So I have a Seagate Barracuda 2TB (green), which is showing a SMART data
failure code of 184 - End to End error.

The info I can find on this indicates it can be anything from imminent
catastrophic failure, to a false warning by third party software (using
DriveDX, which has shown no issues on this drive for 18 months).

Anyhow, assuming I’m going to replace this, what’s the current
recommendations for a 2TB HDD. It’s only used as a lightly used media store
for Apple Music and TV movies to stream across my local network from my old
iMac to the Apple TVs.

This is currently a bare drive which I’ve installed into a generic USB3
enclosure. Should I replace that again, or should I be thinking of getting
a complete external HDD (WD Elements perhaps).

Cheers.

--
Andy H

In article <ssmpbr$72c$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
<thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

> So I have a Seagate Barracuda 2TB (green), which is showing a SMART data
> failure code of 184 - End to End error.
>
> The info I can find on this indicates it can be anything from imminent
> catastrophic failure, to a false warning by third party software (using
> DriveDX, which has shown no issues on this drive for 18 months).

what does disk utility say?

also try smartmontools, if you don't mind a command line.

> Anyhow, assuming I¹m going to replace this, what¹s the current
> recommendations for a 2TB HDD. It¹s only used as a lightly used media store
> for Apple Music and TV movies to stream across my local network from my old
> iMac to the Apple TVs.

2tb drives are slightly less money than 4 tb, so might as well get 4tb.
the difference is very little and you'll eventually fill it up anyway.

the sweet spot for price/capacity is currently 8-10 tb, with periodic
deals on 12-14 tb.

as for brands, it doesn't matter. every brand has bad batches. everyone
has a story to tell about every drive maker.

> This is currently a bare drive which I¹ve installed into a generic USB3
> enclosure. Should I replace that again, or should I be thinking of getting
> a complete external HDD (WD Elements perhaps).

an external drive is almost always less money than the same size bare
drive. the difference is the warranty, which is normally shorter for
the external. whether the difference is worth it is up to you.

On 24/01/2022 18:35, nospam wrote:
> In article <ssmpbr$72c$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
> <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
>> So I have a Seagate Barracuda 2TB (green), which is showing a SMART data
>> failure code of 184 - End to End error.
>>
>> The info I can find on this indicates it can be anything from imminent
>> catastrophic failure, to a false warning by third party software (using
>> DriveDX, which has shown no issues on this drive for 18 months).
>
> what does disk utility say?

Nothing, there's a reason I'm using DriveDX. TechTool also reports the
error.

>> Anyhow, assuming I¹m going to replace this, what¹s the current
>> recommendations for a 2TB HDD. It¹s only used as a lightly used media store
>> for Apple Music and TV movies to stream across my local network from my old
>> iMac to the Apple TVs.
>
> 2tb drives are slightly less money than 4 tb, so might as well get 4tb.
> the difference is very little and you'll eventually fill it up anyway.

No I won't, I have a specific need for this to be only 2TB, it doesn't
need to be any larger.

> the sweet spot for price/capacity is currently 8-10 tb, with periodic
> deals on 12-14 tb.

Interesting, but not useful. I have no need for such storage capacity,
not now, and not for the foreseeable future. My 40-odd years of using a
computer have not generated any more than needs even a 4TB Time Machine
backup drive. Even all my data in iCloud needs less than 1TB.

Personally I prefer to separate my data out into smaller drives (Boot
drive, general media, and photos), and back those up to identical
clones, as well as utilise Time Machine for some of that in addition.

> as for brands, it doesn't matter. every brand has bad batches. everyone
> has a story to tell about every drive maker.
>
>> This is currently a bare drive which I¹ve installed into a generic USB3
>> enclosure. Should I replace that again, or should I be thinking of getting
>> a complete external HDD (WD Elements perhaps).
>
> an external drive is almost always less money than the same size bare
> drive. the difference is the warranty, which is normally shorter for
> the external. whether the difference is worth it is up to you.

That's not the question I was asking. I know all that. I was thinking
more about not using a generic enclosure, and buying an integrated box,
with the thought of better reliability, maybe.

