2 years now. They run quiet, reliable and cool. In one Core2 PC (e6600) I have 2x500GB in RAID0 configuration, in the other (q9450) there are 4x750GB in RAID10, working superwell.

Greetings,

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Any preludes (clicks of death, etc) prior to the sudden death that WD and Seagate have been known to make?

Btw... checkout the reviews at Tiger Direct ... quite a few complaints about drives suddenly dying...

REVIEW BY: nick Reviewed Jul 26, 2008
What a pc of junk. Put two of these in a new system for a CUSTOMER, took it home, primary drive lasted long enough for them to back everything up off their old computer. Then it fried, got credit for that one. Then I reinstalled everything for them on the one remaining drive. Worked great for three months. Bang, that ones is dead too! Junk! Stay Away!

REVIEW BY: Reviewed Apr 10, 2008
Bought this drive a week ago, released the jumper, plugged it in to the MOBO, Turned on my computer, Formatted the drive ''NTFS'', copied my public folder a.k.a. Documents (excel,word,outlook,quickbooks), music (10,000 mp3's) Videos (TV Series, Movies) and Software (everything from photoshop to office etc... around 180gb's of software) worked great super fast. cleaned up the space on my primary drive leaving all of my stuff on the new drive and BAM!!!!! GONE!!!!! stopped working, lost everything, unrecoverable. I bought every program for recovering files I could find and none of them would work because the disc would stop working half way into the recovery. Don't buy this disc or you will lose everything.

No.......nary a whimper from that drives before they died..........
Just cruzing along on the forums as usual and suddenly things came to a dead stop.........
Will have to try and contact Tiger tomorrow or Monday...........
If this had not happened to me personally, I would not have believed it......would have suspected operator error or some other factor.......
And I even kept tabs on the running temp of this last one.......not actual readings, but just finger temps......it was not running hot.

Seems like a cruel joke.........maybe I should contact Seagate instead of Tiger......I am just so ticked right now I don't know which way to turn......

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

So what do you think about this Seagate drive for another try at getting my daily driver back online?

Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

They list it for video surveillance systems, so it would seem to be aimed more at 24/7 operation than some others....

I still gotta contact Seagate about my 3 bricks under warranty, but they are probably gonna just wanna send me refurbs of the same drives to replace my less than 60 day old units.........not sure I would ever really trust the old model again....

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

So what do you think about this Seagate drive for another try at getting my daily driver back online?

Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

They list it for video surveillance systems, so it would seem to be aimed more at 24/7 operation than some others....

Mark, please maybe I'm wrong but please make sure that this type of drive has error correction. You might think that all drives have, but I know that some drives aimed at e.g. 'video recorders' with harddisks in them have special drives that don't do any (or at least a lot less) error checking. For video a couple of bits falling over isn't all that important. Leaving out the error checking makes the drives faster, which results in less hickups during recording and playback. I've got such a drive in my own harddisk recorder (replaced the 160GB in there with a 500 GB one) and discovered about error checking when I tried to find out what was so special about those drives. The DB-series of disks belongs to this class of 'video harddisks' (my original 160 GB disk in a Humax 'video recorder' was a 'Seagate DB35.2 Consumer Storage' disk). Video surveillance may be another area where error checking the bytes written may not have a high priority ....

I'll look around a bit whether I can find more info on these drives. But maybe you should do so yourself as well before deciding to buy any.

Regards,
John.

So what do you think about this Seagate drive for another try at getting my daily driver back online?

Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

They list it for video surveillance systems, so it would seem to be aimed more at 24/7 operation than some others....

Mark, please maybe I'm wrong but please make sure that this type of drive has error correction. You might think that all drives have, but I know that some drives aimed at e.g. 'video recorders' with harddisks in them have special drives that don't do any (or at least a lot less) error checking. For video a couple of bits falling over isn't all that important. Leaving out the error checking makes the drives faster, which results in less hickups during recording and playback. I've got such a drive in my own harddisk recorder (replaced the 160GB in there with a 500 GB one) and discovered about error checking when I tried to find out what was so special about those drives. The DB-series of disks belongs to this class of 'video harddisks' (my original 160 GB disk in a Humax 'video recorder' was a 'Seagate DB35.2 Consumer Storage' disk). Video surveillance may be another area where error checking the bytes written may not have a high priority ....

