Backblaze and Seagate

[Nec_V20]

I am a bit cheesed off about seeing posts using the reporting of Backblaze to paint Seagate harddrives in a bad light.

Here are the facts as far as have been reported by both Backblaze and the various tech sites.

Backblaze by their own admission buys in harddrives based on price with no other consideration being paramount.

Backblaze by their own admission bought Seagate drives alost exclusively during the harddrive crisis after the floods because other manufacturers were not able to supply.

Backblaze by their own admission buys in external USB drives to take them apart.

Backblaze by their own admission stated that when they could use the drives even after they had been deemed faulty in a single drive environment.

Yes I have bought Seagate drives (and Hitachi and WD drives). My personal criterion has been price. Thing is that I have NEVER used ANY drives in a RAID configuration.

If I were going to use drives in a RAID (or NAS/SAN environment - and as opposed to most "tech journalists" out there I do know the difference between NAS and SAN) I would buy drives specifically designed for that environment.

Now to my mind whoever was/is responsible for purchasing mission critical equipment at Backblaze is criminally irresponsible.

One thing which I have not seen in any reporting is what kind of Power Supply Units they use in their drive farms. If they use the same kind of criterion there (cheapest possible) then what surprises me least is the amount of drive failures they have had but rather that there have not been even more.

Backblaze's reporting of Seagate drive failures is not so much an indictment of Seagate but rather an indictment of the incompetence of Backblaze itself.

Backblaze has bought in higher end Hitachi drives when the price has fallen due to the introduction of newer model. They buy in newest models Seagate drives because of capacity and price irregardless of the STATED USE by Seagate.

What I find horrific is that in a so-called "professional" data storage company they get a high percentage of their drives from breaking apart external USB drives.

The whole "Backblaze-Seagate" controversy is bullsh#t as far as I can see, from their own reporting

It's like there was a dire need for engines, so they bought a few thousand cheap VW Golf cars, stripped the engines out of them, bunged them into tractors and then turn around and say that VW is crap because so many of the engines they built into the tractors failed under load.

If Backblaze is too effing stupid to use the right tool for the right effing job then they cannot blame anyone but themselves.

 

[tential]

Purchasing cheap drives when you can use some form of data redundancy to back it up is far cheaper than using enterprise or more expensive drives. Blackblaze got the idea from us enthusiasts who had already been doing it for our home servers. Many server farms don't use enterprise drives anymore and Blackblaze just took it one step further to the enthusiast level.

The problem with this is that Blackblaze posted this data, told people to not draw conclusions from it, and expected people to actually do it. Posting the data in a nontest environment is irresponsible because now people quote the data as "proof" seagate is faulty when it is proof that in Blackblaze's environment, with how they treat their drives, their seagate drives fail more. It's a statement of BLACKBLAZE's environment, not of a consumer environment.

People using Seagate drives to simply store data in a NAS environment (The majority of the people complaining about Seagate drives are people purchasing large drives and then saying "Ah Seagate will destroy your data best with WD") are writing movies to their drives (usually pirates), and that's it. You're writing to store the data....

Your drive isn't going to die.

Blackblaze has NEVER said Seagate is crap either. It's idiots who drew that conclusion from the article. Blackblaze's END CONCLUSION from the article is that they would continue to purchase Seagate drives primarily due to their cost to performance ratio.

Which is exactly why I purchase seagate usually as well.

Seems like the 5TB drives are dipping close to $100 soon too with the latest deals. I got another 2TB left before I purchase a new drive and designer dogs aren't cheap so got another month maybe until I purchase my next drive which will most likely be the same 5TB SEagate drive I have purchased multiple times now.

People should just use UNRAID Though and USE A parity drive (including myself as I should have one but meh, my server keeps my drives far cooler and nicer, etc. than my tower PC did where they were running super hot and now they run beautifully. I've never had a drive fail which leads me to think people are doing a LOT of stupid thigns with their drives. I've done one stupid thing with ym drive and I see people do stupid things all the time so I'm betting people aren't careful disassembling the 5TB external drives and thus are giving Seagate an even worse rep. I'm going to try to hold out to get an 8TB parity drive though. Keep my fingers crossed till then. 5TB Parity drive seems way too small anyway).