--
Andy H

In article <ssnb73$oui$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
<thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

> >> So I have a Seagate Barracuda 2TB (green), which is showing a SMART data
> >> failure code of 184 - End to End error.
> >>
> >> The info I can find on this indicates it can be anything from imminent
> >> catastrophic failure, to a false warning by third party software (using
> >> DriveDX, which has shown no issues on this drive for 18 months).
> >
> > what does disk utility say?
>
> Nothing, there's a reason I'm using DriveDX. TechTool also reports the
> error.

two utilities that say different things is inconclusive, that's why i
suggested another one.

two (or more) utilities that say there's a problem suggests there
really is a problem.

> >> Anyhow, assuming I1m going to replace this, what1s the current
> >> recommendations for a 2TB HDD. It1s only used as a lightly used media store
> >> for Apple Music and TV movies to stream across my local network from my old
> >> iMac to the Apple TVs.
> >
> > 2tb drives are slightly less money than 4 tb, so might as well get 4tb.
> > the difference is very little and you'll eventually fill it up anyway.
>
> No I won't, I have a specific need for this to be only 2TB, it doesn't
> need to be any larger.

2tb drives are old and not much less than 4tb. the difference is very
little, roughly £10-20 range.

> > an external drive is almost always less money than the same size bare
> > drive. the difference is the warranty, which is normally shorter for
> > the external. whether the difference is worth it is up to you.
>
> That's not the question I was asking. I know all that. I was thinking
> more about not using a generic enclosure, and buying an integrated box,
> with the thought of better reliability, maybe.

the enclosure isn't usually what fails.

the drive with the longer warranty will statistically be more reliable,
but that's just statistics. whether the physical drive you buy is more
reliable, only time will tell.

if reliability is important, get an enterprise drive. some have 5 year
warranties, versus 1 for an external.

even more reliable is an ssd, and 2tb ssds are not that expensive
anymore.

nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

[...]
>
> the enclosure isn't usually what fails.

....but the external connections might make it less reliable.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

On 25/01/2022 11:51, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
> [...]
>>
>> the enclosure isn't usually what fails.
>
> ...but the external connections might make it less reliable.

To be honest, this is something that I've done research on, and as usual
nospam is answering questions that were not being asked. Common causes
of such issues are indeed possibly down to faulty enclosures (or at
least their bridge adapters inside), cables and hubs.

My thought was, looking forward, to buy a full manufacturers branded
external HDD, as it should be better made, and hopefully all components
completely compatible. Now these are not all that more expensive than a
bare drive, and even a 2.5" portable model would do for my needs, as far
as speeds go that is.

--
Andy H

On 24/01/2022 23:20, nospam wrote:
> In article <ssnb73$oui$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
> <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
>>>> So I have a Seagate Barracuda 2TB (green), which is showing a SMART data
>>>> failure code of 184 - End to End error.
>>>>
>>>> The info I can find on this indicates it can be anything from imminent
>>>> catastrophic failure, to a false warning by third party software (using
>>>> DriveDX, which has shown no issues on this drive for 18 months).
>>>
>>> what does disk utility say?
>>
>> Nothing, there's a reason I'm using DriveDX. TechTool also reports the
>> error.
>
> two utilities that say different things is inconclusive, that's why i
> suggested another one.
>
> two (or more) utilities that say there's a problem suggests there
> really is a problem.

Two utilities are reporting the error. Disk Utility doesn't because it
doesn't recognise SMART on external USB drives.

>>>> Anyhow, assuming I1m going to replace this, what1s the current
>>>> recommendations for a 2TB HDD. It1s only used as a lightly used media store
>>>> for Apple Music and TV movies to stream across my local network from my old
>>>> iMac to the Apple TVs.
>>>
>>> 2tb drives are slightly less money than 4 tb, so might as well get 4tb.
>>> the difference is very little and you'll eventually fill it up anyway.
>>
>> No I won't, I have a specific need for this to be only 2TB, it doesn't
>> need to be any larger.
>
> 2tb drives are old and not much less than 4tb. the difference is very
> little, roughly £10-20 range.

