Seagate Hit with Class Action Lawsuit for High Failure Rates

[SloppyMcFloppy]

Content source

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/storage/seagate_hit_with_class_action_lawsuit_for_high_failure_rates/1

Sources

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/storage/seagate_hit_with_class_action_lawsuit_for_high_failure_rates/1

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/seagate-faced-with-class-action-lawsuit-alleges-it-sold-defective-drives/

Seagate has just been hit with a Class Action Lawsuit for the High Failure Rates of their 3TB hard drives (both internal and external) and Seagate's "inability to deliver non-defective hard drives that conform to their express and implied warranties".

While Seagate has advertised their drives as "reliable" and "dependable" allegations have often been levied against the company that their drives have been some of the most unreliable on the market, with the Plaintiff claiming that the drives were "defective and failed prematurely at spectacularly – and in many respects unprecedentedly – high rates" and is taking action against the company both for himself and all affected consumers. This is a class action arising from Defendant Seagate Technology, LLC’s (“Defendant”) repeated failure and inability to deliver non-defective hard drives that conform to their express and implied warranties; its breach of consumer protection, unfair competition and false advertising laws; and its unjust enrichment.
The class action lawsuit goes on to cite data from Backblaze as evidence against Seagate, with Backblaze having on several occasions reported that Seagate is among the worst manufacturer on the market who have failure rates that are often much higher than that of other manufacturers.

As demonstrated by consumer experience and reports released by Backblaze, a data backup company, the true failure rate of the Drives was substantially higher than advertised, and the Drives did not last nearly as long as comparable devices from other manufacturers or even other models manufactured by Defendant.

It should be noted that Backblaze is a cloud storage service company and these failure rates are for consumer drivers running under data centre conditions, so they're running hotter and have vibrations from other HDD's.

Unfortunately, receiving a defective hard drive bears much more severe consequences than many other products on the market. Since many people use these drives as their primary source of storage, or as a critical backup, a defect means not only then end of an expensive product, but the end of important files as well.

 

[frogboy]

Luckily all of mine are Western Digital.

 

[Kuttz]

I think Seagates older drives with 5 year warranty models are reliable. My Barracuda 500 GB which is now 6 years old still working as good as new. Yes of course I will try to skip Seagate HDDs with my next system upgrade.

 

[SloppyMcFloppy]

I think Seagates older drives with 5 year warranty models are reliable. My Barracuda 500 GB which is now 6 years old still working as good as new. Yes of course I will try to skip Seagate HDDs with my next system upgrade.

I probably will get Hitachi as my backup drive later.

 

[DracusNarcrym]

Western Digital (HDDs) and Intel (SSDs) user here.

All HDDs are more or less prone to malfunction or failure due to the delicate nature of their mechanical parts.
We do need however, to consider the scenario from which such statistical data is derived.
As it is clarified in the article, BackBlaze is a cloud storage service, and the conditions in a data center are not exactly mild for running consumer-grade hardware, however it is also considerable that the failure rates of Seagate device are not proportional to those of their counterparts from other manufacturers.

It is always preferred that extremely important files are backed up on multiple devices, and, optionally, in the cloud.
This way the risks of total data loss are significantly mitigated, while also ensuring a greater peace of mind.

Speaking of cloud storage, BackBlaze and Amazon Cloud Drive offer unlimited data storage options for any types of files. I am very interested in adding such a backup option to my current set of backup solutions, as it offers many obvious benefits.

 

[Vasudev]

I think Seagates older drives with 5 year warranty models are reliable. My Barracuda 500 GB which is now 6 years old still working as good as new. Yes of course I will try to skip Seagate HDDs with my next system upgrade.

Yeah my older seagate hdd suddenly died, luckily i was covered with 5yr warranty and replaced the drive free of cost. Go for 2TB seagate barracuda, which is more reliable. Check out newegg.com for more reviews.

 

[shukla44]

Well, that's a little disappointing. Both my external HDD's are Seagate. But they haven't shown any irregularities till now. Fingers crossed.

 

[TheJokerz]

Well that is a bummer. All of my external drives are Seagate. I hope they do not die.. Knock on wood..

 

[DracusNarcrym]

@shukla44 @TheJokerz The article outlines statistics of failures that occured in relatively extreme conditions, which are not usually found in an endpoint system like those that everyone here uses.
Just make sure you avoid handling it roughly (severe vibrations or shock from falling are by far the most common causes for premature hard drive failure).

The most common signs of imminent HDD failure are irregular, noticeable mechanical sounds (e.g. metal clicking or intense whirring) and extremely slow read/write speeds.

 

[Crystal_Lake_Camper]

I have 2 external seagate hdd's in use For two years , up untill now....no problems. Let's hope that it stay that way

 

[jamescv7]

Well I have no against with Seagate, they have reliable HDD drives however an instrument for many users not to buy due to test results.

Even though the test may synthetic or not but the point here is the quality control.

Still a factor that will add how company reputation goes on their product.

 

[Solarquest]

I think it's a great precedent!
Company have to be kept responsible and reliable for what they sell.
I expect and hope to see a class action against router manufacturer as against IOT manufacturer that sell devices with low, insufficient security and don't provide fast bug fix.
Same for smartphone manufacturer etc.