 

[Nec_V20]

(The majority of the people complaining about Seagate drives are people purchasing large drives and then saying "Ah Seagate will destroy your data best with WD")

I just do not understand that sentence, especially what you mean by the:

Ah Seagate will destroy your data best with WD

part.

I have been trying to wrap my brain around that paragraph for the past ten minutes and I'm still clueless.

Please tell me what that is meant to mean (I would have put it in all-caps but refrained out of politeness).

 

[Elixer]

Yes, we all know HDs are going to fail sooner or later, but, Backblaze's results closely match the real world results from data recovery places.

If you don't want to listen to data recovery places, then, that is fine.
However, they are in the best position to know know who has the worst drives, would they not be?

As always has been said, people need to backup, no matter which HD they get, there is no getting around that.

 

[Nec_V20]

Purchasing cheap drives when you can use some form of data redundancy to back it up is far cheaper than using enterprise or more expensive drives. Blackblaze got the idea from us enthusiasts who had already been doing it for our home servers. Many server farms don't use enterprise drives anymore and Blackblaze just took it one step further to the enthusiast level.

The problem with this is that Blackblaze posted this data, told people to not draw conclusions from it, and expected people to actually do it. Posting the data in a nontest environment is irresponsible because now people quote the data as "proof" seagate is faulty when it is proof that in Blackblaze's environment, with how they treat their drives, their seagate drives fail more. It's a statement of BLACKBLAZE's environment, not of a consumer environment.

People using Seagate drives to simply store data in a NAS environment (The majority of the people complaining about Seagate drives are people purchasing large drives and then saying "Ah Seagate will destroy your data best with WD") are writing movies to their drives (usually pirates), and that's it. You're writing to store the data....

Your drive isn't going to die.

Blackblaze has NEVER said Seagate is crap either. It's idiots who drew that conclusion from the article. Blackblaze's END CONCLUSION from the article is that they would continue to purchase Seagate drives primarily due to their cost to performance ratio.

Which is exactly why I purchase seagate usually as well.

Seems like the 5TB drives are dipping close to $100 soon too with the latest deals. I got another 2TB left before I purchase a new drive and designer dogs aren't cheap so got another month maybe until I purchase my next drive which will most likely be the same 5TB SEagate drive I have purchased multiple times now.

People should just use UNRAID Though and USE A parity drive (including myself as I should have one but meh, my server keeps my drives far cooler and nicer, etc. than my tower PC did where they were running super hot and now they run beautifully. I've never had a drive fail which leads me to think people are doing a LOT of stupid thigns with their drives. I've done one stupid thing with ym drive and I see people do stupid things all the time so I'm betting people aren't careful disassembling the 5TB external drives and thus are giving Seagate an even worse rep. I'm going to try to hold out to get an 8TB parity drive though. Keep my fingers crossed till then. 5TB Parity drive seems way too small anyway).

Nearly everyone using RAID today have no clue what RAID was about in the first place.

The one and ONLY reason for RAID was because the data requirements (databases) was becoming too big for the individual rapid storage medium and how to distribute that data and/or to mirror the data.

I don't use RAID because I don't NEED it.

I can emulate RAID quite nicely if I want it by nesting my drives within another one and still see one directory structure - even if one drive fails I can still work off the others. I back up everything I cannot do without and as for the rest, if I lose it then I can always replace it.

My drives however do not age as rapidly as they would in a RAID environment because if a drive is not being accessed it is asleep. In a RAID environment all drives are active all of the time.

My drives do not get worn out unnecessarily.

I migrate my drives periodically (about every four years or so) to mitigate data loss.

So I consolidate the data from two older drives to one newer drive of a larger capacity and then keep the older drives offline.

 

[Nec_V20]

Yes, we all know HDs are going to fail sooner or later, but, Backblaze's results closely match the real world results from data recovery places.

If you don't want to listen to data recovery places, then, that is fine.
However, they are in the best position to know know who has the worst drives, would they not be?

As always has been said, people need to backup, no matter which HD they get, there is no getting around that.

Really?

Which data recovery places?

Name them.