That's irrelevant though, I simply don't need any more storage space here.

>>> an external drive is almost always less money than the same size bare
>>> drive. the difference is the warranty, which is normally shorter for
>>> the external. whether the difference is worth it is up to you.
>>
>> That's not the question I was asking. I know all that. I was thinking
>> more about not using a generic enclosure, and buying an integrated box,
>> with the thought of better reliability, maybe.
>
> the enclosure isn't usually what fails.

Very often it can be the case, well at least it can be the bridge
adapter inside, or a cable, or a hub.

> the drive with the longer warranty will statistically be more reliable,
> but that's just statistics. whether the physical drive you buy is more
> reliable, only time will tell.

Indeed.

> if reliability is important, get an enterprise drive. some have 5 year
> warranties, versus 1 for an external.

Reliability is important enough, although my feeling is that ALL drives
should function for a reasonable time, regardless of the price point. As
it happens I have found that the drive here does have a two year
warranty (so I should be able to get a replacement. It should be
reasonable to expect any drive to at least outlive the warranty period
though.

Even then, it does seem that modern drives are failing more frequently
that they were a few years ago. I still have a Seagate 320GB drive I
bought in 2006 that still runs and shows no errors.

> even more reliable is an ssd, and 2tb ssds are not that expensive
> anymore.

Expensive is relative. An SSD is way beyond what's needed here.

--
Andy H

In article <ssp7pd$oto$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
<thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

> Two utilities are reporting the error. Disk Utility doesn't because it
> doesn't recognise SMART on external USB drives.

that's because only some usb bridges support it and it also requires
specific support from the utility, usually a kernel extension.

apple's disk utility does not implement it because there is no
guarantee that the user will have such a drive and explaining why it
only works sometimes is not worth it.

third party companies have different priorities. drivedx has its own
driver, for example.

more info here:
<https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/USB>
The OS X SAT SMART Driver provides access to SMART data for SAT,
JMicron and Sunplus capable USB and Firewire devices on Mac OS X. On
OSX El Capitan (10.11+) you may need a signed driver, which can be
downloaded from the DriveDx website. Note that this does not support
48-bit ATA commands (-l xerror) or non-SMART ATA commands (-s apm,N).
Full USB support would require SCSI pass-through support which does
not yet exist on Mac OS X.

> >
> > the enclosure isn't usually what fails.
>
> Very often it can be the case, well at least it can be the bridge
> adapter inside, or a cable, or a hub.

no, not very often. the most common failure mode is the drive itself.

but if any of the other stuff does fail, it's easy to fix. cables are
easily to replace and you probably have several anyway. you said you
already have an enclosure so you're covered there. hubs are also easy
to replace and can be avoided by connecting directly to the computer.
none of that is expensive and you will not lose any data.
> > if reliability is important, get an enterprise drive. some have 5 year
> > warranties, versus 1 for an external.
>
> Reliability is important enough, although my feeling is that ALL drives
> should function for a reasonable time, regardless of the price point.

and they do exactly that.

nothing is perfect in this world so it will never be 'all'. a tiny
fraction will fail. that's just reality. generally drives fail early
within warranty, or many years later, as parts wear out.

> As
> it happens I have found that the drive here does have a two year
> warranty (so I should be able to get a replacement. It should be
> reasonable to expect any drive to at least outlive the warranty period
> though.

they normally do, but there's no way to know ahead of time whether you
will get a drive that will prematurely fail. that's what warranties are
for.

however, getting a replacement is always a hassle and it doesn't
replace the data that might have been on it.

another problem are the global supply chain issues. i know someone who
sent a drive back to seagate a couple of weeks ago, who told him they
don't have any replacements available, and it may be a few weeks until
they do.

> Even then, it does seem that modern drives are failing more frequently
> that they were a few years ago. I still have a Seagate 320GB drive I
> bought in 2006 that still runs and shows no errors.

the plural of anecdote is not data.

i have drives from the 1990s that still work. i also have drives that
failed within a year or two.

overall, hard drives are extremely reliable.

