Seagate AS & ES2 Drives get the “Axe”

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. . 11

Want to see what a Hard Drive manufacturer looks like when it gets the “Axe”?

2009 wasn’t really the year for Seagate, I was a fan of them swallowing up Maxtor to stop their production (speculative but a fun thought) but it seems they had either integrated  some of Maxtors technology into their AS drives and ES (Enterprise) drives or like Ross haunts our office with his whiteness (sorry Ross) Maxtor must have been haunting Seagate with their reliability issues.

Troubled with bricking and RAID compatibility issues Seagate was left with their pants down releasing firmware after firmware update in an attempt to salvage what they could and without causing any further damage to the hosting industry and to the end user. We now only use Western Digital RE3 and Black hard drives but like many other hosts we also got stung by the problems Seagate were facing and with the frustration, tears and sleepless nights building we had to do something, something that would help relieve the pain..

Yes we did what every Sys Admin has wanted to do…

Yes we did what so many unsuspecting buyers wanted to do….

Yes we did void our warranties…

We gave them the Axe!

Two Drives – (Still under warranty of course which makes it so much sweeter)

1 x 500GB ES2, 1 x 750GB AS


One Axe –

10 x Rage


50 x Rage –


100 x Rage –


Finished Product – (NOTE – works just as well as it did when it was delivered)

To Seagate’s credit they do build a very tough hard drive, our axe needs sharpening…..


 
 
 
 
 

       

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  • Rob G

    I hope my VPS doesnt have those harddisks, because when i have to believe you then they are VERY unreliable….???….:)…ehhh if my VPS has those disks….what would you recommend? 🙂

  • If you ordered recently, the chances are you are not on a server running these drives. We don’t have many servers running these drives anymore, as they are slowly being replaced 🙂

    We would recommend Western Digital RE3 or RE4s, or Western Digital Black drives – these have performed quite well for us in both testing, as well as in production.

  • Rob i recommend using a bigger axe if you’re going to do the same thing we did to the drives 🙂

  • After many install’s of Server Raid Systems and even some replacement of Maxtor drives in IBM servers I definatley give WD Black Drives thumbs up, that 5yr Warranty is great peace of mind. Now I only reccomend WD Black or Raptor drives. I have take a shine too Samsung F3’s but only for gaming pc’s.

  • Nick, the highest failure rate we have had to date have been with the original WD Raptor drives – I’d say at least a 50% failure rate, with more dropping out each day. On the other hand we have found the new VelociRaptor’s to be more reliable (so far!).

    We have been quite happy with the WD Black, RE3, RE4, and GP drives so far. We are staying far away from Seagate until they resolve the current line of issues, and have been proven in production to remain reliable.

  • I wish I knew about this problem before spending over $1000 on 4 x 1TB ES HDDs.
    In less than 2 years I had 2 fail. The most recent was yesterday.
    They perform VERY well in a RAID5 on an Adaptec 5405 in an HP ML110 G4, but I’ll be replacingthem with something else more reliable.
    Grrrrr!!!

  • Greg

    Did you try send them back to Seagate for a laugh? 🙂

    PS: WD RE2’s were spectacularly unreliable (significantly moreso than their desktop counterparts) but it’s good to hear they fixed whatever was wrong in the newer gen drives.

  • Greg, we sent quite a few back to Seagate already – but the ones they send back still have their issues! They send you back what looks like refurb drives with a new different colour label on them, which I think is running new firmware.

    Yes, I’ve heard the other WD RE2’s had a high failure rate, luckily we did not have many (if any) of these drives in production. We do have a fair number of WD Raptors (the original models), which have a very high failure rate.

  • Will

    Nooooooo… My precious files…. Jokes, lol!

  • Nice! I am a new customer with CP in the email marketing and christmas ecards space and we are loving the cost savings! Good to see that you guys are running some decent hardware too!

  • I’ve actually had issues with 2 of those Seagate Drives crapping out on my Desktop PC at home within weeks of receiving them. Pain in the butt big-time.