Seems to be that people who want to bitch use Backblaze to bitch about Seagate. And Backblaze is not what I would consider to be a reliable source for the reasons I mentioned above.

Go on, show me reliable sources that you think back up (pardon the pun) your opinion.

 

[Elixer]

Really?

Which data recovery places?

Name them.

Seems to be that people who want to bitch use Backblaze to bitch about Seagate. And Backblaze is not what I would consider to be a reliable source for the reasons I mentioned above.

Go on, show me reliable sources that you think back up (pardon the pun) your opinion.

What is with the attitude?
You work or have monetary interests in seagate or something?

If you would calm down and use the search function of this forum, you would find where the data recovery guys talk about this stuff, and read it for yourself.

 

[Nec_V20]

What is with the attitude?
You work or have monetary interests in seagate or something?

If you would calm down and use the search function of this forum, you would find where the data recovery guys talk about this stuff, and read it for yourself.

No I don't have any monetary or other particular interest in Seagate.

You say, there are "the data recovery guys talk about this stuff".

Under that criterion I am a 20 year old supermodel looking for some fat ugly guy to shag.

So basically what you are telling me is that you have jack ****.

You made the claim, you back it up or STFU.

Infraction issued for foul language and hostility. -Shmee

 

[AlienTech]

I have no interest in hearing what someone else thinks of some others experiences. But if my own experiences match some others I would give them more weight. Hence in my own experience i give a lot of weight to the results of backblaze and none to your own opinions. If not for many such as you trying to discredit the results of places like backblaze, it is not even important enough for me to waste 5 minutes to leave this reply. Which means the more people like you try to discredit someone else like backblaze, the more resistance you are going to find from people like me. I know google and microsoft tried to do similar results but most likely got blackmailed to not publish their recent results after their original study. And their results were similar..

 

[VirtualLarry]

No I don't have any monetary or other particular interest in Seagate.

You say, there are "the data recovery guys talk about this stuff".

Under that criterion I am a 20 year old supermodel looking for some fat ugly guy to shag.

So basically what you are telling me is that you have jack shit.

You made the claim, you back it up or STFU.

Reported.

Seagate is generally the cheaper drive for a reason. There's also a reason why they are now specified for 8x5 operation (8 hours a day, 5 days a week), instead of 24/7, like all decent HDDs USED to be.

 

[Nec_V20]

I have no interest in hearing what someone else thinks of some others experiences. But if my own experiences match some others I would give them more weight. Hence in my own experience i give a lot of weight to the results of backblaze and none to your own opinions. If not for many such as you trying to discredit the results of places like backblaze, it is not even important enough for me to waste 5 minutes to leave this reply. Which means the more people like you try to discredit someone else like backblaze, the more resistance you are going to find from people like me. I know google and microsoft tried to do similar results but most likely got blackmailed to not publish their recent results after their original study. And their results were similar..

As I said on another thread:

I have three of the 3TB ST3000DM001-9YN166 HDs running in my system. They have been running 24/7 respectively for:

1) 1142 days 19 hours (Firmware CC9C)
2) 980 days 20 hours (Firmware CC4B)
3) 977 days 9 hours ( Firmware CC4B)

These drives are not in a RAID array.

I have a Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632 2TB drive which has been running 1513 days 18 hours in the same system as the Seagate drives.

The most important part of my system is the PSU which is a Corsair AX850. Not only is it a Gold unit, but it also has very low ripple on the 12V rail and excellent overvoltage protection. Excessive ripple is what destroys hardware.

Many buy the PSU as an afterthought from what is left of their budget after they have splurged out on all the sexy stuff.

It could just be that the 3TB drives are more sensitive to ripple than other drives.

So as far as I personally am concerned WITH REGARD TO THE DRIVES THEY SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED their "report" was bullshit from my own personal knowledge.

However as I have also stated, I bought my drives before the crisis, and at that, three drives is also not a recommendation FOR Seagate.

Coming at me with some "microsoft and google" conspiracy theory twattle just doesn't really cut the mustard.

I don't have to discredit Backblaze, they impeached themselves with their own statements.