In article <ssp74h$kiq$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
<thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

> >> the enclosure isn't usually what fails.
> >
> > ...but the external connections might make it less reliable.
>
> To be honest, this is something that I've done research on, and as usual
> nospam is answering questions that were not being asked. Common causes
> of such issues are indeed possibly down to faulty enclosures (or at
> least their bridge adapters inside), cables and hubs.

the most common cause of drive failure is the actual drive mechanism,
not the bridge or cables.

> My thought was, looking forward, to buy a full manufacturers branded
> external HDD, as it should be better made, and hopefully all components
> completely compatible.

the warranty is shorter for an external drive, which means it's
statistically more likely to fail. it's also cheaper, so there is a
tradeoff.

> Now these are not all that more expensive than a
> bare drive, and even a 2.5" portable model would do for my needs, as far
> as speeds go that is.

in general, 2.5" drives are less reliable than 3.5" drives. the only
real advantage is there is no need for a power adapter, as they're
normally bus-powered. for a laptop, that is often very desirable. for a
desktop, there is no advantage.

On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:
> i have drives from the 1990s that still work. i also have drives that
> failed within a year or two.

Why do you keep failed drives?

On 25/01/2022 17:19, David Brooks wrote:
> On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:
>> i have drives from the 1990s that still work. i also have drives that
>> failed within a year or two.
>
> Why do you keep failed drives?

:-)

--
Andy H

In article <riWHJ.95907$ASha.5576@fx06.ams1>, David Brooks
<David@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> > i have drives from the 1990s that still work. i also have drives that
> > failed within a year or two.
>
> Why do you keep failed drives?

to build homeless shelters.

what do you use them for?

On 25/01/2022 17:20, Andy Hewitt wrote:
> On 25/01/2022 17:19, David Brooks wrote:
>> On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:
>>> i have drives from the 1990s that still work. i also have drives that
>>> failed within a year or two.
>>
>> Why do you keep failed drives?
>
> :-)

He's not a good loser! ;-)

On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:
> In article <ssp7pd$oto$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
> <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
>> Two utilities are reporting the error. Disk Utility doesn't because it
>> doesn't recognise SMART on external USB drives.
>
> that's because only some usb bridges support it and it also requires
> specific support from the utility, usually a kernel extension.
>
> apple's disk utility does not implement it because there is no
> guarantee that the user will have such a drive and explaining why it
> only works sometimes is not worth it.
>
> third party companies have different priorities. drivedx has its own
> driver, for example.
>
> more info here:
> <https://www.smartmontools.org/wiki/USB>
> The OS X SAT SMART Driver provides access to SMART data for SAT,
> JMicron and Sunplus capable USB and Firewire devices on Mac OS X. On
> OSX El Capitan (10.11+) you may need a signed driver, which can be
> downloaded from the DriveDx website. Note that this does not support
> 48-bit ATA commands (-l xerror) or non-SMART ATA commands (-s apm,N).
> Full USB support would require SCSI pass-through support which does
> not yet exist on Mac OS X.

Yes, I know, it's what I have installed here (as mentioned).

>>> the enclosure isn't usually what fails.
>>
>> Very often it can be the case, well at least it can be the bridge
>> adapter inside, or a cable, or a hub.
>
> no, not very often. the most common failure mode is the drive itself.

If you want to argue that, define 'not very often'.

> but if any of the other stuff does fail, it's easy to fix. cables are
> easily to replace and you probably have several anyway. you said you
> already have an enclosure so you're covered there. hubs are also easy
> to replace and can be avoided by connecting directly to the computer.
> none of that is expensive and you will not lose any data.

Yes, I have *an* enclosure. I have cables for sure. Connecting directly
to the computer is only practical if you have the spare ports (why do
you think I'm using a hub?). Of course it could be used for testing,
depending on how long it takes for an error to show up.

>>> if reliability is important, get an enterprise drive. some have 5 year
>>> warranties, versus 1 for an external.
>>
>> Reliability is important enough, although my feeling is that ALL drives
>> should function for a reasonable time, regardless of the price point.
>
> and they do exactly that.

