Warranty and other failure rates in Seagate branded drives

[saturation]

I came across a detailed look at common warranty issues around Seagate and its other branded drives.

Their website details common failures that are causes for returns, as well as attempts at fraud.

http://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/void-warranty-checklist/

What strikes me is that one type of failure was very uncommon in the past: separating PCB parts or connector traces, because these would be caught in quality inspection or environmental exposure testing.

This is less a concern for single or small volume drive users, but more for military and commercial RAID and rack installations, where higher heat and vibration exposure are more likely. 

[TechItApart]

Back in 2008 I think, when 3.5 inch USB hard drives were just getting cheap I bought a couple of Seagate drives for backup. They both died within 18 months with very light use. Not to say all Seagate stuff is bad but I've got WD drives from around 2009 still spinning just fine.

[wkb]

Back in 2008 I think, when 3.5 inch USB hard drives were just getting cheap I bought a couple of Seagate drives for backup. They both died within 18 months with very light use. Not to say all Seagate stuff is bad but I've got WD drives from around 2009 still spinning just fine.

Which proves exactly nothing at all. Having worked in enterprise storage for a couple of decades I can tell you that each and every disk vendor has its good and bad days.  Drives that suck by design, inherently good designs that have sucky batches due to productions issues (e.g. contamination) etc etc etc

[TechItApart]

Back in 2008 I think, when 3.5 inch USB hard drives were just getting cheap I bought a couple of Seagate drives for backup. They both died within 18 months with very light use. Not to say all Seagate stuff is bad but I've got WD drives from around 2009 still spinning just fine.

Which proves exactly nothing at all. Having worked in enterprise storage for a couple of decades I can tell you that each and every disk vendor has its good and bad days.  Drives that suck by design, inherently good designs that have sucky batches due to productions issues (e.g. contamination) etc etc etc

Yeah I get that my point is complete conjecture but the guys at Backblaze have been testing drives for years and their data validates my point, Seagate drives are far more likely to fail that some other brands.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-q3-2015/

[engiadina]

I do not think that those statistics are very helpful. We have two storage servers with 10 disks of 2TB each. The model number of the used harddrives was the very same (Seagate) but one server was bought two years before the other.
The harddrives from the first server are still running, now reaching 40000 hours of uptime. Only one drive has failed yet.
In the second server all drives had failed between 25000 and 27000 hours uptime and had to be replaced.
Obviously they changed the design but kept the model number.

But I have to say, that no drive failed out of those numbers given. Following specs they even perform much better than expected. Seagate specifies this drive for an uptime of 2500 hours. So even the newer drives could not be complained about!

[mariush]

Hardware.fr periodically publishes data about failure rate, returns, warranty stuff using information received from - if i remember correctly - one of the largest seller of pc components in France ... here's some links:

1. Dossier: Les taux de retour des composants (13) - 9 Novembre 2015
2. Dossier: Les taux de retour des composants (12) - 19 Mai 2015
3. Dossier: Les taux de retour des composants (11) - 6 Novembre 2014

Search for "Les taux de retour des composants" on the website for 10 older articles.

Here's some statistics from the newest article :

my personal comment :

1. note that HGST seems to be worse than Seagate but then if you look below there seems to be no particular HGST drive that has a higher percentage of failure, unlike some WD or Seagate series that pop out.   
2. note that it's drives that came as returns in a six month interval after purchase, drives that were returned sooner are no here. As far as I know (and backed up by google's research (see 3.3) , a lot of drives suffer of premature death, as in they die in the first couple of months or so.
3. I'm also losing the italics (which means that drive was sold in less than 200 pcs, if you're really interested visit the website (they deserve some money from advertising).

-- all stuff below from the article on the website

Return rates reported relate to parts sold between 1 October 2014 and 1 April 2015 for returns created before October 2015, 6 months to 1 year of operation. [..]
The statistics by make are based on a minimum sample of 500 units sold, by those models on a minimum sample of 100 units sold. When the sample is lower than 200 parts, the designation is in italics. [..]

- Seagate 0.60% (against 0.68%)
- HGST 0.81% (against 1.16%)
- Western 0.90% (against 1.09%)
- Toshiba 0.96% (against 1.34%)

The rates are falling, but Seagate maintains the lead. It should be noted that unlike other 3, Toshiba's return is necessarily made through the dealer.

