Seagate 3TB Drives Are Problematic

[BFG10K]

I generally avoid Seagate due to anecdotal experiences (never had a single WD drive fail on me), but this article gives an extra reason to avoid the 3TB variants.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/

 

[MongGrel]

I feel the same way, personally.

 

[Soulkeeper]

apple is replacing 3tb drives in some of their imacs. Were they seagates ?
http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/19/8815721/apple-replacement-program-imac-hard-drive

 

[Charlie98]

I have one of those in my HTPC, in fact, it's the primary storage drive. Full-on paranoia hasn't set in juuuuust yet, I check it once a week with CrystalDisk to make sure it's not fixing to dump, and I have the files backed up on a 3TB WD Red (which actually started life as a 2TB Red, but had bad sectors right out of the box; WD replaced it with a refurb 3TB... )

I really wonder what I'm supposed to be looking for... based on the Backblaze chart, it's almost a 50/50 bet that I will lose that drive... but how? I'm also torn between using a reputedly bad drive as my primary storage drive, or a refurb from WD...

 

[Soulkeeper]

I'm suspect it's the chinese ones that are the issue.
The stats don't differentiate, but i've got a thailand and a chinese one. The chinese one failed.
different firmware different factory

 

[rchunter]

The only seagate drives I have in use right now are a 2TB barracuda and a 4TB HDD.15. The rest are all WD.

 

[ArtForz]

I'm suspect it's the chinese ones that are the issue.
The stats don't differentiate, but i've got a thailand and a chinese one. The chinese one failed.
different firmware different factory

Doesn't seem limited to the Chinese ones over here.
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-1CH166_W1F2230X [SAT], 632 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_S1F07W85 [SAT], 104 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_S1F07W97 [SAT], 1088 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_S1F07WTW [SAT], 3096 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_W1F0PHWQ [SAT], 144 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_W1F0S4FV [SAT], 1328 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

 

[Muse]

Hmm. I bought three Seagate Backup Plus 3TB USB hard drives one day at Costco a little over a year ago. The warranty is 2 years.

I've gotten several Delayed Write Failed errors using one of the drives. The drive has 827 hours of use on it, only 131GB of data, currently. After the failure a couple of days ago I ran Seatools tests on it (the Basic Tests, which Seatools says will not alter data, they are read only). The Generic Short Test passed, but the Generic Long Test was extremely slow and put up this message twice (I ran the test again having rebooted the computer, and had no other apps running):

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long Test Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

! Model ST3000DM001-1ER166 Serial: Z5000QEY

The test is taking a long time. This could be caused by large
drive capacity, excessive retries, multiple drives under test,
system overhead, or other applications running at the same time.
You may abort this test at any time.


[OK]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see in the above quoted Seatools' message, the drive model is ST3000DM001. This is the same as the ~5000 HDs that are reported as highly problematic in the link in the OP!

I'm wondering what to do now. I think the important data is backed up elsewhere, have to make sure about that. I am thinking about calling Seagate, think maybe I should run more tests including the Fix tests, which attempt to fix bad sectors. I got the idea of running the Fix test(s) from Seagate's How to use Seatools page.

One reason I bought the Seagate drives is because I've had 3-4 failures using Western Digital 2TB ELEMENTS USB hard drives. In short, I've found them highly unreliable. As well, the WD drives were warranted for only 1 year. I have a handful of Seagate IDE HDs that haven't failed me, had them for around 10 years.

I'm thinking that the message above could well assure that there are too many bad sectors, period. Now, I bought my ST3000DM001 HDs in May 2014, much later than the HDs with a high rate of failure discussed in the link at the OP, which are from ~2 years earlier. Hopefully, mine are better. Thoughts?

 

[Muse]

I'm suspect it's the chinese ones that are the issue.
The stats don't differentiate, but i've got a thailand and a chinese one. The chinese one failed.
different firmware different factory

How can I determine where my Seagate 3TB HDs were made?

The thought has occurred to me that I could maybe get a refund from Costco what with their famous customer friendly return policies.

 

[Soulkeeper]

How can I determine where my Seagate 3TB HDs were made?