The drives they used were simply not appropriate. The fact is that if anyone at Backblaze was in the slightest way competent they would know that - just a simple RTFM would settle it.

 

[Nec_V20]

Reported.

Seagate is generally the cheaper drive for a reason. There's also a reason why they are now specified for 8x5 operation (8 hours a day, 5 days a week), instead of 24/7, like all decent HDDs USED to be.

I reported your post and here is exactly what I said:

I am reporting this post because the person has put in a bogus report about one of my posts.

I do not think there is anything whatsoever wrong about the following reply post:

"No I don't have any monetary or other particular interest in Seagate.

You say, there are "the data recovery guys talk about this stuff".

Under that criterion I am a 20 year old supermodel looking for some fat ugly guy to shag.

So basically what you are telling me is that you have jack shit.

You made the claim, you back it up or STFU."

I would like to see VirtualLarry censured for false reporting.

If somebody comes at me with a "some say" Faux News kind of claim then I am not going to take that person seriously and object in stringent terms.

If you expect me to take that kind of person seriously, then yes, I am a 20 year old supermodel looking for an ugly old guy to shag.

And please tell me where you see "8x5" specified with regard to HDs. Again another claim I cannot see verified anywhere.

What you seem to mistake is "being available 24/7" (powered on but not spun up) with "being accessed 24/7" (powered on and spun up).

If you are going to have a go at me then at least try to make a cogent argument instead of taking your intellectual cues from the likes of Faux News.

 

[eton975]

It's like there was a dire need for engines, so they bought a few thousand cheap VW Golf cars, stripped the engines out of them, bunged them into tractors and then turn around and say that VW is crap because so many of the engines they built into the tractors failed under load.

Yes, but by your analogy, they also used Ford and Toyota engines and those worked much better under said harsh conditions. Now of course it's possible that it was a bad transmission (PSU) or something that caused the failure, but by your analogy the Ford and Toyota engines were paired with the same shitty transmissions and worked much much better.

You see, Backblaze has responded and revealed more of their methodology. They used the same storage pods for all the drives, and found that MORE of the NON-shucked drives failed.

Of course, this might not mean much for your average person buying a single one, but it could offer an insight into what happens when you put them into a brutal server gauntlet. And if you are average Joe, why not get a Toshiba drive instead for $5 more?

And please tell me where you see "8x5" specified with regard to HDs. Again another claim I cannot see verified anywhere.

Seagate Drive Selection Guide. They also have datasheets specifying 2400 hours/yr, which is slightly more than 8x5x52 but oh well.

 

[Nec_V20]

Yes, but by your analogy, they also used Ford and Toyota engines and those worked much better under said harsh conditions. Now of course it's possible that it was a bad transmission (PSU) or something that caused the failure, but by your analogy the Ford and Toyota engines were paired with the same shitty transmissions and worked much much better.

You see, Backblaze has responded and revealed more of their methodology. They used the same storage pods for all the drives, and found that MORE of the NON-shucked drives failed.

Of course, this might not mean much for your average person buying a single one, but it could offer an insight into what happens when you put them into a brutal server gauntlet. And if you are average Joe, why not get a Toshiba drive instead for $5 more?



Seagate Drive Selection Guide. They also have datasheets specifying 2400 hours/yr, which is slightly more than 8x5x52 but oh well.

I knew that my analogy (and it was an analogy and not something. like some others have presented here. plucked straight out of my ass) and you have put a dent in what I said.

However the Ford and Mercedes engines might well have been those designed for heavier vehicles and would have fared better in tractors - before eventually failing.

Some tools are inappropriate for the job and some tools are even more inappropriate for the job.

I would NEVER use the 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001-9YN166 in a 24/7 accessibility mode in my own personal system. The bloody thing just isn't built for it.

Thing is that the Hitachi drives fail, they just don't fail as soon.

If you want to ask me about some "IBM Golden Screwdriver Crap" then ask me about the 4770k from Intel, which after I delidded it, got rid of the black glue gunk and the thick layer of what they call "TIM", I then replaced the lid, with a thin layer of good TIM (Arctic MX-4) with some paper under the lid to stop my cooler crushing the CPU, and I record as cool temperatures as the "brand new" Devils Canyon then OK: because as far as I can see Intel did nothing other than what I did, and I have a real reason to suspect that the bastards took their cue from IBM and artificially thermally castrated the 4770K so that they could con suckers into believing that the 4790K is a significant upgrade.