For the fourth consecutive period, there is no disk with a return rate of over 5% down. Otherwise here are less reliable 5, with 2 cases of sales sales

are in the low range (100-200 rooms):

- 4.90% Toshiba 3TB DT01ACA300
- 2.86% 4 TB WD RE WD4000FYYZ
- 2.33% WD Blue 250GB WD2500AAKX
- 2.23% WD Black 4 TB WD4003FZEX
- 2.20% 750 GB WD Red WD7500BFCX

Server records obtained by capacity 3.5 "for discs sold more than 100 copies (italics 100-200 Sales):

2 TB:

- 1.69% Toshiba DT01ACA200
- 1.50% WD Black WD2003FZEX
- 1.41% WD If WD2000F9YZ
- 1.06% WD Purple WD20PURX
- 0.97% Seagate Pipeline HD ST2000VM003
- 0.94% Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001
- 0.68% WD Green WD20EZRX
- 0.65% Seagate NAS ST2000VN000
- 0.63% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST2000DM001
- 0.59% WD Red Pro WD2001FFSX
- 0.44% WD Red WD20EFRX
- 0.41% WD RE WD2000FYYZ
- 0.24% Seagate Surveillance ST2000VX000
- 0.00% Seagate Enterprise Capacity ST2000NM0033
- 0.00% Toshiba PA4292E-1HL0

3 TB:

- 4.90% Toshiba DT01ACA300
- 1.94% WD If WD3000F9YZ
- 1.60% WD Green WD30EZRX
- 1.31% Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001
- 1.25% Toshiba PA4293E-1HN0
- 1.23% WD Red WD30EFRX
- 1.23% Seagate NAS ST3000VN000
- 1.16% WD Red Pro WD3001FFSX
- 0.94% Seagate Surveillance ST3000VX000
- 0.71% Black WD WD3003FZEX

4 TB:

- 2.86% WD Re WD4000FYYZ
- 2.23% Black WD WD4003FZEX
- 1.53% WD Green WD40EZRX
- 1.40% WD Red WD40EFRX
- 1.32% Seagate Desktop SSHD ST4000DX001
- Seagate Constellation ES 0.82% ST4000NM0033
- 0.71% Seagate Desktop HDD.15 ST4000DM000
- 0.47% Seagate NAS HDD ST4000VN000
- HGST Deskstar 7K4000 0.00% H3IK40003272SE
- 0.00% 0S03665 HGST Deskstar NAS

5/6 TB:

- 1.47% WD Red WD60EFRX
- 0.41% WD Green WD60EZRX
- 0.00% WD Red WD50EFRX

 

[nukie]

I dont care how often drives fail because these are random numbers. What I care is how quickly and easily I can exchange my drives under warranty.

[Monkeh]

Seagate and WDC both have very good warranty services.

Those figures from hardware.fr are sufficiently incomplete to be potentially very misleading.

[coppice]

The problem I have found with disk warranties is the models change so fast they seldom seem to have an equivalent drive to give you as a replacement. They usually try to offer you something more advanced, but expect you to pay for the difference in spec you are getting.

[Monkeh]

The problem I have found with disk warranties is the models change so fast they seldom seem to have an equivalent drive to give you as a replacement. They usually try to offer you something more advanced, but expect you to pay for the difference in spec you are getting.

I have never had such an issue. So long as the capacity remains unchanged, they just ship a replacement.

[coppice]

The problem I have found with disk warranties is the models change so fast they seldom seem to have an equivalent drive to give you as a replacement. They usually try to offer you something more advanced, but expect you to pay for the difference in spec you are getting.

I have never had such an issue. So long as the capacity remains unchanged, they just ship a replacement.

Capacities don't remain unchanged. If your drive dies a few months into warranty you're probably OK. If it dies 3 or 4 years into your 5 year warranty your exact drive won't exist, and there's a good likelihood a close match won't exist. The last drive I needed to have replaced was a WD Black 640GB one. They don't make 640GB drives any more, and they won't give you the next size up (1T) for free.

[Monkeh]

The problem I have found with disk warranties is the models change so fast they seldom seem to have an equivalent drive to give you as a replacement. They usually try to offer you something more advanced, but expect you to pay for the difference in spec you are getting.

I have never had such an issue. So long as the capacity remains unchanged, they just ship a replacement.

Capacities don't remain unchanged. If your drive dies a few months into warranty you're probably OK. If it dies 3 or 4 years into your 5 year warranty your exact drive won't exist, and there's a good likelihood a close match won't exist. The last drive I needed to have replaced was a WD Black 640GB one. They don't make 640GB drives any more, and they won't give you the next size up (1T) for free.

I have never had an issue with standard capacities. 640GB was quite unusual.

[coppice]

I have never had an issue with standard capacities. 640GB was quite unusual.

For a long time 640GB was THE big seller at 3.5". Before that 320GB was a big seller at 3.5", and there are still lots of low end notebooks with 2.5" drives of that capacity. They don't all step from 250, to 500, to 1000.