No, I didn't mean all drives that way, I meant all drive model types. I
shouldn't have to spend more money just to get a drive that works at
all, or for more than few months.

> nothing is perfect in this world so it will never be 'all'. a tiny
> fraction will fail. that's just reality. generally drives fail early
> within warranty, or many years later, as parts wear out.

That's nothing new, and applies to almost anything.

>> As
>> it happens I have found that the drive here does have a two year
>> warranty (so I should be able to get a replacement. It should be
>> reasonable to expect any drive to at least outlive the warranty period
>> though.
>
> they normally do, but there's no way to know ahead of time whether you
> will get a drive that will prematurely fail. that's what warranties are
> for.
>
> however, getting a replacement is always a hassle and it doesn't
> replace the data that might have been on it.

Indeed so. All that I know already.

> another problem are the global supply chain issues. i know someone who
> sent a drive back to seagate a couple of weeks ago, who told him they
> don't have any replacements available, and it may be a few weeks until
> they do.

Perhaps they could ask Amazon or Ebuyer for some stock back? ;-)

>> Even then, it does seem that modern drives are failing more frequently
>> that they were a few years ago. I still have a Seagate 320GB drive I
>> bought in 2006 that still runs and shows no errors.
>
> the plural of anecdote is not data.

Yup, I know that too, but it's what I have to work with.

> i have drives from the 1990s that still work. i also have drives that
> failed within a year or two.
>
> overall, hard drives are extremely reliable.

They have to be as a rule, but nevertheless, I can only go by my own
experiences, and lately I have been replacing dead drives more
frequently, and at shorter intervals than I have in the past.

--
Andy H

In article <sspc1u$oh6$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
<thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

> >> Reliability is important enough, although my feeling is that ALL drives
> >> should function for a reasonable time, regardless of the price point.
> >
> > and they do exactly that.
>
> No, I didn't mean all drives that way, I meant all drive model types. I
> shouldn't have to spend more money just to get a drive that works at
> all, or for more than few months.

they work for far more than a few months.

the warranty will cover early failures. the only problem is the hassle.

> > overall, hard drives are extremely reliable.
>
> They have to be as a rule, but nevertheless, I can only go by my own
> experiences, and lately I have been replacing dead drives more
> frequently, and at shorter intervals than I have in the past.

your experiences do not match those of backblaze, who examined more
than 140,000 drives, making it a reasonable assessment of reliability.

<https://www.zdnet.com/article/look-at-this-hard-drive-data-sales-are-wa
y-down-but-reliability-is-way-up/>
Disk drives are modern miracles of precision engineering and
manufacturing. Even the worst of the drives today is way better
than drives of 20 years ago and a lot less costly.

On 25/01/2022 17:57, nospam wrote:
> In article <sspc1u$oh6$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
> <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
>>>> Reliability is important enough, although my feeling is that ALL drives
>>>> should function for a reasonable time, regardless of the price point.
>>>
>>> and they do exactly that.
>>
>> No, I didn't mean all drives that way, I meant all drive model types. I
>> shouldn't have to spend more money just to get a drive that works at
>> all, or for more than few months.
>
> they work for far more than a few months.

As I say, not in my experience. Of course a few months could be anything
from a handful (say, 3-5), to around 24 months. Define 'a few'.

> the warranty will cover early failures. the only problem is the hassle.

Indeed.

>>> overall, hard drives are extremely reliable.
>>
>> They have to be as a rule, but nevertheless, I can only go by my own
>> experiences, and lately I have been replacing dead drives more
>> frequently, and at shorter intervals than I have in the past.
>
> your experiences do not match those of backblaze, who examined more
> than 140,000 drives, making it a reasonable assessment of reliability.

Of course they don't. Take into account different environments,
enterprise vs consumer models, luck of the draw, and total eclipses,
then of course all this subject to individual experience.