The thought has occurred to me that I could maybe get a refund from Costco what with their famous customer friendly return policies.

It's written on the label, or you can go by the model number
1CH166 = china
9YN166 = thailand
There might be other variations, I havn't been tracking them closely. CH = china

 

[Soulkeeper]

Doesn't seem limited to the Chinese ones over here.
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-1CH166_W1F2230X [SAT], 632 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_S1F07W85 [SAT], 104 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_S1F07W97 [SAT], 1088 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_S1F07WTW [SAT], 3096 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_W1F0PHWQ [SAT], 144 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST3000DM001-9YN166_W1F0S4FV [SAT], 1328 Currently unreadable (pending) sectors

Thanks, nice first post.

 

[Muse]

It's written on the label, or you can go by the model number
1CH166 = china
9YN166 = thailand
There might be other variations, I havn't been tracking them closely. CH = china

Hmm... my failing USB HD says 1ER166 (got this from Seatools). What would that be?
- - -
Edit: I didn't open up the enclosure of the failing USB HD, but on the bottom of the enclosure it says, literally
Assembled in Thailand
Product of Thailand (HHD)
- - -

Well, I called Seagate (1.800.732.4283), got tech support within 5 minutes and explained, the guy said I should do a warranty replacement. He got me over to support where they set it up. I paid $12.95 for a shipping label which will come with the replacement drive in 3-5 business days. I have 25 days to ship back the problem drive. They are evidently going to send me the same drive, or similar. I was hoping a different one since this one seems to be probably highly unreliable. But I figured I wasn't in a position to ask for that, and didn't. They did say I had 3 hours to cancel my order. Perhaps I should call them back and ask if they can supply me a 3TB USB HD that isn't ST3000DM001!

Edit: Backblaze.com's extensive explanation of the problems they had with their ~5000 Seagate 3TB HDs (linked in the OP), says at the bottom that they've been having very good luck with the 4TB models. So, I called Seagate back and asked if they'd upgrade me (for a fee), which I did once with a Maxtor HD back around 1999 or so. They said they are looking to support such requests in the future but will not now. Anyway, she assured me that the replacement ("like for like") they are sending me is not made in Thailand. She said she knows but can't reveal where it was made! So, I accepted this. I figure I have no other recourse. I suppose I could bring it back to Costco and see if they'll refund me. I suppose they would, but I won't bother going that route. I paid around $100 for each of these drives.

 

[iluvdeal]

What timing for someone to post this. In April 2012 we equipped a server with six Seagate 3TB drives (ST3000DM001, 9YN166-302, says Product of China on the drives) in a RAID5 config. Last week we discovered two of the six drives failed, all data was lost. The drives were under 2 year warranty so we're out of luck with getting them replaced.

At this point, I expect the other drives to fail soon I don't want to buy new 3TBs to add to rebuild it. Perhaps we'll get the ST4000DM000 the article mentions to start fresh from. Are they any other 4TB or larger drives known to be especially stable?

 

[Charlie98]

I'm suspect it's the chinese ones that are the issue.
The stats don't differentiate, but i've got a thailand and a chinese one. The chinese one failed.
different firmware different factory

Mine is a Chinese one...

 

[simas]

personal experience - had one completely die on me with behavior matching firmware bug. Avoid.

 

[Muse]

Got my replacement Seagate Backup Plus 3TB from UPS a few minutes ago. Before I package up the old drive and return it I want to destroy its data. What's a good method? I have a DBAN CD, but I heard that it destroys data on all detected HDs. Can I remove the HD from one of my laptops, plug in the USB HD and boot from the DBAN CD and have the old HD wiped?

 

[PliotronX]

Seagate Drives Are Problematic

FTFY

 

[Muse]

FTFY

Well, you know, all HDs are problematic. Some are more so than others.

The OP has a link to an interesting page produced by a company that serves data from HD banks of at least 5000 large capacity HDs. They had humongous problems with the 3TB Seagates (~30% failure), but have had low failure rates (~2.5%) for the 4TB drives, so they've been buying a lot of them. So, FTFY yourself.