[grumpydoc]

Capacities don't remain unchanged. If your drive dies a few months into warranty you're probably OK. If it dies 3 or 4 years into your 5 year warranty your exact drive won't exist, and there's a good likelihood a close match won't exist. The last drive I needed to have replaced was a WD Black 640GB one. They don't make 640GB drives any more, and they won't give you the next size up (1T) for free.

Just because you can't buy a new drive on the high street doesn't mean the manufacturer won't be able to replace a drive with the same model

In my experience you get a refurbished drive back.

[AlphZeta]

Statistics are just that.... statistics. Unless you are a large enterprise with thousands of drives under heavy utilization, it really does not mean much. In general though, single platter drives should be more reliable (as it has less moving parts) but not always for individual drives.

I have both Seagate and WD in my home computers and had failures with both over the past 20 years also. I eventually replaced all my drives with WD black only because it comes with longer warranty (5 years) and the warranty replacement program has been fantastic.

[bingo600]

My 2.5" Segate 1TB SSHD lasted less than a year - before starting to give SMART end-to-end errors.
Made me promise my self that i'd never get a Segate again , but they bought my favorite supplier Samsung 

I ended up with a Toshiba 1TB SSHD - a bit more noisy but works fine.

/Bingo

[macboy]

I have bought 15 or more Seagate drives in the last 10 years (and more preceeding that). I run them all 24/365 but with light activity.

I bought five 500 GB (Barracuda 11) drives with 5 years warranty. They all survived past the warranty period, and three of the five are still working after many years of 24/365 use. I can't check now, but certainly they are over 70000 hours spinning.

Five 1500 GB drives (Barracuda 12) fared much worse. Two failed within the 3 year warranty and were replaced. Later I discovered by chance a common and surprising failure mode of these particular drives: Corrosion on the contacts between the mechanism and the PCB. The PCB contact pads were nearly black. Rubbing the PCB contacts with a mildly abrasive pencil eraser until shiny completely cured the flaky drives (until inevitable mechanical failure). Most of these are now dead from head or motor failures.

Some newer 2 and 5 TB drives are working fine.

At least 4 of 5 failing drives were detected by Windows SMART monitoring, allowing me to back up data or proactively replace the failing drive on the RAID-Z array.

The 1500GB/1.5TB Barracuda 12's were  . Other than that, Seagates have treated me well. I understand that hard drives fail over time, so I back up data, and I don't hold grudges when it happens. My non-statistically-valid failure data is also skewed by my usage model: very few power cycles, very few spin-up/down, and very high spinning hours. This is not a typical consumer usage pattern.

Last thought: if you have a failing/failed drive, take off the PCB and examine the contacts. If they are ugly, clean them up with a rubber pencil eraser, and try the drive again. You might be pleasantly surprised by a second chance to recover your data.

[saturation]

Yes, this is one take home message of my original post, some failures are in the PCB and could be fixable to hardware savvy folks, particularly if off warranty.  A quick inspection of the PCB can pay off particularly areas already highlighted by the Seagate website.

Last thought: if you have a failing/failed drive, take off the PCB and examine the contacts. If they are ugly, clean them up with a rubber pencil eraser, and try the drive again. You might be pleasantly surprised by a second chance to recover your data.

[Monkeh]

Later I discovered by chance a common and surprising failure mode of these particular drives: Corrosion on the contacts between the mechanism and the PCB. The PCB contact pads were nearly black.

This is from the switch from ENIG to OSP. Noticed this on a number of 7200.11s and 7200.12s. No idea if they've corrected it, but certainly SSDs are mostly OSP as well. Those at least don't have non-soldered contacts to fail.

[wraper]

Later I discovered by chance a common and surprising failure mode of these particular drives: Corrosion on the contacts between the mechanism and the PCB. The PCB contact pads were nearly black.

This is from the switch from ENIG to OSP. Noticed this on a number of 7200.11s and 7200.12s. No idea if they've corrected it, but certainly SSDs are mostly OSP as well. Those at least don't have non-soldered contacts to fail.

I don't remember a single HDD with the gold plated connector pads (even if ENIG is present on the other parts of the PCB). Usually they were covered with solder with connector pins penetrating it with a significant force. As of those which become black, I guess they could be silver plated. That blackening usually doesn't have anything to do with the failures of 7200.11s and 7200.12 junkdrive series. Maybe in extreme cases with high humidity environment.
BTW OSP looks like bare copper (which it is) and it can become more like reddish color but not black.

I bought five 500 GB (Barracuda 11) drives with 5 years warranty. They all survived past the warranty period, and three of the five are still working after many years of 24/365 use. I can't check now, but certainly they are over 70000 hours spinning.