> <https://www.zdnet.com/article/look-at-this-hard-drive-data-sales-are-wa
> y-down-but-reliability-is-way-up/>
> Disk drives are modern miracles of precision engineering and
> manufacturing. Even the worst of the drives today is way better
> than drives of 20 years ago and a lot less costly.

Yes, find a certain data point, and you can get a statistic. 20 years
ago, I'd probably agree (IIRC the old Quantum Fireballs were still
around then, and very prone to failure). In between, perhaps not so much.

But, as I say again, I can only work with my own experiences, but you
can of course feel free to ignore, as they won't apply to you, or anyone
else.

--
Andy H

On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:
> In article <ssp74h$kiq$1@dont-email.me>, Andy Hewitt
> <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:
>
>>>> the enclosure isn't usually what fails.
>>>
>>> ...but the external connections might make it less reliable.
>>
>> To be honest, this is something that I've done research on, and as usual
>> nospam is answering questions that were not being asked. Common causes
>> of such issues are indeed possibly down to faulty enclosures (or at
>> least their bridge adapters inside), cables and hubs.
>
> the most common cause of drive failure is the actual drive mechanism,
> not the bridge or cables.

I never said 'most common', just plain 'common'. It was only mentioned
as a point of something to check, not as a most likely cause of the error.

--
Andy H

I use BackBlaze's drive statistics to give me metrics on "what's the failure history for vendor X?"

I've used a combo of Hitachi and Toshiba 4GB drives with a Black Label WD enterprise drive as a test.

The WD isn't worth it. When I plugged one into my MacPro desktop, it wouldn't mount when I rebooted the system until I use the Drive Utility.

The WDs seem to be OK for the Voyager External Drive mounter, but not inside my Mac. YMMV.

On 26/01/2022 22:56, John Percival Hackworth wrote:
> I use BackBlaze's drive statistics to give me metrics on "what's the failure history for vendor X?"

Of course I do look at that, but I think using that for buying a
consumer level unit maybe doesn't give the best data, as it's unlikely
I'll be looking at like-for-like drives.

> I've used a combo of Hitachi and Toshiba 4GB drives with a Black Label WD enterprise drive as a test.

I've had a few Toshiba drives (maybe three or four), but almost all have
failed - or at least have SMART data that suggests I shouldn't trust
them for long, a couple of them became unreadable, and I have replace
one within a few weeks under warranty.

> The WD isn't worth it. When I plugged one into my MacPro desktop, it wouldn't mount when I rebooted the system until I use the Drive Utility.
>
> The WDs seem to be OK for the Voyager External Drive mounter, but not inside my Mac. YMMV.

WD does seem to get fairly high user ratings, although of course most of
that, as we've discussed, is anecdotal (but, we have to start with
something).

As it is, I'm trying a Seagate Skyhawk Surveillance model, and see how
that goes. It's a drive that I leave running a lot in the background,
and doesn't have any need for great speed, so hopefully this might do
for the need, as that is what this drive is specified for.

Cheers.

--
Andy H

On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:

> however, getting a replacement is always a hassle and it doesn't
> replace the data that might have been on it.
>
> another problem are the global supply chain issues. i know someone who
> sent a drive back to seagate a couple of weeks ago, who told him they
> don't have any replacements available, and it may be a few weeks until
> they do.

Just an update on this.

1. no data was lost.
2. getting a replacement was NO hassle.
3. there was no supply chain issue.

I got an RMA for my faulty drive last week, posted the faulty unit on
Wednesday, it arrived with Seagate on Thursday, and they despatched the
replacement the same day with UPS. The replacement arrived today, and is
currently being used to copy some data onto.

I didn't even need to supply a receipt, their system already had the
warranty details on file when I registered.

So, based on that, I would buy Seagate products again.