I'll look around a bit whether I can find more info on these drives. But maybe you should do so yourself as well before deciding to buy any.

Regards,
John.

Oh geez.....yet another wrinkle.......thanks for the heads-up.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Do you zero out all of drives before using them? That is write all zero's (or 1's) in every single bit. Then test the surface etc with whatever program you have in your system. Since I run Mac's my names won't help you. So far I have not had a disk, either portable or installed after purchase on desk machines that has failed, but my universe is small, less than ten total drives in six machines and four backup movable drives.

Right now I'm on my MacBook Pro with dual core cpu. A very nice machine. Has both speeds of firewire which is nice to move files fast. I have a couple of backup drives that can take the high speed. Nice for timesaver and for file moving between other household machines.


duke, who is enjoying a superb fall day on the east coast.

Oh geez.....yet another wrinkle.......thanks for the heads-up.

I've had a very quick look at some datasheets of the sv35.2 series and the Barracuda 7200.10 series, especially as far as reliability/data integrity is concerned.

For the 'regular' barracude it says: Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read
1 per 10E14

For the sv series (and my db video recorder series as well) it says: Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read 1 sector per 10E14

I'm not into this stuff, so I don't know whether this is actually different. But with my limited knowledge I of this technology I would expect a complete sector to get lost when an error occurs on the sv series, whereas on the regular disks only 1 bit would get mangled.

It says in the description of the sv series seagate that sv disks are also suitable for data storage:

The enhanced functionality of SV35 Series drives
doesn’t end there. Video security drives are
primarily used for streaming video, but they must
also be capable of conventional data reads and
writes, used in the course of managing video
databases and related applications. SV35 Series
drives support the ATA-7 command set, enabling
their read/write profi les to be tuned to video- or
data-specifi c, as appropriate.


I'm not sure what all that means. The only thing that I can say is that if I were to buy such a drive I would not at all feel comfortable about using it in a computer for data storage. But then again, this may be totally unjustified. Sorry I can't be of any more help.

Regards,
John.

Oh geez.....yet another wrinkle.......thanks for the heads-up.

I've had a very quick look at some datasheets of the sv35.2 series and the Barracuda 7200.10 series, especially as far as reliability/data integrity is concerned.

For the 'regular' barracude it says: Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read
1 per 10E14

For the sv series (and my db video recorder series as well) it says: Nonrecoverable Read Errors per Bits Read 1 sector per 10E14

I'm not into this stuff, so I don't know whether this is actually different. But with my limited knowledge I of this technology I would expect a complete sector to get lost when an error occurs on the sv series, whereas on the regular disks only 1 bit would get mangled.

It says in the description of the sv series seagate that sv disks are also suitable for data storage:

The enhanced functionality of SV35 Series drives
doesn’t end there. Video security drives are
primarily used for streaming video, but they must
also be capable of conventional data reads and
writes, used in the course of managing video
databases and related applications. SV35 Series
drives support the ATA-7 command set, enabling
their read/write profi les to be tuned to video- or
data-specifi c, as appropriate.


I'm not sure what all that means. The only thing that I can say is that if I were to buy such a drive I would not at all feel comfortable about using it in a computer for data storage. But then again, this may be totally unjustified. Sorry I can't be of any more help.

Regards,
John.

I believe it means you can command the controller in the drive to either turn on or turn off error checking. At the controller level there is usually a setting of how many retries on read before an error is reported. Also on write if the drive performs an immediate read back check to verify data. This is intentionally hidden from the normal user.

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I test my drives before I install them even brand new out of the box or a used one from any source. I have never had a hard drive failure I guess I am lucky in that regard.

Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Rather than that one, I'd recommend the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3500320NS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM.

From Seagate's web site:

Key Features and Benefits
* Perpendicular recording technology for maximum capacity
* 24x7 operation and 1.2 M hrs. MTBF
* Dynamic power saving using Seagate PowerTrimâ„¢ technology
* Broad spectrum rotational vibration tolerance at 12.5 rads/s2
* Error recovery control - quick error resolution to prevent system timeouts
* Workload management to ensure operational reliability
* Quick and robust download with firmware security checks
* Write Same command for efficient RAID initialization
* Idle Read After Write data integrity checking
* 32-MB cache
* Low total cost of ownership
* 5-year limited warranty

It's from their current flagship enterprise-class SATA drives - the Barracuda ES.2 line. Check out the data sheet.

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Cruiser
Gateway GT5692 L-f-S Edition
-Phenom X4 9650 CPU
-4GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM
-500GB SATA HD
-Vista x64 SP1
-BOINC 6.2.19 32-bit client
-SSE3 optimized 32-bit apps

Seagate SV35.3 ST3500320SV 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Rather than that one, I'd recommend the Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3500320NS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM.

From Seagate's web site:

Key Features and Benefits
* Perpendicular recording technology for maximum capacity
* 24x7 operation and 1.2 M hrs. MTBF
* Dynamic power saving using Seagate PowerTrimâ„¢ technology
* Broad spectrum rotational vibration tolerance at 12.5 rads/s2
* Error recovery control - quick error resolution to prevent system timeouts
* Workload management to ensure operational reliability
* Quick and robust download with firmware security checks
* Write Same command for efficient RAID initialization
* Idle Read After Write data integrity checking
* 32-MB cache
* Low total cost of ownership
* 5-year limited warranty

It's from their current flagship enterprise-class SATA drives - the Barracuda ES.2 line. Check out the data sheet.

I would agree with you but...........
Yikes.....did you read the customer reviews on Newegg?
Too many folks reporting short term drive failures.....on an enterprise grade drive??? This worries me....

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

I would agree with you but...........
Yikes.....did you read the customer reviews on Newegg?
Too many folks reporting short term drive failures.....on an enterprise grade drive??? This worries me....

I'm assuming that more than sixty-some people have bought those drives. I might be wrong on that though...

Seriously - like everything else on an internet forum, the only people you tend to hear from are those with problems.

And the enterprise-class drives from other manufacturers (checked on WD, Hitachi, and Samsung) aren't available on Newegg, or have no reviews at all.

---

Cruiser
Gateway GT5692 L-f-S Edition
-Phenom X4 9650 CPU
-4GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM
-500GB SATA HD
-Vista x64 SP1
-BOINC 6.2.19 32-bit client
-SSE3 optimized 32-bit apps

Freddie Mercury said it best ... Another One Bites The Dust

Wondering if they were part of a bad batch / lot all manufactured around the same time?

Of course they were...........I bought all 3 of them at the same time
Made in Thailand..........blokes must have heen smoking too much Thai stick at the factory that day............

I have been keeping an eye on this thread, but felt I could no longer keep my opinion to myself.

Blaming it on the fact that the drives were manufactured in Thailand is just stupid. Hard drives from any manufacturer, and produced in any country can go wrong and do go wrong.

You might notice from my profile I have my location set to Thailand, but I am not Thai and I don't live there, but I do spend a couple of months there a year on holiday.

The quality of goods manufactured in Thailand is as good as anywhere else in the world...... counterfeit watches excluded!!!!

And when people start quoting figures like MTBF remember what it means..... "Mean Time Between Failure"..... in other words an average time... some will fail before that figure and some will fail after it. It happens.

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Freddie Mercury said it best ... Another One Bites The Dust

Wondering if they were part of a bad batch / lot all manufactured around the same time?

Of course they were...........I bought all 3 of them at the same time
Made in Thailand..........blokes must have heen smoking too much Thai stick at the factory that day............

