Re: Some Seagate hard drive users at risk

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:30:59 -0400 (EDT)
Brett Delmage <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm also going to take this opportunity give PC Cyber a thumbs down
> here. I bought two drives in late winter, a fair time after this
> problem was known, and they were still selling drives with bad
> firmware, not having bothered to test them before sale. (I checked my
> SN as soon as I got the drive home)

I won't defend PC Cyber on that one, but I will provide an excuse for
how all retailers reacted.

Seagate's horrid response to this, and another 10 or so other serious
drive issues, just like this, around the same time.

For months and months, Seagate would not even admit that such an issue
existed!  Worse, you'd have to email them *after* the drive broke, and
ask for support.  There were issues with data corrupt under Linux and
MacOS.  Issues with timeouts during read.  The issue you mentioned.

Seagate has been an absolute DISASTER as of late!

On top of this, they continued to ship drives, knowing there were
issues.  Seagate should have performed a massive recall, on the millions
of drives currently being distributed at the time.  They instead chose
to either save money, or try to hide the issue from the media at large.

The end result is that computers stores, which operate on tiny margins
these days (5%-10%), were suddenly responsible for such issues.  Each
drive likely only provided under $10 per sale, and then of course there
are expenses to be paid.

What's the profit on a drive, after rent, wages, advertising and
utilities are paid at a store?  I don't know, precisely, but it sure
can't be a lot.  

Seagate put its profits over those of consumers and businesses, and even
more... downloaded that issue to the local retailer who had neither the
manpower or time to check hundreds of drives sold per day.

It will be *years* before I buy Seagate again.. and that includes for my
clients.

(I had one client with over 160 1TB drives that needed to be flashed.
How nice!)
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