Seagate Announces 10TB Consumer HDD Lineup With Five Year Warranty

[Guest]

Seagate spins out the largest capacity HDD for several new segments, including desktop PCs. The company also offers an unheard-of five-year warranty period for the Desktop PC BarraCuda Pro models.

Seagate Announces 10TB Consumer HDD Lineup With Five Year Warranty : Read more

 

[Tanyac]

The problem with Seagate's Barracuda drives is that they are largely unreliably. Of the 100 or so I've purchased in the last 5 years, all but a dozen have failed within or just outside the warranty period. Whilst Seagate have always replaced the drives, the risk of data loss is substantial, and it's costly to keep sending drives back to the distributor.

The 5 and 6 TB offerings are unaffordable and priced so far outside the economic replacement boundary, that to adopt those drives is a massive cost of replacement, for a tiny or no increase in total capacity.

$470 USD should translate to $626 AUD, but we here in Australia get exploited with tech pricing all the time (Just look at the $1649 price tag on most resellers for the I7-6900K). It'll be more likely that the drives will retail here for $750 - $800 each, making them a ridiculous investment, even with a mediocre warranty period of 5 years.

 

[stevenrix]

I'll never go with Seagate again:
- all my seagate drives failed in less than 1 year
- when seagate replaces the drives, they usually fail also over a few months period
- One time i got a drive that failed in barely 1 week
- 10 Tb price point is too costly ($574? Are you kidding me??). I will probably stay with the 4 Tb drives for a long time then.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I have 5 Seagate Barracudas still running 4 years old.​

 

[dstarr3]

Awesome! Can't wait for WD to release their superior version.

 

[jimmysmitty]

The problem with Seagate's Barracuda drives is that they are largely unreliably. Of the 100 or so I've purchased in the last 5 years, all but a dozen have failed within or just outside the warranty period. Whilst Seagate have always replaced the drives, the risk of data loss is substantial, and it's costly to keep sending drives back to the distributor.

The 5 and 6 TB offerings are unaffordable and priced so far outside the economic replacement boundary, that to adopt those drives is a massive cost of replacement, for a tiny or no increase in total capacity.

$470 USD should translate to $626 AUD, but we here in Australia get exploited with tech pricing all the time (Just look at the $1649 price tag on most resellers for the I7-6900K). It'll be more likely that the drives will retail here for $750 - $800 each, making them a ridiculous investment, even with a mediocre warranty period of 5 years.

But you are putting in personal opinion/experience as fact when the truth is that Seagates are about as reliable as most other brands. My best experience is when I worked in a repair shop. The worst we had were the HGST and Toshiba 7mm 2.5" HDDs but other than that none were more reliable than the others if you compares apples to apples, i.e. entry level to entry level and so on and not consumer to enterprise or high end to low end.

Then there is pricing. There is no Consumer end 8TB or 10TB from HGST who makes good drives. Closest is their 8TB enterprise drive that is around $480 bucks for a OEM drive.

Then there is WD. Again closest is 8TB and it is their NAS drive which is cheaper but also is slower and smaller.

Both have lower warranties, unless you go to the WD Red Pro (couldn't find one for sell on Newegg) which has the same as the Barracuda Pro.

I think it is good. Until SSDs become much cheaper and much larger this is the best way to get storage space and this 10TB HDD will help push down the $/GB and hopefully push competition because you can't have just one company.

Awesome! Can't wait for WD to release their superior version.

If by superior you mean a HDD with probably about the same failure rate as the other major HDD manufactures then yes.

 

[thundervore]

I personally lost 8TB to Seagate drives. All 4 2TB drives failed right after the 1 year warranty was up. I replaced them with Toshiba DT01ACA200 drives and they are running strong 3 years later. Even my 4 2TB Samsung HD204UI drives from over 4 years ago before the flood that drove up HDD prices are still running strong with zero issues according to HD Sentinel.

We have many WD Blue drives at work and they always die, but its covered by the OEM so we just call them and they send a new drive and we send the old one back. Rinse and repeat.

Ive also personally lost 3 WD Black drives to the click of death right after the warranty expired.

Personally I prefer to vote with my wallet and I know from MY experience I will never buy a Seagate drive or a WD drive. So right now it Toshiba and it must have at least a 3 year warranty, nothing less!

 

[alextheblue]

My personal favorite desktop drives were Fujitsu (before Toshiba bought them) followed by Hitachi (pre-WD) and Samsung (pre-Seagate). WD's higher-end drives have typically been decent (Red, Purple, sometimes Black) as long as they were adequately packaged. Maxtor and Seagate have been the worst overall, but low-end WDs aren't too hot either.

