Seagate HDD

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theraindew

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I have, or rather had, 2 Segate HDDs in my collection of 6 HDDs and both have crashed in under 10 days now. Thats 1TB of movies and 2TB of tv shows, all in 1080p/720p :mad: I don't care about the movies, but I need the tv shows back! :sad:
 
Its quite surprising and sad that both of your Seagate HDD's, gave up upon you. I've been using Seagate HDD's since more than a decade and only faced 1 1TB hard drive to fail. Even I had lost some important data and then on started to take backups for everything.
Currently, using more of the 2TB's and 4TB's and they are working fine (fingers crossed). My NAS is configured in RAID5 so I've some safe bet here. Plus I have backups for almost everything, so its safe in case they fail upon me.

Getting the data back from Seagate is very expensive and not worth it. Rather if its under warranty, I would suggest getting a working drive back.

IMO, make a point to keep backups of your collection and remember RAID is not a backup.
 
Yes.. I understand "backup" now! 1TB is under warranty, but not the 2TB. I can get Seagate 2TB from ebay for under 5.7k, but skeptical to go for it.. should just go with WD.
 
I think most of us on this forum probably have suffered a crash or two, given the large amount of audio and video we consume.

I had two crashes myself - one Seagate and one WD
One of them I was able to recover fairly cheaply - the other one was impossible to recover.

After my second HDD crash, I started looking for options of avoiding a repeat.
The hardware RAID option was the first thing that came to mind. However reading up on it wasnt very reassuring. Mainly the fact that the data is saved spread across multiple disks. Hence the data is only readable via the RAID array. You cannot pull out a drive and connect it to a different computer and find readable data.

Then I came across software backup options. And Flexraid (Data Protection & Recovery | FlexRAID) stood out. It maintains parity data on a separate drive and the other data drives are normal windows drives. Meaning they are accessible with or without flexraid. It is not real time like RAID but for media files, backing up once a day or once a week is more than enough.
[edit : now that I read it, it sounds like a Flexraid advertisement. So just announcing - I am in no way related to Flexraid. Just a supremely satisfied customer]

My current file server has 3 data drives and 1 parity drive. It has been about 2 years now. I have suffered one 2TB drive crash. Shipped off the defective drive to WD. Replacement arrived in a week. Put drive back in and overnight all the data was restored.

Now I am much more relaxed - knowing the system can handle one disk crash. And the software cost just $38 for a lifetime license

saketb said:
IMO, make a point to keep backups of your collection and remember RAID is not a backup.
Click to expand...

It is possible to make backups of important stuff like financials/work files/sentimental pictures etc. But is it always possible to back up audio video collection ? I have media spread over 3+2+2 TB. Backing it up with identical disks is possible but ridiculously expensive
 
Last edited:
HDD failures have become quite common. The subject has been discussed a number of times, so there is no use going through everything again and again.

Briefly speaking, it depends on a number of factors. HDD from all manufacturers have good and bad stories. For me Seagate has been an extremely reliable source for HDDs.
 
My 2TB Seagate HDD crashed a month back. Since it was the newest disk, I put all my important data including my photographs, favourite movies and TV shows on this disk. I have other seagate disks fail on me in the past as well (without much important data loss) so this time I paid extra and bought WDD. I also have a Hitachi 750G which is the oldest but has been trouble free for around 4 years now. I have put my music collection on it and got a 3TB drive to create a backup. My suggestion is go for Hitachi/ Laptop > WDD > Seagate. Also, try to go for slowest (5400 rpm) as I feel they are more reliable. I have heard India gets most of the rejected stuff from western countries (returned under warranty) as it is cheaper to the distributors and thats why they have now even reduced the indian warranty on disks to 2 years :(. I have learnt my lesson - new or old disk, always have a backup :).
 
Oops ... forgot to mention, you can try seagate's test tools to gather SMART information and see if the error is recoverable. You can get them on Seagate's website.
 
theraindew said:
Thanks. I did try Seagate Seatools. 2TB isn't even recognised by the system. 1TB fails DST.
Click to expand...

By any chance the non working 2TB Seagate is having PCB 100617465 REV B? I lost my Seagate 2TB internal hdd recently due to voltage fluctuation due to PSU gone bad. I need a spare PCB to replace the faulty one. The current one seems to be damaged badly. Even the tracks on d circuit board are burnt. Searched local markets but couldn't find anything remotely similar!! I need to recover dat data.
 
Don't wait... Ask a friend, or just keep one at work.

Burglary, fire, flood, lightening, can all wipe out not only music and movies but also years of our lives.

I know someone who had all their computer equipment stolen a few months ago. They organise concerts. Two years of live music ...gone. That is not even stuff that can re ripped again, because it only happened once.

An off-site backup is not a luxury: it as an absolute basic necessity.
 
Bandwidth costs ...and the bandwidth itself, with its monthly "FUP" caps.

Incremental backups would be ok, but the initial upload is impossible, even for a modest collection of media/photos/docs like mine.

Added to all that, I don't buy "the cloud." It is fine for convenience of multi-place access, and maybe as an extra, extra backup, but data not under your control is, err, not under your control. Stuff happens, ranging from simple down time to more extreme possibilities such as the NSA browsing your data, to some so-called-intelligent automatic system flagging your innocent baby pics as child porn and closing down your account. Or, less sensationally, some sort of auto-detection of allegedly-pirated media. That already happens on YouTube.

Is that all a bit extreme? Of course! But that is the kind of world that we live in, thanks to USA, UK, etc.

So, although I very much like the convenience of online access to backup files, I could not, personally, or professionally, use the "cloud" for any sort of essential computer resource. I'd find myself blushing to explain such a decision to the annual computer/security audit. The latest IT sales fad is not necessarily a good thing... however many IT directors flock to the bandwagon.
 
Please try and change the casing. Get one casing with SATA to usb converter from your local market or online. Then youtube to find how to open up your harddisk. Then try it out in the new casing.

I, myself, have been able to recover 2 failed harddisk like that. Hope it will work for you. Risk is 1000-1200 INR investment.
 
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