I have been keeping an eye on this thread, but felt I could no longer keep my opinion to myself.

Blaming it on the fact that the drives were manufactured in Thailand is just stupid. Hard drives from any manufacturer, and produced in any country can go wrong and do go wrong.

You might notice from my profile I have my location set to Thailand, but I am not Thai and I don't live there, but I do spend a couple of months there a year on holiday.

The quality of goods manufactured in Thailand is as good as anywhere else in the world...... counterfeit watches excluded!!!!

And when people start quoting figures like MTBF remember what it means..... "Mean Time Between Failure"..... in other words an average time... some will fail before that figure and some will fail after it. It happens.

Yes, but not 3 of them within 60 days!!! And I made the point in another post that I wonder if some of the current 'Seagate' drives are now being made in some of the production facilities that they acquired when they bought up other manufacturers, and may not be up to past Seagate quality standards........

And the comment you quoted was made rather tongue in cheek.....LOL.

I have decided to give a couple of the ES series drives a try and see if I have better luck.....(we'll see where they were made...LOL again).

EDIT....
Done deal, they are on the way, should have them Thursday so I can try to rebuild the rig on Friday......

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Could your drives be from a dodgy batch? Probably only Seagate themselves would be able to answer that.

Hard drive capacities are getting bigger and bigger, yet the physical size stays the same. So the tolerances are getting smaller and smaller.

I used to work with DIGITAL PDP11/23s and 11/34s with RL02 removable discs.... 10MB on a 14" platter. A head crash on one of them often left quite a mess. Today you can buy a 1TB 3.5".... It just goes to show how far disk drive technology has advanced in 30 years.

I even used to work with a datalogger system which was used for logging Neutron radiation which used paper tape to load the program and used ferrite core memory...... and this was still operating in the late 80s.

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Well I just had my second Hitachi Deskstar fail. Be warned. Less than a year old and Hitachi is refusing to honnor the warranty. Came with a 3 year warranty but the say it was sold OEM so they don't cover the warranty. They say the system builder does. Bought it a NewEgg and they only warranty it for 30 days. So since I built my own system, I guess that means I am responsible for the warranty. Word of caution and lesson learned.

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Well I just had my second Hitachi Deskstar fail. Be warned. Less than a year old and Hitachi is refusing to honnor the warranty. Came with a 3 year warranty but the say it was sold OEM so they don't cover the warranty. They say the system builder does. Bought it a NewEgg and they only warranty it for 30 days. So since I built my own system, I guess that means I am responsible for the warranty. Word of caution and lesson learned.

Ouch....
I wonder if that means that the warranty on the new Seagates I just ordered from Newegg is gonna be 1 year instead of 5.........?

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

The Fiend wrote:

You might notice from my profile I have my location set to Thailand, but I am not Thai and I don't live there, but I do spend a couple of months there a year on holiday.

[OT]
Ever make it down to Pattaya ? I used to keep a house and spend a few months a year there on Holiday, nearly 20 years ago. Cheap entertainment was showing up at "Marine Bar" to watch Muay Thai (Thai kick boxing). Wondering if the "Green Hut Beer Bar" is still open... a few New Year's party there and the food brought in by the 'hostesses' was always delicious.
[/OT]

I agree with Mark that his stereotyping comment was made in jest, as was my follow up about 'Ya Baa'.

Long live King Rama IX...

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Carlos, You may be able to get this resolved by contacting your States Atty. General. If the warranty that is offered by Hitachi is not being honored by the company then they are falsly advertising a warranty and legal action not costing you a penny will be taken by the state. It's worth a shot, how can you warranty a hard drive you only installed? Good luck , Jack

Hi Kittyman,

I have 3 Seagate ST31000340NS (5QJ0DD4D), ST31000340NS (5QJ0AGMN), ST31000340NS (5QJ0DBV6) in the V8-Xeon Server, all with 5 years warranty.
This NS is excellent, have a look at the seagate site.

heinz