Maybe it's just bad luck, or experience with OEM-grade drives, but I am just way too gunshy. An improved warranty won't be enough for me to use a Seabomb HDD again any time soon. Maybe ever. Solid state might be cost-viable for secondary storage by the time I am willing to give them a shot again.

 

[Tanyac]

But you are putting in personal opinion/experience as fact when the truth is that Seagates are about as reliable as most other brands.

Of course I am quoting from experience. But not only. I spend a lot of time reading research about storage technologies (as well as other stuff). I've certainly had problems with WD drives too, but that is not the subject of this article.

I'm no data center, but I do run servers for community organizations that cannot afford down time or data loss. Seagate used to be my first choice, but I can't in good conscience trust the drives after the experiences I've had.

And it's not as if I just "got a bad batch", I've had the same experiences since 2010, with an ever decreasing reliability since then and with a significant decline since 2013

"Experience" is fact. I'm not randomly quoting rhetoric for the sake of starting arguments about the topic. The fact is, I and customers I have built systems for consistently experience significantly more Seagate failures that any other brand. That is not to say other brands don't fail too.

I have found Seagate drives tend to have more controller failures as opposed to WD which tend to more mechanical failures.

Now, to be fair, WD drives are more expensive that Seagate. One would hope that extra cost translates into something tangible, like better endurance. However, the economic curve for them is even worse than for Seagate, at least here in Australia where prices are inflated.

 

[captaincharisma]

no thanks seagate, i'd buy a Toshiba HDD over your brand any day and they are almost as bad

 

[jimmysmitty]

But you are putting in personal opinion/experience as fact when the truth is that Seagates are about as reliable as most other brands.

Of course I am quoting from experience. But not only. I spend a lot of time reading research about storage technologies (as well as other stuff). I've certainly had problems with WD drives too, but that is not the subject of this article.

I'm no data center, but I do run servers for community organizations that cannot afford down time or data loss. Seagate used to be my first choice, but I can't in good conscience trust the drives after the experiences I've had.

And it's not as if I just "got a bad batch", I've had the same experiences since 2010, with an ever decreasing reliability since then and with a significant decline since 2013

"Experience" is fact. I'm not randomly quoting rhetoric for the sake of starting arguments about the topic. The fact is, I and customers I have built systems for consistently experience significantly more Seagate failures that any other brand. That is not to say other brands don't fail too.

I have found Seagate drives tend to have more controller failures as opposed to WD which tend to more mechanical failures.

Now, to be fair, WD drives are more expensive that Seagate. One would hope that extra cost translates into something tangible, like better endurance. However, the economic curve for them is even worse than for Seagate, at least here in Australia where prices are inflated.

Experience is only fact in so it applies to you. As I said I worked at a repair shop, well a parts store to the only one in Tucson, and of all the drives we sold we have similar failure rates between brands for every one sold. I can tell you in a year we sold a couple thousand including all makes, models and the ones we put in our pre-build systems. That only applies to me. I can point to my own personal builds with Seagates that were almost over 10 years old still going strong but again that applies to only me and is in no way a fact of the quality of any HDD.

I have yet to see any 100% accurate testing as the sample size is either too small or the methodology is flawed. It also depends on the line as there are some lines of Seagates that have a super low failure rate and others that have a higher failure rate, same with WD/Hitatchi etc.

A funny thing is that a lot of people use the "Backblaze" data yet if you check it every year the brands go back and forth. For 2015, or the most recent report, WD is the worst and Seagate has a very good (low) failure rate. Best is HGST but I guarantee that HGST doesn't sell nearly as many HDDs ans WD or Seagate.

To each their own. We need some good size jumps that helps drop the $/GB however I would rather see 10TB SSDs at near or less $/GB instead.

 

[cats_Paw]

I agree with most of the comments. Seagate is not a reliable brand.
I have used in the past seagate and I killed 5 drives all within a 6 month window.
Granted I was hammering them constantly and I had a few power outages at that time (thou the PSU did have all the required protections), but I did the same to samsung Drives and till today only one out of 3 died (the reason I didnt buy more samsung HDDs is because the old ones are still working).
Oh, and that one drive that died, I do not even remember how old it was, thats how old it was.

Hitachi Toshiba or Samsung seem to be the most reliable (at least in HDD).
I dont know if tomorrow things will drastically change, but at least today, I stay away from Seagate and Western Digital.

