Chicago (IL) - A few weeks ago, TG Daily noticed there were a growing number of reported drive failures posted on NewEgg.com's customer review section for Seagate's 7200.11 500G Barracuda hard drives. Trends in recent weeks have shown many more dissatisfied users than they had previously. Many users report their Barracuda drive became inoperable after a few months. And while Seagate has issued a fix, we find reports online which indicate Seagate is actively censoring negative comments and questions about this drive's reported errors on their website.
The Consumerist cites a letter written by one its readers, named Danny, which exemplifies the issue. Danny began a thread on www.msfn.org which also shows some potentially compelling data. Post #6, for example, shows two chart outlining the drive's assembly date, purchase date and failure date. Of the 47 failures listed in the top chart, 45 of them failed between November 12, 2008 and today, as is visible by the yellow triangles appearing between "12-11-08" and "20-02-09". A scaled version of the chart as it appeared at the time of this writing appears here:
Note: It is likely people with drive failures in recent days/weeks are coming to this site after searching online for answers, and that accounts for the otherwise peculiar data set. However, Seagate has acknowledged a known flaw and they've issued a fix for the drive's firmware.
The problem relates to an issue with the drive's firmware following on/off cycles. The update from Seagate reportedly fixes the problem on drives not yet affected. However, if your hard drive has already been affected there is no reported solution.
On NewEgg, the customer rating feature breaks down as follows:
Data comes from NewEgg's customer review page as of January 30, 2009 at 3:30pm CST. All Time entries total 1477 reviews with a breakout of Excellent=952, Good=165, Average=78, Poor=77, Very Poor=205. Last six months consists of 734 reviews with a breakout of Excellent=458, Good=68, Average=39, Poor=42, Very Poor=127. Last two weeks consists of 34 reviews with a breakout of Excellent=18, Good=2, Average=1, Poor=3, Very Poor=13.
The most telling trends may come from percentage decreases of Excellent or Good for All Time=76%, Six Months=72%, Two Weeks=59%, and the percentage increases of Poor or Very Poor for All Time=19%, Six Months=23%, Two Weeks=38%.
Firmware Fix
Seagate has created a page identifying the problem. It reads in part:
Reported countries affected by drive failures so far (in red):
See The Consumerist, the early reporting at The Inquirer (January 13) and recent reporting from IT Examiner (today).
UPDATED: January 30, 2009 at 5:48pm CST
A reader sent us a link to a Gizmodo article from January 19, 2009, showing that Seagate is offering a free data recovery process for those who have lost their drive due to this failure. Seagate is not broadcasting this feature, however, as their support page only says, "If your drive is no longer accessible, click here to contact us directly for further assistance."
The landing page for that link provides Seagate's address along with several sub-categories including "Data Recovery." However, none of them indicate clearly there's a free data recovery service being offered. In fact, the "Data Recovery" section reads exactly the reverse, "Seagate offers a best-in-class, fee-based data recovery service for all makes and models of storage media. Our group of professionals specializes in recovering your lost data safely, securely and confidentially."
This apparent change in Seagate's actions of first silencing and censoring posts relating to their drive failures, to then offering but not broadcasting this free data recovery service may indicate the problem is larger than currently reported. It may also indicate Seagate fears consumer reprisal over selling defective products they've since fixed via a firmware update which prevents the loss, and yet would otherwise leave those affected "out to dry."
The Consumerist cites a letter written by one its readers, named Danny, which exemplifies the issue. Danny began a thread on www.msfn.org which also shows some potentially compelling data. Post #6, for example, shows two chart outlining the drive's assembly date, purchase date and failure date. Of the 47 failures listed in the top chart, 45 of them failed between November 12, 2008 and today, as is visible by the yellow triangles appearing between "12-11-08" and "20-02-09". A scaled version of the chart as it appeared at the time of this writing appears here:
Note: It is likely people with drive failures in recent days/weeks are coming to this site after searching online for answers, and that accounts for the otherwise peculiar data set. However, Seagate has acknowledged a known flaw and they've issued a fix for the drive's firmware.
The problem relates to an issue with the drive's firmware following on/off cycles. The update from Seagate reportedly fixes the problem on drives not yet affected. However, if your hard drive has already been affected there is no reported solution.
On NewEgg, the customer rating feature breaks down as follows:
Data comes from NewEgg's customer review page as of January 30, 2009 at 3:30pm CST. All Time entries total 1477 reviews with a breakout of Excellent=952, Good=165, Average=78, Poor=77, Very Poor=205. Last six months consists of 734 reviews with a breakout of Excellent=458, Good=68, Average=39, Poor=42, Very Poor=127. Last two weeks consists of 34 reviews with a breakout of Excellent=18, Good=2, Average=1, Poor=3, Very Poor=13.
The most telling trends may come from percentage decreases of Excellent or Good for All Time=76%, Six Months=72%, Two Weeks=59%, and the percentage increases of Poor or Very Poor for All Time=19%, Six Months=23%, Two Weeks=38%.
Firmware Fix
Seagate has created a page identifying the problem. It reads in part:
"A firmware issue has been identified that affects a small number of Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 hard drive models which may result in data becoming inaccessible after a power-off/on operation. The affected products are Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, and DiamondMax 22.This firmware upgrade is available on that page, and specifically relates to these drives: Barracuda 7200.11, Barracuda ES.2 SATA, DiamondMax 22. An additional firmware upgrade is available for a caching issue where on select models of the 7200.11's 500GB, 750GB and 1TB drives. That issue says drives do not utilize all of their available cache, though still function properly with the lesser cache utilization (this page). This is only a performance issue, according to Seagate.
Based on the low risk as determined by an analysis of actual field return data, Seagate believes that the affected drives can be used as is. However, as part of our commitment to customer satisfaction, Seagate is offering a free firmware upgrade."
Reported countries affected by drive failures so far (in red):
See The Consumerist, the early reporting at The Inquirer (January 13) and recent reporting from IT Examiner (today).
UPDATED: January 30, 2009 at 5:48pm CST
A reader sent us a link to a Gizmodo article from January 19, 2009, showing that Seagate is offering a free data recovery process for those who have lost their drive due to this failure. Seagate is not broadcasting this feature, however, as their support page only says, "If your drive is no longer accessible, click here to contact us directly for further assistance."
The landing page for that link provides Seagate's address along with several sub-categories including "Data Recovery." However, none of them indicate clearly there's a free data recovery service being offered. In fact, the "Data Recovery" section reads exactly the reverse, "Seagate offers a best-in-class, fee-based data recovery service for all makes and models of storage media. Our group of professionals specializes in recovering your lost data safely, securely and confidentially."
This apparent change in Seagate's actions of first silencing and censoring posts relating to their drive failures, to then offering but not broadcasting this free data recovery service may indicate the problem is larger than currently reported. It may also indicate Seagate fears consumer reprisal over selling defective products they've since fixed via a firmware update which prevents the loss, and yet would otherwise leave those affected "out to dry."