Apple's Seagate Hard Drive Troubles Date Back to 2009

btarunr · Oct 17, 2012

An increasing number of Apple iMac customers are facing troubles with Seagate-made 1 TB hard drives their iMacs shipped with, since 2011. Apple responded with a free no-questions-asked hard drive replacement program for affected customers, but evidently believes some customers may be using faulty Seagate hard drives from even before 2011. The company stretched its hard drive replacement program to cover iMacs purchased between October 2009 and July 2011. "Apple has determined that certain Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems may fail," said Apple.

The company is holding a list of iMacs by their serial numbers, which are likely to be affected by faulty hard drives. Customers who registered their iMacs have already been contacted, while others are presented with an online tool that lets you check if yours is one of those affected iMacs. Apple and its Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) are tasked with carrying out these free replacements. Customers will now be covered by replacement protection for three years, that's up to April 2013.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

Phusius · Oct 17, 2012

I can't believe Seagate is still in business, so many negative reviews on their drives it is insane. Samsung or Western Digital for life.

_JP_ · Oct 17, 2012

7200.11 'cudas, I presume...

Fourstaff · Oct 17, 2012

Phusius said:
I can't believe Seagate is still in business, so many negative reviews on their drives it is insane. Samsung or Western Digital for life.

I have no problems with any of my Seagate drives, and have not experienced first/second hand that they are inferior to any other brands. Can you find proof that Seagate is consistently unreliable, or is it just one or two lines (discontinued, fixed or otherwise) which are sub par?

Note that Samsung's HDD business is now owned by Seagate.

_JP_ · Oct 17, 2012

Inb4 Seagate sucks because they have a fail-rate slightly higher than other manufacturers.

Aw dang it...

No_Asylum · Oct 17, 2012

Phusius said:
I can't believe Seagate is still in business, so many negative reviews on their drives it is insane. Samsung or Western Digital for life.

Seagate and Samsung are the same now, so that point is invalid. The reviews are split virtually 50/50 between Seagate and Western Digital so that point is also invalid. Both have the exact same ratio of failed drives. Neither are any better than the other.

Phusius · Oct 17, 2012

Fourstaff said:
I have no problems with any of my Seagate drives, and have not experienced first/second hand that they are inferior to any other brands. Can you find proof that Seagate is consistently unreliable, or is it just one or two lines (discontinued, fixed or otherwise) which are sub par?

Note that Samsung's HDD business is now owned by Seagate.

Cause HDD's are dead. SSD's ftw.

Phusius · Oct 17, 2012

No_Asylum said:
Seagate and Samsung are the same now, so that point is invalid. The reviews are split virtually 50/50 between Seagate and Western Digital so that point is also invalid. Both have the exact same ratio of failed drives. Neither are any better than the other.

Umm cause Samsung knows HDD's are old tech. They moved on to bigger and better things...

v12dock · Oct 17, 2012

No_Asylum said:
Seagate and Samsung are the same now, so that point is invalid. The reviews are split virtually 50/50 between Seagate and Western Digital so that point is also invalid. Both have the exact same ratio of failed drives. Neither are any better than the other.

I am assuming me he talking about the old Samsung's such as the F3s

TRWOV · Oct 17, 2012

I don't know if I'm just lucky or what but as far as I can recall only two desktop HDD have failed on me, a 30GB Maxtor and a 80GB WD. My oldest drive still in use is a 6GB Seagate Medalist IDE Drive.

Laptop drives are another story though, almost every laptop I have has had its HDD replaced at least once; whenever they were Toshiba, Samsung, Fujitsu or WD drives didn't matter.

djisas · Oct 17, 2012

2 seagate 7200.11 dead (made in china) here and one 7200.12 doa (also made in china), Thailand drives no issues at all...

If you buy seagate, beware of lower quality china parts...

Kantastic · Oct 17, 2012

Can't bash Apple in this thread? BASH SEAGATE!

Jetster · Oct 17, 2012

Here we go again :twitch:

Did anyone see the SNL skit on the Apple I phone 5. Fuc*ing hilarious
Saturday Night Live - Tech Talk: iPhone 5 - YouTub...

Derek12 · Oct 17, 2012

Nope I didn't had any issues with any Seagate HD and had one lasting 7 years.
May be something Appl€ has done.

Binge · Oct 17, 2012

Derek12 said:
Nope I didn't had any issues with any Seagate HD and had one lasting 7 years.
May be something Appl€ has done.

Nope, they buy cheap parts and mark them up. Cheap may mean high defect rates. Of course they'll replace it no problem.

newtekie1 · Oct 17, 2012

Phusius said:
I can't believe Seagate is still in business, so many negative reviews on their drives it is insane. Samsung or Western Digital for life.

The irony of your post almost made my head explode... :ohwell:

Binge said:
Nope, they buy cheap parts and mark them up. Cheap may mean high defect rates. Of course they'll replace it no problem.

It is funny you say that, I had a 500GB drive die in my iMac. When I went to replace it I found the original drive was actually a Seagate recert drive, this is an iMac straight from the factory. Seems Apple got a good deal on a bunch of Seagate's recerts.

Also, I found that the design of the iMac and the location of the hard drive made the drive run extremely hot. There was virtually no airflow for the drive, and even after power the machine down and taking the 20 Minutes to carefully peel the screen off to get to the drive, it was still warm to the touch... No wonder they fail.

Binge · Oct 17, 2012

Not to mention everything Seagate did to make sure the SATA III standard was developed. That may be a little too insider, but thou shalt not make hasty remarks of large semi-conductor and storage manufacturers! There is more going on than meets the eye.

Derek12 · Oct 17, 2012

Binge said:
Nope, they buy cheap parts and mark them up. Cheap may mean high defect rates. Of course they'll replace it no problem.

Yeah, besides cooling issues, HD may be mounted in a funny form, etc.

TheGuruStud · Oct 17, 2012

Only the 1 TBs? :roll:

Fourstaff · Oct 17, 2012

Phusius said:
Cause HDD's are dead. SSD's ftw.

I don't even know where to start ...

Phusius · Oct 18, 2012

Fourstaff said:
I don't even know where to start ...

I can't go back to my HDD after using SSD, I can understand if people need more storage, but 256 GB is plenty for me. /shrug

Isenstaedt · Oct 18, 2012

Why did Apple went with Seagate in the first place?

In my opinion WD has always been superior. I've never owned a Seagate drive but across these past years I've read quite a few more complains about them than WD's.

HDDs aren't dead yet but I give them a few years.

entropy13 · Oct 18, 2012

Isenstaedt said:
Why did Apple went with Seagate in the first place?

In my opinion WD has always been superior. I've never owned a Seagate drive but across these past years I've read quite a few more complains about them than WD's.

HDDs aren't dead yet but I give them a few years.

I've owned both WD and Seagate and both have yet to fail. I've seen roughly the same number of failures (for other people obviously) in either of the two.

Fourstaff · Oct 18, 2012

Phusius said:
I can't go back to my HDD after using SSD, I can understand if people need more storage, but 256 GB is plenty for me. /shrug

You prefer SSD doesn't mean HDD is dead :shadedshu

Melvis · Oct 18, 2012

Doesn't surprise me, ive seen alot more seagates die in the past few yrs then any other drive. My m8 is inlove with seagate drives and half of his have died, compared to all my (half used WD when bought) and none have died.

That been said all the seagate drives i have sold are still working, cross fingers i guess.

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Apple's Seagate Hard Drive Troubles Date Back to 2009

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