Seagate and WD are the two companies in HDDs that spend the most in marketing. There is a reason for that.

 

[Flying-Q]

Some of the descriptions in the article do not match the table at the top; most notably, BarraCuda Pro is listed as 8x5 in the table but described in the article as 24x7. Which is correct?

 

[milkod2001]

All my Seagate HDDs have failed within 2 years. Switched to WD Greens. All good so far.

 

[paesan]

I also have had a few Seagate drives go bad on me way too soon and have not purchased any for a while now. I have been buying Toshiba drives and WD Black drives. My Toshiba 3TB drive thru a smart error about 6 months ago. Have been sticking with mainly WD Blacks now.
Seems Seagate has finally committed to producing better quality drives, I will definitely give these new drives a try when available. The 5 year warranty clearly shows a that Seagate is trying to produce better quality drives.

 

[xyriin]

I think the author missed a press release over six months ago where Western Digital released the HGST He10 10TB PMR drive. It also has a 5 year warranty so it's not something unheard of, it's just Seagate playing catch up.

Oh wait a minute, isn't this the same guy who slammed Backblaze's drive failure report when it painted Seagate as the worst OEM? Seagate fan boy it would seem. Lobbying to ignore an OEM failure report and now cherry picking 'first' press releases. Let the excuses fly but nothing to see here but your classic brand lobbying.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

Some of the descriptions in the article do not match the table at the top; most notably, BarraCuda Pro is listed as 8x5 in the table but described in the article as 24x7. Which is correct?

You have a good eye

Seagate briefed us, and provided materials, last week. They adjusted the workload rating from 180 to 300 TB-per-year and increased the 8x5 rating to 24x7 in the interim. They actually sent out an email a few hours before NDA lift. I did not notice it was still inaccurate in the chart, i will ping them for an updated version

 

[PaulAlcorn]

I think the author missed a press release over six months ago where Western Digital released the HGST He10 10TB PMR drive.

Oh wait a minute, isn't this the same guy who slammed Backblaze's drive failure report when it painted Seagate is the worst OEM?

Seagate fan boy it would seem.

Western Digital's He10, I reported on it.

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/hgst-10-tb-hdd-helium,1-3059.html

In fact, I also wrote a deep dive on the helium architecture and their record-breaking MTBF as well.

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/hgst-helium-hdd-helioseal,1-2522.html

The He10 is an enterprise product, not a client product. There are differences. I did not say that these are the first 10TB for enterprise use, as they are not. HGST does not have a desktop 10TB model. Also, ALL enterprise HDD have a five-year warranty, whereas few client HDDs do.

In terms of Backblaze, the test methodology is flawed, yes, I have spoken against it in the past, and will continue to do so. I mentioned it in this piece because it is a relevant factor in the client market, as Seagate has taken a beating for an inherently flawed "study". If the chassis are so bad it merited three redesigns due to "Excessive HDD failure rates" (their words, not mine), then why are they still using them, and why in the world are they including those chassis in the data? These are questions for you to answer, as my only answer is that they are doing it simply for free publicity.

RE: Backblaze. The newest updates have WD as the worst vendor, with double the failure rate of Seagate, AND Backblaze continues to buy more Seagate's than any other brand. Unfortunately, the two-second attention span of those who trust such things hasn't noticed that WD has been the worst for an extended period of time now. If I were a "Seagate fan boy" or a "Seagate apologist" don't you think I would have that splashed on the front page? I don't trust the Backblaze "study", it is worthless data for the most part.

I point out Seagate's flaws in article after article, same with HGST. If they deserve it, they get it.

Finally, not sure if you are aware, but I test and write product evaluations of enterprise hardware. Here is the latest version of our "Best Enterprise HDDs", in which I, personally, have given HGST three of the four awards for market leading attributes in those categories.

http://www.tomsitpro.com/articles/best-enterprise-hard-drives,2-981.html

The work of a Seagate fanboy? heh.

 

[xyriin]

Awesome! Can't wait for WD to release their superior version.

You don't have to wait, they released it six months ago.

 

[xyriin]

The work of a Seagate fanboy? heh.

Well there was this...
"HDD vendors abandoned long warranty periods for consumer-class HDDs in the wake of the supply-restricting 2011 Thailand floods. The "new normal" for desktop PC HDDs is two years, which the BarraCuda Pro more than doubles."