--
Andy H

On 7 Feb 2022 at 16:26:10 GMT, "Andy Hewitt" <thewildrover@icloud.com>
wrote:

> On 25/01/2022 16:40, nospam wrote:
>
>> however, getting a replacement is always a hassle and it doesn't
>> replace the data that might have been on it.
>>
>> another problem are the global supply chain issues. i know someone who
>> sent a drive back to seagate a couple of weeks ago, who told him they
>> don't have any replacements available, and it may be a few weeks until
>> they do.
>
> Just an update on this.
>
> 1. no data was lost.
> 2. getting a replacement was NO hassle.
> 3. there was no supply chain issue.
>
> I got an RMA for my faulty drive last week, posted the faulty unit on
> Wednesday, it arrived with Seagate on Thursday, and they despatched the
> replacement the same day with UPS. The replacement arrived today, and is
> currently being used to copy some data onto.
>
> I didn't even need to supply a receipt, their system already had the
> warranty details on file when I registered.
>
> So, based on that, I would buy Seagate products again.

If you needed it, Seagate do a "pay for another one, we send it now and
give you the money back when we get yours" which can be excellent if
your drive hasn't completely failed. Or if you'd just rather your RAID
had a full set of spindles sooner, since it saves about a week.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
I always wanted to be someone. I should have been more specific.
-- Lily Tomlin

In article <j6dp5nFmas7U1@mid.individual.net>, Jaimie Vandenbergh
<jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:

>
> If you needed it, Seagate do a "pay for another one, we send it now and
> give you the money back when we get yours" which can be excellent if
> your drive hasn't completely failed. Or if you'd just rather your RAID
> had a full set of spindles sooner, since it saves about a week.

they all do that.

a big advantage is you can reuse the box & antistatic bag they used for
the new drive to send back the dead drive. this is particularly
important because they reserve the right to deny warranty claims if
it's not properly packed.

On 7 Feb 2022 at 23:57:57 GMT, "nospam" <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> In article <j6dp5nFmas7U1@mid.individual.net>, Jaimie Vandenbergh
> <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> If you needed it, Seagate do a "pay for another one, we send it now and
>> give you the money back when we get yours" which can be excellent if
>> your drive hasn't completely failed. Or if you'd just rather your RAID
>> had a full set of spindles sooner, since it saves about a week.
>
> they all do that.

Yup, and Andy was using Seagate.

> a big advantage is you can reuse the box & antistatic bag they used for
> the new drive to send back the dead drive. this is particularly
> important because they reserve the right to deny warranty claims if
> it's not properly packed.

That is a good tip - it's been so long since I last had to do this I'd
forgotten about that significant advantage.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Sent from my PDP11/45

On 08/02/2022 01:00, Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
> On 7 Feb 2022 at 23:57:57 GMT, "nospam" <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>> In article <j6dp5nFmas7U1@mid.individual.net>, Jaimie Vandenbergh
>> <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> If you needed it, Seagate do a "pay for another one, we send it now and
>>> give you the money back when we get yours" which can be excellent if
>>> your drive hasn't completely failed. Or if you'd just rather your RAID
>>> had a full set of spindles sooner, since it saves about a week.
>>
>> they all do that.
>
> Yup, and Andy was using Seagate.
>
>> a big advantage is you can reuse the box & antistatic bag they used for
>> the new drive to send back the dead drive. this is particularly
>> important because they reserve the right to deny warranty claims if
>> it's not properly packed.
>
> That is a good tip - it's been so long since I last had to do this I'd
> forgotten about that significant advantage.

That's why I used the box my new drive came in that I'd ordered the week
before. I had needed an upgrade for another one anyway.

Although I had ordered a different (higher level) model of drive, so
AIUI they wouldn't have covered that under their T&Cs.

--
Andy H

nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote:

> In article <j6dp5nFmas7U1@mid.individual.net>, Jaimie Vandenbergh
> <jaimie@usually.sessile.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > If you needed it, Seagate do a "pay for another one, we send it now and
> > give you the money back when we get yours" which can be excellent if
> > your drive hasn't completely failed. Or if you'd just rather your RAID
> > had a full set of spindles sooner, since it saves about a week.
>
> they all do that.
>
> a big advantage is you can reuse the box & antistatic bag they used for
> the new drive to send back the dead drive. this is particularly
> important because they reserve the right to deny warranty claims if
> it's not properly packed.

A failed drive could be quite valuable to their research department if
they can be certain no further damage has occurred in the post.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk