Seagate Wretched

[LunarMist]

The ridiculous, overpriced Seagate Reatilo drive is kaput. It was throwing up all kinds of errors, scanning, the reallocating sectors are about 900, the pending are over 800, now the drive letter is gone and it is asking to be initliazed. Drive prices are now fully mental (worse than Q4 2023), but we ordered another drive for now. Do you guys ever RMA Seagates (IronWolves PRO) and how is the process? It is less than 8 months old.

 

[Mercutio]

I haven't had to do an Ironwolf but I did advance replacement on a 16TB Exos last fall. The drive I had wasn't provably bad according to Seatools, but it also disconnected from its HBA every few days. The drive I got from Seagate was recertified and had a zero power on hours count, which I suppose means it was reset, but it's been fine.

I normally do a long test in Seatools before I use a drive for anything.

 

[LunarMist]

Unfortunately the drive is not showing in the DiskInfo, so there is no way to submit the S/N info for an RMA. I hope to psychically access the computer in July, but it's not going to be easy. Is there any diminshed warranty period on the refurb? I may not be able to test it for several months later, depending on my organs.

 

[Mercutio]

Based on my reading of the warranty (and I am not a lawyer), Seagate's warranty only covers the drive at time of initial purchase, and for the sorts of drives we buy, that's probably five years. It looks like replacements are only covered for 90 days unless a local statute is in place, with the EU and the state of California being the two named exceptions.

That sucks but it's not surprising.

 

[sedrosken]

So what do they do if your drive is under warranty but not the replacement period of the warranty, especially if they can't actually repair it? Can they get away with telling you to kick bricks in this market segment, or...?

 

[LunarMist]

Maybe there is an occasional bad board to be replaced, but I doubt that most modern drives are repaired since they are full of Helium. The best strategy will be to wait as long as practicable before submitting an RMA. At least I need to be sure that the new drive is working well enough for a while. I'm over 2000km out of the zone so that complicates the situation.

 

[Mercutio]

So what do they do if your drive is under warranty but not the replacement period of the warranty, especially if they can't actually repair it? Can they get away with telling you to kick bricks in this market segment, or...?

I'm still not a lawyer but it looks like, if the drive Seagate sends you for an RMA unit dies after 90 days, you're just SOL.
The weird thing about that is that some of the Ironwolf Drives apparently include data recovery with the warranty, so maybe they DO actually work on the individual drivers you send in nowadays?

I kind of take the tack that I don't really care about individual drives as such, but most of my drives at this point are datacenter pulls anyway.

 

[LunarMist]

It's the IronWOlf Pro, which since ~2023 ironically has an upgraded MTBF and UBER similar to the EXOS. It is being used as an individual drive. Frankly it's a bit ridiculous that Seagate would be doing data recovery on drives in a NAS. I would not bother with an RMA either, but it's not my decision. I'm just hoping for a refurb that's good enough for a backup or something.

 

[LunarMist]

I'm only reading that "the laws of the State of California, USA, govern this limited warranty," not that there are separate laws for drives purchased for California. It reads that the replacements are only good for 90 days. This whole deal makes the retail drive value practically bogus.

 

[ddrueding]

Every once in a while I find a new thing that makes me happy about my relocation:

"When shopping in the EU, Norway, or Iceland, you are always entitled to a minimum 2-year guarantee at no cost, regardless of whether you buy the goods online, in a shop, or by mail order. The 2-year guarantee is your minimum right EU-wide."

And, at least in Denmark, you can bring your complaint directly to the shop that sold you the item and they have to deal with it.

 

[LunarMist]

When I was living in Europe costs were generally higher than the states. Is an IronGolf Pro 12tb with 8% sales tax in the states more there in Sweden?

 

[ddrueding]

My preferred (and usually more expensive) local reseller has them in stock, pickup in 2h, for 296 USD. That includes all taxes, etc.

Not sure how that compares to the US, as I haven't bought anything that wasn't solid state in a very long time.

 

[Mercutio]

I see $209 NIB, which is about as cheap as any Ironwolf branded drive gets.

 

[LunarMist]

The WD is more expensive, but it is quiet and does not rattle like Seagate. I will stick to the WD DC or Gold in the future. Now the retail IronWolf Pro are $229.