I am having buyer's remorse for my external drive purchase.

[suschnauzer]

I was in Staples purchasing a Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB portable hard drive that I found a deal for on an online deal website. While there I noticed they had a Seagate Back Up Plus 3TB external hard drive on clearance. After the discount and coupon I picked it up for $71 + tax. It is by far the lowest price you can find anywhere for this drive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00829THQE/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=0FWFCDVJD2W10NFR1VZA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200422&pf_rd_i=507846

After purchasing it I started doing some research online, which is the exact opposite of how I normally make a tech purchase. I found the professional reviews to be very encouraging. The personal reviews on sites like Newegg and Amazon were not as encouraging. It seems there have been a lot of failures. Upon doing some further research it seems Seagate hard drives have a higher failure rate than other brands.

I feel like returning it but the deal was so good I want to give it a try. I know people are more likely to write a negative review when they have a bad experience than they are to write a positive review when they have a good experience.

Does anyone here have any personal experience with this particular hard drive or Seagate hard drives in general? Maybe I am just overreacting? The hard drive is still in the sealed factory box. I can easily return it but I know I will pay a lot more for a comparable hard drive from another manufacturer.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Take online reviews with a grain of salt since it's a pretty easily skewed towards the negative for a lot of products. The majority of people that buy products online will typically not leave any sort of feedback if the product just works as expected. If it's doing so much more than they might or just to encourage the company but most people can't be bothered if everything just works fine and they can go on with their lives. For the people where the product falls short, breaks down, arrives broken, etc. they have to wait for their product to come back through some RMA process with added shipping costs and that makes them annoyed and they might as well take a few minutes to "warn" others about this problem.

As far as higher failure rates, I've had failures with Seagate and WD alike with no particular pattern. Many of the manufacturing practices will be similar or identical for most companies, not to mention being mechanical they are prone to a lot of different reasons for failure. My favorite company personally is Hitachi/HGST but they belong to WD currently though I believe they operate on their own for the most part. I wouldn't say your drive is any more likely to fail than a competitive product as long as you don't jostle it or move it around too much and give it time to rest between large file transfers as most enclosures do not have cooling aside from a few vents so desktop external drives have a tendency of overheating pretty easily.

 

[piasabird]

I have been thinking the failure rate for drives depends a lot on how well they are packed and shipped. I have had 2 drives on 2 separate builds, one a Seagate and one a WD Fail on me that I ordered with other parts and shipped from Newegg via Ground. Both times they put the loose drive in the box with other parts and I wonder if the drives don't get knocked around during shipment or the truck goes over too many bumps or the box is tossed around. I have been thinking drives should be ordered separately so they get packed better and ship them air freight.

 

[Torn Mind]

Take online reviews with a grain of salt since it's a pretty easily skewed towards the negative for a lot of products. The majority of people that buy products online will typically not leave any sort of feedback if the product just works as expected. If it's doing so much more than they might or just to encourage the company but most people can't be bothered if everything just works fine and they can go on with their lives. For the people where the product falls short, breaks down, arrives broken, etc. they have to wait for their product to come back through some RMA process with added shipping costs and that makes them annoyed and they might as well take a few minutes to "warn" others about this problem.

As far as higher failure rates, I've had failures with Seagate and WD alike with no particular pattern. Many of the manufacturing practices will be similar or identical for most companies, not to mention being mechanical they are prone to a lot of different reasons for failure. My favorite company personally is Hitachi/HGST but they belong to WD currently though I believe they operate on their own for the most part. I wouldn't say your drive is any more likely to fail than a competitive product as long as you don't jostle it or move it around too much and give it time to rest between large file transfers as most enclosures do not have cooling aside from a few vents so desktop external drives have a tendency of overheating pretty easily.

WD has most of Hitachi while Toshiba has acquired the 3.5 inch drive portion of the company.

 

[UaVaj]

don't lose sleep over it.

as with "all" traditional hard drive. your mileage will vary. owned every brand and had every brand died at one time or another.

if you care about your data. back it up at two other places.



if you still unable to sleep. will gladly take that deal off your chest. just give me a shout.

 

[Ketchup]

I have a 1 TB internal Seagate that has been in my file/media server for over a year and hasn't had any problems. It gets accessed on a daily basis.

 

[It's Not Lupus]

Well my experience with two of same 3tb externals, which I bought a half a year after the flood, has been fine. I ripped one open to use as an internal drive. The other has only been used for occasional backups.

I won't worry about it, and that's a great deal.

 

[Charlie98]

I accidentally bought a 2TB Seagate external drive (I mistook it for a portable external drive... of which I have 3 Seagates, all uber dependable...) and, besides the bulky form, it has worked very well.

I actually took the drive out of the Seagate enclosure, pleased to find it was a standard Barracuda, and stuck it in my HTPC. No problems after 1 year. I then took an old 500GB Hitachi and stuck it back in the external enclosure... that is working well, too.

Open the box and enjoy... you got a very good deal on what should be a solid drive!

 

[suschnauzer]

Thanks for all your responses. I think I will give it a try. It does have 2 year warranty so if something even does happen, I can get a replacement. I will make sure the data is backed up on another drive as well.

 

[brett_stevens]

The personal reviews on sites like Newegg and Amazon were not as encouraging.

I would not take those seriously. When someone has a bad experience, they go online to rage at the product, even when it had nothing to do with the failure.

 

[Morbus]

Well, I have very poor personal experience with WD My Passports.

But then again, I have very poor personal experience with 2.5' USB drives.

That's why the last time I went to Staples I got myself a nice 2TB 3.5' Seagate Expansion Drive. For 80€, which was a nice deal, considering I've been looking for a sub 50€ 1TB drive for ages. It's not pretty (well, in a way it kind of is), and it's not easy to drag around with me (considering it's 3.5'), but it's a proper external drive and I can trust it and I know it won't let me down if I don't let it down. Literally or otherwise.

