It's up to you, but a global 30% RMA rate is no joke. That means 1 out of 3 will very likely brick, and the remaining 2/3 have a potential of going wrong, but hasn't.

damn...thanks for the review...just about to buy seagate hdd

Well, i've 2 x 250GB and 1 x 500GB in my PC. All seagates, no problem. 1 250GB is an old model, no problem for that.

The newer 250GB is maybe 8 months or so, it has some problems after 2 or 3 months, but later discover it's the SATA cable giving problem and after changing the SATA cable, it works fine.

The last 500GB is the model in the thread title, i think about 2 months or so. So far no problem....but i'll start making schedule backup of my data to the other HDD tonight...

-Hmm, seems like a massive & widespread problem; refer here:

1. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128092

2. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128514

-BTW, the 1TB Seagate HDDs AllnGap is selling (ST31000340xx) here are affected by this or not?


Regards.

This post has been edited by Musafir_86: Jan 14 2009, 10:04 AM

Bought mine at PC Fair. Bricked itself a couple of days ago. 500GB model. man.... and it ran well for 2 weeks. didn't perform migration till i had run it for a week to see if it was okay and then it died a week after i moved all my data. Seriously, what the hell man... for me the data on the disk is more important than the drive too... time to get an Raid 1 on an NAS for backup. cripes.. still hoping beyond hope that a miracle will happen but probably bring it back in next week. bloody hell... no more seagates for me.

i just got the ST31000340NS from allngp..... with 2 months warranty only samore. mine is sd15 fw....

shit... scary... cant put valuable data there then... how now?

the xxxxxAS models are affected if they carry the SD15 firmware, which I think is supposed to be OEM package. But some people in MSFN forum said they bought a retail pack and the drive is still the OEM version

S**t...this matter should've been discussed earlier...i bought 500gb barracuda hd last week and it hasn't been partitioned yet but when i read this thread..

This post has been edited by caballero206: Jan 14 2009, 11:08 AM

From 2003 I blacklist Maxtor, 2005 I blacklist Western Digital, 2007 I blacklist Seagate, 2008 I blacklist Hitachi. Now I really dunno what to choose liao. Maybe time to try Samsung.

How to check the firmware of the hdd model?

-Err, I just RMA'ed my ST31000340AS which bought from him in mid-December 2008.
Symptom(s): failed to do full-format (quick format OK), when trying to re-partition(s), Disk Management couldn't detect the disk anymore (but could be detected in Device Manager).

-I asked for a refund, but he mistakenly sent another replacement.
Now wondering whether want to use or return back (still sealed in the static back)...


Regards.

This post has been edited by Musafir_86: Jan 14 2009, 11:12 AM

-BTW, here's the official thread for the ST31000340AS on the Seagate Community Forums: Official st31000340as 1TB barracuda epic fail thread..


Regards.

This post has been edited by Musafir_86: Jan 14 2009, 11:56 AM

from what I see online all the ones affected are the AS models. No reports of NS models failing yet.
but the firmware for the AS and NS are similiar so I think they both should have the same risk factor.

any idea why we are not seeing reports of NS models failing?

i just bought seagate 1tb last month. but now still ok.
worried after reading this

Seriously i also dead 1 ST3500320AS. It dead just right after i reboot my pc.I also @.@. Then i heard from the seller from shop.It also claimed that RMA rate is very lot for this.Well i just sent it to RMA.Hope will get another patch.

only ST3500320AS have this prob gua, the rest i think dun hv prob. my seagate 160gb still fine le.

Looks like i'm lucky, was wanting to take 2 of these off a friend.

I think Seagate know that with the economic crisis and all that it's shipments are dropping like mayflies above a lake. I think it can't afford the hit to it's OEM and large volume business so it's keeping mum and hoping that both investors and OEM customers don't catch wind of the problem while they quickly give RMAs out to shut people's mouths up. This is the same issue with the bad cap plague where most manufacturers were climbing up after the post asian economic crisis and couldn't afford to give out market ground to other brands.

Well, i hope some brave soul takes it up with the relevant authorities. As i recall, many cases have been won against computer hardware manufacturers from Abit, Asus and others due to such problems.

Luckily I stayed away from Seagate as WD is cheap .

will a firmware flash solve this?

darn, i am hearing my 500GB Seagate ticks as well i should get a Western Digital as back up