Seagate is Shutting Down One of Its Largest HDD Assembly Plants

[Raevenlord]

The woes for the trusty old HDD continue, as Seagate, one of the world's biggest players on the HDD manufacturing field, has confirmed they are closing up one of their largest plants. The factory, located in Suzhou, China, is one of the company's largest HDD production epicenters, and its closure will significantly reduce the company's HDD output - a step in the company's purported "optimizations" towards reducing their HDD production capabilities from 55-60 million HDDs per quarter to around 35-40 million. Production and demand's age-old feud are once again taking their toll, as demand for spindle-drive technology subsides on the wake of SSDs increased performance and consecutive price declines, with most laptops now shipping with either SSD-based storage or cheaper, yet less power-hungry, eMMC solutions.





As a result, Seagate intends to lay off ~2200 employees, which go on to join the ~8,000 employees already laid-off in 2016 from different locations. It is still unclear what the company intends to do with the facility, which it obtained as part of Maxtor's assets, when it acquired the company in 2006, though a full-scale conversion to SSD manufacturing is unlikely any time soon, considering the amount of machinery that would have to be replaced on such a large factory.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[djisas]

Good riddance!
I had nothing but chinese seagate drives dying on me, everytime i had to buy a new one, had to ask for the non chinese ones...

 

[xkm1948]

Never had any problem with the Seagate HDD coming out of Chinese assembly line.

Last I heard this on the news it had something to do China's tax penalty on Seagate for tax evasion. Seagate shelled out the cash to pay tax, but in return it closed down one of the factory and fired all 2000 of the employees there.

 

[djisas]

Never had any problem with the Seagate HDD coming out of Chinese assembly line.

Last I heard this on the news it had something to do China's tax penalty on Seagate for tax evasion. Seagate shelled out the cash to pay tax, but in return it closed down one of the factory and fired all 2000 of the employees there.

I think they where all 7200.11's, had 2 die irc and 1 doa (chinese)...

 

[TheGuruStud]

I hope they go under. They send out other people's defective drives when you RMA. And we all know how shitty they are to begin with.

They should be fined and jailed for fraud.

 

[R-T-B]

I hope they go under. They send out other people's defective drives when you RMA. And we all know how shitty they are to begin with.

They should be fined and jailed for fraud.

I've actually had good luck with them, and my one RMA drive has been fine.

 

[TheGuruStud]

I've actually had good luck with them, and my one RMA drive has been fine.

Did you scan or check smartdata? Mine and a friend's came with tons of bad sectors. Clearly, they just wiped old HDDs and sent them out. Their response? Go fuck yourself.

Luckily, I didn't not pay for the original drive, but I was scammed out of shipping.

 

[newtekie1]

I'll take any Seagate over a WD Blue anyday.

Did you scan or check smartdata? Mine and a friend's came with tons of bad sectors. Clearly, they just wiped old HDDs and sent them out. Their response? Go fuck yourself.

Luckily, I didn't not pay for the original drive, but I was scammed out of shipping.

I had WD send me a DENTED WD RE drive(at the time the highest end drive they sold).

 

[dj-electric]

There's a good reason Seagate owns LSI, time to put it to use already

 

[neatfeatguy]

I know someone that works at the Seagate building here in Shakopee, MN. Last I heard (8-10 months back) she was very well under the impression that a facility would be closing around Christmas 2016. She was very much sure that it was the location in Shakopee (she hoped it wouldn't be because then she would be out of a job) or a place in China. Her fears were coming true, she thought her location was closing - just before Christmas 125 people were let go. She thought after the mandatory holiday vacation she'd come to find out soon the facility was closing....

Guess she's okay with her job for now, seeing as a plant in China closed.

 

[TheGuruStud]

I'll take any Seagate over a WD Blue anyday.



I had WD send me a DENTED WD RE drive(at the time the highest end drive they sold).

But did it actually work? LOL. I know the assholes don't want to send brand new grade A drives, but I'll take a good scratch 'n dent over a defective and used paper weight.

 

[newtekie1]

But did it actually work? LOL. I know the assholes don't want to send brand new grade A drives, but I'll take a good scratch 'n dent over a defective and used paper weight.

Oh hell no it didn't work. The cover was contacting the platters...

WD sends used drives for RMA replacements just like Seagate.

 

[thesmokingman]

I'm guessing this will mean an uptick in average price for platter drives? Man, the 8tb and 10tb Ironwolf drives were just getting palatable.

 

[R-T-B]

Did you scan or check smartdata? Mine and a friend's came with tons of bad sectors. Clearly, they just wiped old HDDs and sent them out. Their response? Go fuck yourself.

Luckily, I didn't not pay for the original drive, but I was scammed out of shipping.

I have a habit where smart data is always checked on new or rma'd drives.

I do tend to buy enterprise sector drives though. My last Seagate was a Constellation.2

 

[xkm1948]

I hope they go under. They send out other people's defective drives when you RMA. And we all know how shitty they are to begin with.

They should be fined and jailed for fraud.

It is standard practice for both WD and Seagate. I had to replace one of my WD Black once and WD sent me defective drives, twice! Of course I was mad as hell and talked all the way to one of their customer service manager that actually works in US. I got a properly working one in the end.

As for Seagate I had lost a backup plus. Submit an advance RMA and they next day a larger drive in brand new packaging to me. So far I have had better experience with Seagate than WD.

See my story here
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/raw-read-errors-help.177976/

I had multiple support ticket in WD's supporting forum during that event. My forum posts in WD support got deleted and the admin over WD forum threatened me multiple times. The point is WD is just as shitty as seagate. From my personal experience WD is shittier than Seagate.

 

[xkm1948]

I have a habit where smart data is always checked on new or rma'd drives.

Every one should be doing this. I will do a full disk scan before entrusting the drive with any of my data. Drives are replaceable, lost data is not that easily recoverable.

 

[dj-electric]

Is this gonna be WD vs Seagate type of thread?
Because screw em, screw em both. Both have horrible RMA rates, both are equally unreliable for home use (not server use), both a slow and horrible for a modern day use in 2017, or 2016, or 2015... or 2014.

Thank goodness for the reduction in HDD production

 

[remixedcat]

Didn't Seagate start making SSDs yet?

 

[P4-630]

I always had Seagate HDD's (made in Thailand, the ones I had).

Never had one fail on me yet, currently not using them, have them laying aside still with data on it.

 

[SaltyFish]

I'm guessing this will mean an uptick in average price for platter drives? Man, the 8tb and 10tb Ironwolf drives were just getting palatable.

If Seagate is smart, they'll shift up production of large capacity HDDs over the smaller ones at their remaining factories. Storage capacity is the one main thing HDDs still have going for them... a 2TB SSD remains ludicrously expensive right now.

Is this gonna be WD vs Seagate type of thread?

So... uh, how're Toshiba HDDs these days?

 

[JunkBear]

I still own older HDD. MADE IN PHILIPPINES. Sata one 80 gigs and Working flawless.

 

[alucasa]

My recent experience with Seagate was about 3 months ago. One of my 2.5 inch 2TB HHD died in a NAS setup. Me being in Canada, I expected slow RMA process.

Once my RMA drive arrived in Toronto, they sent it to CA, USA. Once it go there (Took 6 business days which is reasonable considering the distance), they sent a brand new HDD with UPS Express saver. It got to me in a day after it was shipped out. (Basically overnight shipping)

I call that service.

 

[djisas]

WD RMA might suck, but over the years, i found them to be far more reliable than seagate...
When my 500Gb made in china segate was doa, i went back to shop and bought a samsung F3, Samsung had some really good drives back then...
I am now wondering on upgrading some older hdd, might go for Wd reds, not sure how good the new seagate generation is

 

[Devon68]

Reading all the comments has made me realize how some of us are lucky. If I buy a product in a shop and have a 2 year warranty, then if the product fails in the meantime I can just take it to the shop and get a new one unless it's not discontinued. If it's discontinued they will probably offer a drive the same capacity as the dead drive and they will handle the RMA or what ever they do in that case. I only had WD drives for now. It's a shame they had to close down and let so many people go.

 

[Bansaku]

Ya know, in my 35 years of using computers I have never had a hard disk drive fail on me, EVER! From SCSI to IDE, Seagate nor WD. I have HDs that are older than most of you here in this thread that are still 100% functional to this day. Then again, who wants a 2MB HD?!

***knocks on wood***