Anyway, I don't trust 2.5, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't.

 

[Blain]

"Professional" reviews mainly address performance.
"Personal" reviews give buyers a place to vent when their components fail.
The main gripe I have with "Professional" reviews is that they almost never conduct any reliability/longevity tests on reviewed products.
Personal "reviews" should ALWAYS BE TAKEN with a large grain of salt, never as a first line of information.

 

[silicon]

I was in Staples purchasing a Western Digital My Passport Ultra 2TB portable hard drive that I found a deal for on an online deal website. While there I noticed they had a Seagate Back Up Plus 3TB external hard drive on clearance. After the discount and coupon I picked it up for $71 + tax. It is by far the lowest price you can find anywhere for this drive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00829THQE/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=0FWFCDVJD2W10NFR1VZA&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200422&pf_rd_i=507846

After purchasing it I started doing some research online, which is the exact opposite of how I normally make a tech purchase. I found the professional reviews to be very encouraging. The personal reviews on sites like Newegg and Amazon were not as encouraging. It seems there have been a lot of failures. Upon doing some further research it seems Seagate hard drives have a higher failure rate than other brands.

I feel like returning it but the deal was so good I want to give it a try. I know people are more likely to write a negative review when they have a bad experience than they are to write a positive review when they have a good experience.

Does anyone here have any personal experience with this particular hard drive or Seagate hard drives in general? Maybe I am just overreacting? The hard drive is still in the sealed factory box. I can easily return it but I know I will pay a lot more for a comparable hard drive from another manufacturer.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks for reading.

As other have said your mileage may vary as there is a lot of variability in the life of hard drives. One tactic you might try is to burn in the drive by allowing it to run continuously for a period of time. I have an external backup drive but it only runs when i run my backup program. You could make a small utility to read and write to the drive and see if this will cause problems.

 

[paulyrock]

Hi
I have around 7 seagate external hard drives. 1.5T to 2T I can't comment on 3T because I stopped using Seagate products. I would barely touch them after I back upped my files and the next think I would hear is "the click of death"
The last one just stopped... beeps 3 times, that's it. Forums say to change out power supply.. done dat. or take it in to get data extracted ($600.00)
They feel too hot all the time... I use WD now... even running they feel cooler, show up in windows. good transfer...
btw... seagate would often disappear in the middle of a transfer... just like that
nothing like that happens with WD
me likes
good luck if you keep. Just my experience... but support sucked as well...
ps
they seemed to die right after the warranty period died.. hmmm funny
i think there was a real bad batch... maybe they were all build on friday, who knows. i won't touch one again
good luck

 

[mindless1]

The thing about owner reviews of HDDs is they are often unbelievable as a whole because you get an unrealistically large % making one of two claims:

1) People claiming they have drive after drive after drive fail when they were only dealing with one or two drives at a time. The odds of that when others get a reliable product on the first try are astronomically low, unless it's either a fake review, rogue UPS agent that drop kicks your packages, or gross user error.

2) People claiming they keep having Seagate failures yet they keep buying more and more Seagates. WHO DOES THIS?!!?

 

[UaVaj]

hard drive is as bad a floppy disk. no brand nor model is that reliable. hence why everyone backs up.

for someone to say that one brand is all that and one brand is all this. they are drinking the kool aid.

 

[suschnauzer]

Hi
I have around 7 seagate external hard drives. 1.5T to 2T I can't comment on 3T because I stopped using Seagate products. I would barely touch them after I back upped my files and the next think I would hear is "the click of death"
The last one just stopped... beeps 3 times, that's it. Forums say to change out power supply.. done dat. or take it in to get data extracted ($600.00)
They feel too hot all the time... I use WD now... even running they feel cooler, show up in windows. good transfer...
btw... seagate would often disappear in the middle of a transfer... just like that
nothing like that happens with WD
me likes
good luck if you keep. Just my experience... but support sucked as well...
ps
they seemed to die right after the warranty period died.. hmmm funny
i think there was a real bad batch... maybe they were all build on friday, who knows. i won't touch one again
good luck

Oh boy. Your experience is the same one I'm reading countless times about on Amazon and Newegg. At this point I'm thinking about building my own external drive. Any good 3TB hard drive recommendations? Or, what is the most reliable brand for external hard drives?

 

[Blain]

At this point I'm thinking about building my own external drive.
Any good 3TB hard drive recommendations?

HDS723030ALA640 or HDS5C3030ALA630

 

[AnitaPeterson]

suschnauzer, I have only two pieces of advice for you:

1) Run CrystalDiskInfo on a regular basis, to make sure the drive is healthy.
2) Don't worry so much.

 

[Gunbuster]

If you have anything important on the drive always plan on it failing. Entropy gets everything in the end.

 

[pmv]

I don't know about hard drive reviews. Pretty much whichever brand I consider I end up finding claims that that particular brand has a high failure rate. It drives me nuts when I'm trying to chose a new drive.

FWIW, over the decades I have tended to find that most of my 'hard drive failures' have turned out to be due to 'power supply failures' or even 'terrible wiring in the house I was living in...failures'.

All drives are going to fail eventually. Just don't get too attached to your data!

 

[mfenn]

2) Don't worry so much.

This.

OP, if you read 20 posts of positive experiences and then worried by one post about a negative experience, then you're experiencing the phenomenon known as confirmation bias.

Gunbuster, pmv, and everyone else suggesting backups are right on. All drives will fail eventually. I don't care if it's made by WD, Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, Maxstor, Quantum, or God Himself, it will fail eventually. Peace of mind comes from having good backups, not obsessing over which drive is the most reliable (which you will never determine from anecdotal evidence by the way).