A lot of Toshiba drives are rebranded Hitachi drives. I am not saying that is a bad thing.

Hitachi (well actually WD) produce fewer drives for a higher market at a higher price.

Take a look at the statistics after the HD crisis and Backblaze bought drives on price from Seagate and WD and you will see that the failure rate is nearly the same (4TB drives).

It was a bit of dishonesty in reporting talking about HGST as it has belonged to WD since 2012 and within WD the HGST unit is tasked with producing higher quality harddrives.

So what price are you willing to pay for that quality difference?

Backblaze obviously isn't.

Less of their Hitachi drives fail because they buy very few of them and they do not state how they implement those drives. Do they treat them the same way they do the Seagate workhorses they bought inappropriately in bulk?

Who knows?

I really have to love the comparison with the 3TB Hitachi drives from 2012 because most of the Hitachi production line was destroyed. Backblaze bought what they knew to be inappropriate at the time - because it was the only thing available - and then turn around and bitch about it afterwards. And then try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

You have to be shitting me.

You've already been infracted for inappropriate language. Please tone it down. -Admin DrPizza

 

[Nec_V20]

Seriously I get a censure for being as polite as I possibly could to an ignoramus.

It is the classic case of incestuous amplification when some "Diamond Member" twit accuses me of being a shill for Seagate and I tell him what to do with him/herself more politely than just "go forth and multiply" and some "Lifer" sycophant whines about it.

Not one of the two put forth any information or referenced ANY links to reputable sources which would dispute my posts.

So let me get this straight - and I am autistic (Asperger's) - on this site:

1) Ad hominems are OK
2) Impugning someone's integrity is OK
3) Lying through your tooth is OK as well.

However:
4) Telling some time-wasting twit where to get off is a cardinal offence.

I know what to think of those people going forward and others should bear in mind what the posters Elixer and Virtuall Larry have to say in future as well, and make SURE they do further research before believing a word of what they say.

I did respect one of those posters before, but as of now no longer.

You do not get to call another poster "an ignoramus" or a "twit." Please top with the hostilities and name calling. -Admin DrPizza And, to you and the other posters, quoting someone's post with "reported" is just instigating people further. It's like a 1st grader yelling, "I'm going to tell the teacher on you!" - thank you for reporting the posts, but telling the other poster that you're reporting posts simply furthers the level of hostilities and is unnecessary. Thank you, -Admin DrPizza

 

[Nec_V20]

What is with the attitude?
You work or have monetary interests in seagate or something?

If you would calm down and use the search function of this forum, you would find where the data recovery guys talk about this stuff, and read it for yourself.

I have reported this post as well:

If you are going to play this game then I report this post as an unwarranted and insulting ad hominem to someone who has worked with integrity in the computer industry as a techie for over 32 years.

He/She wrote:
"You work or have monetary interests in seagate or something?"

And I should not take offence?

I tell him/her to STFU and get censured, and he/she is allowed to call me a corrupt bastard with impunity?

Censure me and leave this stand if you will - but don't call it even handed.

 

[Shmee]

Hey both of you, knock it off. If we cannot debate nicely, whether right or wrong, then this thread will be closed real soon. Please, back to the HDD's, nothing personal.

 

[Nec_V20]

Hey both of you, knock it off. If we cannot debate nicely, whether right or wrong, then this thread will be closed real soon. Please, back to the HDD's, nothing personal.

I completely agree with you.

Let's talk about the substance.

 

[w0ss]

I bought 10 seagate 3TB drives, Of the 10 all but 1 have errors. 3 of them ended up in the trash since they would no longer work at all.

They were bought based purely on price and at the time I didn't understand how bad they really were. Going forward if one dies I will replace it with a different brand.

Currently I am running it in on ZFS mirrored with a hot spare.

 

[tential]

As I said on another thread:



So as far as I personally am concerned WITH REGARD TO THE DRIVES THEY SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED their "report" was bullshit from my own personal knowledge.