Man, I am tired of my high capacity USB HDs failing on me. I must have had 4 or 5 failures by now in less than 10 HDs. Most were WD's, now a Seagate. In the future I hope to do some research before buying. It can be hard to know what failure rates are going to be down the road, but some research can help in that department, I figure. I used to have real good luck with HDs, before capacities got into the terabytes.

 

[iluvdeal]

Here's the rebuttal to backblaze's report: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html

 

[bradley]

Here's the rebuttal to backblaze's report: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6...bility-myth-the-real-story-covered/index.html

And here's a rebuttal to this very article....

Trust Backblaze's drive reliability data?
TweakTown's tacit defense of industry silence on drive reliability - and against the Backblaze report - fails on multiple levels. Here's why.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/trust-backblazes-drive-reliability-data/

 

[Muse]

FTFY

I'll fix it for all of you: Seagate 3TB HDs are especially problematical.

So, I get my replacement HD today along with the mailing label to return the drive that will not pass Seatools' Long Generic Test.

I'm about to zap the data from the bad drive. Before doing that I decide to run the Long Generic Test (Seatools, now) on one of the 2 other Seagate Backup Plus 3TB USB HDs I bought during a visit to Costco in May 2014. I figured it would pass (I did all this this afternoon), but instead it didn't even pass the Short Generic Test. It registered "FAIL"! It also registered FAIL for the Long Generic Test, WTF! So, I figure I should test the 3rd of the drives I bought in May 2014, of course, but it's off site right now in a locker. I will do that when I get it home. Meantime, I have the drive I just received today by UPS. It's running the Long Generic Test right now but the progress seems very excessively slow, similar to the drive I called Seagate about 2 days ago, and I expect that Seatools will again indicate that the test is "taking too long," and offer me a handful of possible reasons. Is it possible that 3 or perhaps all 4 drives are bad? Seems unlikely but far from impossible. Maybe Backblaze had it right, the flooding in Thailand caused wholesale damage to the plants manufacturing the drives. Perhaps Seagate decided that instead of writing off the whole thing they would sell the drives and slowly absorb the hit from RMA's, in the same way that rebate redemptions will never get close to 100%.

I'm running the Long Generic Test on the apparently new HD (same product) I received from Seagate today and after 4:44 (4 3/4 hours) the test appears to be ~15% done. At the beginning it indicated that the test would take ~7:12. Now it says 6:20. I know it's going to tell me that the test is taking too long in a few more hours (when I wake up in the morning).

Honestly, I don't know what to make of all this, but if I get failures running Seatools on all these drives I have to ask Seagate for replacements and I think I should make a stink if they insist on replacing "like with like," which I'm told is their policy. At this point I'm faced with the inconvenience of testing all these drives, calling and dealing with their support team, and $13 charges for mailing labels for each drive, plus I have yet to find one of these drives that will pass their own diagnostics. Boy, this stinks.

 

[Charlie98]

I'll fix it for all of you: Seagate 3TB HDs are especially problematic.

FTFY...

You know what's funny? I just got a new Seagate 2TB USB portable drive... I always wipe it with Acronis before I format it, it took something like 5 hours to run a single pass of 0's, something I've not encountered before with my other 3 other Seagate USB portables.

 

[XavierMace]

FTFY

I guess I've just gotten lucky with the 20 Seagate's I've got running 24x7.

 

[Muse]

I guess I've just gotten lucky with the 20 Seagate's I've got running 24x7.

Geez, I don't know... The presumably brand new 3TB Backup Plus I received via UPS yesterday, an RMA for another which takes too long on the Long Generic Seatools test also throws that same message, it was the first thing I saw when I woke up this morning and turned on the machine's monitor:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long Test Time
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

! Model: ST3000DM001-1E6166 Serial: Z1F55DRQ

The test is taking a long time. This could be caused by large
drive capacity, excessive retries, multiple drives under test,
system overhead, or other applications running at the same time.
You may abort this test at any time.


[OK]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Don't know what to do. The test has been running over 12 hours and it appears to be about 30% complete. Run Seatools on another machine? Just call Seagate right now? Sigh...

 

[Soulkeeper]

smart tests typically take a long time on drives this big, I think mine does an extended offline test in about 12hrs.
I've never used seatools to do the test however.