Is it common for Seagate drives to fail?

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CPTBoy

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I have a 2Tb, USB3 drive from ( Manufacture date 2012 ), that has packed up recently.

Tried moving it to another casing, but it seems dead. Is this common with Seagate drives? Not very happy as this drive contained a lot of backups and photos etc.
 
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Yup, I used to have 3/4 of them they all packed up.

I only use WD/Toshiba/Samsung now and they all going strong still.
 
Not any more or less than other drives.
I've used hundreds of all different types of brands and their failure rates and usage lifetimes across the board are all similar.
It also depends on what you are using it for and how heavy the usage is.
 
I've had at least 20 Seagates since 2008, and the only drive that's ever failed on me (touch wood) is an 80GB WD drive.

So I wouldn't say it's common in my experience.
 
I bought 6 x 4tb Seagate NAS drives last week. 2 of them were DOA, replaced under warranty.
That being said have quite a few enterprise drives and they run 24/7 no issues.
 
as its important to you, dont go any further, try approach these people:

southbit data recovery, they affiliated with MYBB and offer a discount when you send your drive to them,

although truth be told they didnt manage with my drive I sent them, and if you in JHB to send and recive anything cost some $$$
 
I don't think it's too heavy usage.

Some VM's being used everyday, Time Machine backups and Plex server running serving movies and series.
 
LazyLion said:
Not any more or less than other drives.
I've used hundreds of all different types of brands and their failure rates and usage lifetimes across the board are all similar.
It also depends on what you are using it for and how heavy the usage is.
Click to expand...

+1

I've come across many failing drives of different brands and also have some ancient Seagate drives still working.
 
All drives fail, externals more than most.

BACKUP

Although there was a batch of Seagate externals from around then that had an issue, I lost one to it, it was my "I should really keep backups" moment.
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
All drives fail, externals more than most.

BACKUP

Although there was a batch of Seagate externals from around then that had an issue, I lost one to it, it was my "I should really keep backups" moment.
Click to expand...

I hear you, so what is the formula, since this was a backup drive? Always buy 2 or 3 drives to make backups of the backups?
 
CPTBoy said:
Is this common with Seagate drives? Not very happy as this drive contained a lot of backups and photos etc.
Click to expand...
STxxxDM001 series manufactured 2012-2014 has very bad track record. It has been improved little bit with recent DM003 version.
 
CPTBoy said:
I hear you, so what is the formula, since this was a backup drive? Always buy 2 or 3 drives to make backups of the backups?
Click to expand...

Irreplaceable stuff(docs/photos) you should have 2 copies plus cloud backup. Movies etc I just keep on a Windows Storage Space(basically RAID 5) running 4 2TB drives, hopefully if 1 drive fails I can just swap it out, it's slightly risky but better than a pile of externals you forget to backup to.

Now I'll get people replying, "that's not a backup solution" you need 3 physical copies with one in a fire proof safe, off-site backup and the binary carved into stone tablets blessed by the FSM. Yes for critical business data you need that but home stuff, nah.
 
ScottulusMaximus said:
Irreplaceable stuff(docs/photos) you should have 2 copies plus cloud backup. Movies etc I just keep on a Windows Storage Space(basically RAID 5) running 4 2TB drives, hopefully if 1 drive fails I can just swap it out, it's slightly risky but better than a pile of externals you forget to backup to.

Now I'll get people replying, "that's not a backup solution" you need 3 physical copies with one in a fire proof safe, off-site backup and the binary carved into stone tablets blessed by the FSM. Yes for critical business data you need that but home stuff, nah.
Click to expand...

The only thing I have a double back up of is my steam library 1.7 Tb and development software, and a windows back up the rest I couldn't give a hoot about easily replaceable.

But definitely looking at getting a 4TB as a 3rd backup.Have 4 seagates and a WD no issues, did have a seagate 1tb pack up 2 years back, but it was a drive previously used in raid, so I refrain from buying secondhand HDD's, or using drives previously used in raid.

Have a seagate running as a OS drive which is about 5 years old, has nothing critical on it, about time to replace it.It's otherwise still healthy 5049 power cycle, 34000 hours power on time isn't half bad.
 
I had a 3TB one pack up while doing a massive copy off the drive haha.. basically it depends on the load and stress u place on them vs version of drive.. some are desktop some are for nas. Bought 2x 3TB i'm setting up as a media server again. Also getting 2x 8TB.. i think key is if you don't raid them.. expect it to fail.

Basically all my stuff is in the cloud so i don't particularly care if it hardware is stolen or fails.. the large disks tho are for media which again.. cool but if it goes then tough. This time though I am doing it in mirror raids (was going but did single disk from onset hence disk fail = wiped.. but i have backups so likely lost like 20% content).
 
LazyLion said:
Not any more or less than other drives.
I've used hundreds of all different types of brands and their failure rates and usage lifetimes across the board are all similar.
It also depends on what you are using it for and how heavy the usage is.
Click to expand...

Agree with this. That's why cloud or more traditional media off site backup is important for the serious stuff.
 
I only use Seagate drives, if I buy new drives I don't even look at other options and pricing. In all the years I lost a 250 GB Seagate external around 2005, but it was already 4 years old and had a hard life, it was dropped quite a few times etc etc.
I currently have a 1 and 2 TB internal, a 1 TB external and two 3 TB externals all Seagate, all different ages and all still going strong.
 
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