However as I have also stated, I bought my drives before the crisis, and at that, three drives is also not a recommendation FOR Seagate.

Coming at me with some "microsoft and google" conspiracy theory twattle just doesn't really cut the mustard.

I don't have to discredit Backblaze, they impeached themselves with their own statements.

The drives they used were simply not appropriate. The fact is that if anyone at Backblaze was in the slightest way competent they would know that - just a simple RTFM would settle it.

6 Seagate drives here including the 1.5TB drive that Blackblaze bought into (I don't know why, consumers had been reporting about the high failure rate. I'm lucky mine is still chugging along despite the amazing abuse I've done to it since I first got it). All working and I abused a couple of them. They now all sit in a server powered off unless accessed though which is how you SHOULD use the drives. If a drive failed for me, I would know it was mostly because of how I used it previously. My newer drives though have been turned off almost all the time.

Blackblaze doesn't use their drives in the same manner a consumer would use their drives. It's similar to saying that because Formula 1 cars need to get their tires changed after laps around a track, you need to change your car tires that regularly too.

The usage scenarios are different, thus it makes no sense to use the data unless you use your harddrives in similar manner to blackblaze.

 

[bigboxes]

Nev v20, even if I don't agree with your opinion you keep telling it like it is. This board has become so sterile that you cannot speak your mind without getting an infraction. All the while the fanboys are allowed free rein.

Personally, I've been trying out HGST drives cause I've hear good things about them. I usually upgrade my storage drives to larger capacities before they go bad. I have had a number of Seagate drives go bad. I had one 1.5TB that was out of warranty, but I also backup religiously. And no, RAID is not backup. It was never meant for backup. However, having to replace a drive after it goes bad is stressful and time consuming. Not to mention it requires me to spend money when I may not have the resources. Of course, I think the biggest reason I have had more Seagate drives go bad is because I buy more Seagate drives than anything else. I have had all of the major makes go bad. It's inevitable.

 

[tential]

Nev v20, even if I don't agree with your opinion you keep telling it like it is. This board has become so sterile that you cannot speak your mind without getting an infraction. All the while the fanboys are allowed free rein.

Personally, I've been trying out HGST drives cause I've hear good things about them. I usually upgrade my storage drives to larger capacities before they go bad. I have had a number of Seagate drives go bad. I had one 1.5TB that was out of warranty, but I also backup religiously. And no, RAID is not backup. It was never meant for backup. However, having to replace a drive after it goes bad is stressful and time consuming. Not to mention it requires me to spend money when I may not have the resources. Of course, I think the biggest reason I have had more Seagate drives go bad is because I buy more Seagate drives than anything else. I have had all of the major makes go bad. It's inevitable.

That 1.5TB drive was a known dud.

And I think you touch on a point about having more seagate drives go back because you buy more seagate drives. Seagate has a TON of drives sold due to these low prices. Of course they'll also have the most chances to get bad reviews. I've bought only the cheapest drive each time and it's been Seagate each time except for WD once.

Use whatever form of data protection you need. Data you don't care about? Nothing. Data you do care about a little bit? Maybe have protection for 1-2 drive failures. Data that is mission critical to your life? Backup offsite. Etc.

It's not hard to figure out a plan. It's people who lose data they EXTREMELY care about and cry when they store it only in one place that make me lol....

 

[bigboxes]

That 1.5TB drive was a known dud.

I have 6 1.5TB Seagate drives still rocking fine. 24/7

 

[Dasa2]

Seagate did offer a 5y warranty on drives
But then it dropped to 1y before going up to 2y
To me this is a reflection on a drop in the quality of there drives

In au for the same price as seagate you can get a toshiba hdd that is faster has a 3y warranty and works well in raid

Back when the flood hit i grabbed a 2tb seagate with 1y warranty as that was all that was affordable at the time
It still goes but its head parking has always been annoying making the system stutter which is fine as a data drive but no good for programs
Newer models still have the head parking but its less annoying

 

[tential]

I have 6 1.5TB Seagate drives still rocking fine. 24/7

Mine still runs too.... Doesn't mean it's a 100% failure rate just means higher than the norm.