Which is odd since it's only partially true. Western Digital and HGST have been running on 3 year+ warranty periods for most of their drive models for a while now. WD Black drives have been on a 5 year warranty, Red/Purple drives 3 years, and Blue/Green 2 years. Seagate was the one who wasn't willing to do a 3 year warranty period and in fact also has drive models with a 1 year warranty!

Considering the BarraCuda is most equivalent to the WD Black line the following comment seems a little backwards as well...
"In either case, the five-year warranty should spur other vendors to reciprocate."
It seems that Seagate playing catch up is the more accurate assessment. Not only do they bump the Barracuda line warranties up to match WD Black drives they also boost their IronWolf/SkyWolf lineup to a 3 year warranty to match WD Red/Purple drives.

Considering HGST He drives have been available off Amazon and Newegg for quite a while, and for right around the same price Seagate is launching these high end Helium drives I think it's fair to say the HGST drives are easily accessible for enthusiast desktop use. It just seems a bit disingenuous when you close with...
"The desktop PC drives do come at a premium, but Seagate is currently the only game in town for a 10 TB desktop HDD, not to mention the five-year warranty. "

But maybe it's just me and it won't matter in a few years anyway with 4TB of NAND popping up in the 2.5" form factor. Kind of eliminates the last advantage mechanicals had.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

The work of a Seagate fanboy? heh.

Well there was this...
"HDD vendors abandoned long warranty periods for consumer-class HDDs in the wake of the supply-restricting 2011 Thailand floods. The "new normal" for desktop PC HDDs is two years, which the BarraCuda Pro more than doubles."

Which is odd since it's only partially true. Western Digital and HGST have been running on 3 year+ warranty periods for most of their drive models for a while now. WD Black drives have been on a 5 year warranty, Red/Purple drives 3 years, and Blue/Green 2 years. Seagate was the one who wasn't willing to do a 3 year warranty period and in fact also has drive models with a 1 year warranty!

Considering the BarraCuda is most equivalent to the WD Black line the following comment seems a little backwards as well...
"In either case, the five-year warranty should spur other vendors to reciprocate."
It seems that Seagate playing catch up is the more accurate assessment. Not only do they bump the Barracuda line warranties up to match WD Black drives they also boost their IronWolf/SkyWolf lineup to a 3 year warranty to match WD Red/Purple drives.

Considering HGST He drives have been available off Amazon and Newegg for quite a while, and for right around the same price Seagate is launching these high end Helium drives I think it's fair to say the HGST drives are easily accessible for enthusiast desktop use. It just seems a bit disingenuous when you close with...
"The desktop PC drives do come at a premium, but Seagate is currently the only game in town for a 10 TB desktop HDD, not to mention the five-year warranty. "

But maybe it's just me and it won't matter in a few years anyway with 4TB of NAND popping up in the 2.5" form factor. Kind of eliminates the last advantage mechanicals had.

I did overlook the WD Black. Ouch. I will amend the article where necessary, thanks.
The 3-year on Red/Purple don't apply to the desktop market, they are NAS and surveillance. The Blue/Green are desktop with 2-year, and Toshiba's desktop HDDs are 2-year as well, so with all desktop HDDs, with the exception of the Black, having two-year warranties I think it is fair to say that is "the new normal." However, we must account for the Black in the article, thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Stephen_81]

At the current rate of size increase, price drop, physical size reduction, no heat issues, majorly increased speed, no vibration issues, no moving parts and more than double reliability for SSDs what is the long term viability of HDs 2/3 years MAX? I mean 1 TB SSDs are under $300 and falling fast. 4TB drives are out in the mass market and 15 TB are in the business storage market. Just looking at current technology it is totally possible to have 320 TB SSDs in the next 10 years without any further technological breakthroughs, only better production engineering. At the larger businesses I work for they have already scheduled the removal of all HDs in the environment using ROI for the decision in the next 24 months at most, excluding cold storage which may be 5 years.

 

[ahnilated]

You might want to check your graphs again: "The BarraCuda Pro breaks new ground with a 300 TB-per-year workload rating. " but the graph states 180TB/yr

 

[PaulAlcorn]

You might want to check your graphs again: "The BarraCuda Pro breaks new ground with a 300 TB-per-year workload rating. " but the graph states 180TB/yr

Seagate briefed us, and provided materials, last week. They adjusted the workload rating from 180 to 300 TB-per-year and increased the 8x5 rating to 24x7 in the interim. They actually sent out an email a few hours before NDA lift. I did not notice it was still inaccurate in the chart, I pinged them for an updated version.

 

[jaber2]

Are they ever going to do SSD, if not they are dead