That's a miracle. At my job almost all of them died within a few years. They are ridiculously unreliable series.

[Monkeh]

Later I discovered by chance a common and surprising failure mode of these particular drives: Corrosion on the contacts between the mechanism and the PCB. The PCB contact pads were nearly black.

This is from the switch from ENIG to OSP. Noticed this on a number of 7200.11s and 7200.12s. No idea if they've corrected it, but certainly SSDs are mostly OSP as well. Those at least don't have non-soldered contacts to fail.

I don't remember a single HDD with gold plated connector pads. Usually they were covered with solder with pins penetrating them. As of those which become black, I guess they could be silver plated. That blackening doesn't have anything to do with the failures of 7200.11s and 7200.12 junkdrive series.
BTW OSP looks like bare copper (which it is) and it can become more like reddish color but not black.

I've seen HASL, silver, and gold, and these days, OSP is increasingly common.

Yes, OSP finishes turn 'black' with corrosion.

A few examples in here: http://www.iaeme.com/MasterAdmin/UploadFolder/IJMET_06_12_003-2/IJMET_06_12_003-2.pdf

I have piles of drives showing similar corrosion on unused pads and contact pads. Some are immersion silver, others appear to be some variety of OSP. The 'bare copper' (unoxidised copper, normally) appearance varies with different OSP products.

7200.11s and 7200.12s have a wide variety of failure modes, and pad corrosion is quite likely one of them.

E: I will concede that the remaining 7200.11s I have on my desk appear to be ImAG. There's a WD2500 in the recycling pile with ENIG though (and two more in the working pile which are ImAG, and those are looking uuuugly).

[wraper]

Yes, OSP finishes turn 'black' with corrosion.

A few examples in here: http://www.iaeme.com/MasterAdmin/UploadFolder/IJMET_06_12_003-2/IJMET_06_12_003-2.pdf

"INFLUENCE OF VARYING H2S CONCENTRATIONS"
Usually you don't treat HDDs with H₂S in your home. So no, those pictures don't represent what happens with OSP in normal conditions. I know one place where gold plated connectors in the equipment have green spikes growing out of them and aluminium grills disintegrating by just staying in front of fans.

[Monkeh]

Yes, OSP finishes turn 'black' with corrosion.

A few examples in here: http://www.iaeme.com/MasterAdmin/UploadFolder/IJMET_06_12_003-2/IJMET_06_12_003-2.pdf

"INFLUENCE OF VARYING H2S CONCENTRATIONS"
Usually you don't treat HDDs with H₂S in your home. So no, those pictures don't represent what happens with OSP in normal conditions. I know one place where gold plated connectors in the equipment have green spikes growing out of them and aluminium grills disintegrating by just staying in front of fans.

It's an example of rapid corrosion. I speak from experience when I say it can tarnish that colour in a normal atmosphere.

[coppice]

Capacities don't remain unchanged. If your drive dies a few months into warranty you're probably OK. If it dies 3 or 4 years into your 5 year warranty your exact drive won't exist, and there's a good likelihood a close match won't exist. The last drive I needed to have replaced was a WD Black 640GB one. They don't make 640GB drives any more, and they won't give you the next size up (1T) for free.

Just because you can't buy a new drive on the high street doesn't mean the manufacturer won't be able to replace a drive with the same model

In my experience you get a refurbished drive back.

I have never been offered a refurbished drive when taking back a drive that failed under warranty. I either got a new drive which was the same or similar, or they wanted me to pay something to get a larger drive. Maybe this depends on the market.

[tooki]

I came across a detailed look at common warranty issues around Seagate and its other branded drives.

Their website details common failures that are causes for returns, as well as attempts at fraud.

That's not what that page is telling you. It's a CYA list of things that will cause them to reject a warranty claim. It says nothing whatsoever about "warranty issues" (i.e. what failures are common or not). Most likely that page exists to give a reference to people who send in an abused drive, so they can say e.g. "Sorry, we're rejecting your warranty claim because the drive has been tampered with, according to #suchandsuch on this list of criteria, which you agreed to when you submitted the web form to begin a warranty claim".

Don't assume that counterfeit = consumer fraud. When I worked at Apple, we occasionally saw two cases of people coming to Apple for warranty support of a non-Apple product: 1) HP-branded iPods (yes, originally manufactured by Apple, but sold and serviced by HP; we couldn't touch 'em), and counterfeit iPods (like the $25 eBay specials, or from the downtown city markets, sold at Chinese gadget stands). In both cases, the customers had no idea they didn't own an Apple product.