[indigoimac]

Hello - So I am looking for a reasonably priced 500-750 gig HD that is both fast and quiet. Top on my list right now is Seagate's new 500gig 7200.12 which is single-platter. I know Seagate has been having issues but it seems a worthwhile risk for the performance, that said does anyone know of any other single platter drives in the 500 gig range? Looking for 7200rpm sata2 btw.

Thanks!

[mduell]

Seagate's .12 is probably the best bet for quiet and not slow.

Originally Posted by indigoimac 

sata2

Bad news, sata2 doesn't exist.

[indigoimac]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Seagate's .12 is probably the best bet for quiet and not slow.



Bad news, sata2 doesn't exist.

Ok, I will go with that... they have gotten picky haven't they... SATA 3.0Gb/s it is... Committees make me laugh

[reader50]

Must you have all 3 parameters? Fast, Quiet, and reasonable price?

Fast + Quiet = Solid state drive (expensive, small)
Fast + Cheap = most 7200 RPM drives today (most are fairly quiet)
Quiet + Cheap = WD 5400 RPM Green drive

It would be so much more interesting if someone wanted Fast + Quiet, and didn't give a fig about cost. 4x256 GB SSDs in RAID 0 would give you a very fast drive, no noise at all, and a decent size. $2,100 + ship + tax if applicable. Price includes Highpoint PCIe x4 RAID card.

Note that the Seagate 7200.11 series has suffered from serious bricking problems, with numerous customer complaints (read the newegg reviews) and rather limited Seagate support. The 7200.12 hasn't been out too long, so it's hard to tell if they are immune to the problems.

[indigoimac]

Cheap isn't exactly critical, but since this is going in an iMac that really doesn't need an SSD -- and since the reason for the upgrade is capacity -- it's getting a regular 7200. I think it came stock with a 7200.9? I dunno, I'd have to check. I'd go for a WD Green if it were for an enclosure, but since it's got full bandwidth I'd like a faster drive. And yes, I am well aware of the 7200.11 issues - I have a 1tb version that I am keeping a close eye on, though it seems to be behaving.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Note that the Seagate 7200.11 series has suffered from serious bricking problems, with numerous customer complaints (read the newegg reviews) and rather limited Seagate support.

Limited? They'll give you the fix for yet-unbricked disks and fix any disk that as been bricked.

[reader50]

"Limited" was a rather reserved description on my part, based on reading the newegg reviews for months. Please note that I've never bought a Seagate drive, much less a 7200.11, but I was being tempted by the 1.5 TB drive. The price was right a steal, but the reviews never settled down.

Based on newegg reviews and comments posted around the internet during the whole episode:

• drives appeared to have substantial (50%?) brick rate within first few months of ownership.
• drives are bricking for months before Seagate officially recognizes it.
• Seagate support often doesn't respond to email requests on the issue.
• Customers discussing it on Seagate forums -> discussions deleted by Seagate mods. Discussion has to move to other forums.
• Multiple new firmwares released. Time presently reveals that each one fails to fix the problems.
• New firmwares are not actually released - not posted on Seagate support site. Customers had to beg them out of Seagate via email, then share the firmwares among each other. newegg at one point obtained one of the new firmwares, and hosted it for their customers to download. In other words, newegg's excellent support was trying to cover for Seagate's missing support.
• Seagate begins replacing RMA'd drives with refurbs. Buy a new drive, have it fail within a week (or DOA), get a refurb back.
• Due to Seagate not officially describing the problem for months, it is not obvious that the data has survived on bricked drives. This will have bitten quite a few early adopters.
• Seagate cuts standard warranty from 5 years to 3 years.
• 7200.11 drives continue to be sold to customers the whole time.
• Seagate finally acknowledges the problem, and posts a fixed firmware a firmware check utility on their web site. It informs owners that their drive firmware is already up to date - you still can't download a firmware updater directly.
• When Seagate does supply a firmware updater, it consists of a DOS utility. If you own a Mac, they suggest you reboot with a DOS disk to flash your defective drive. If you own a PPC Mac like I do -- I guess they don't need your business. No sign of a proper UB Mac flash utility that works under OSX. This isn't Windows, OSX can dismount an internal (non-boot) drive for flashing.
• The firmware updates, even with all the drawbacks, are only preventative. If the drive is already bricked, then it can't be flashed.
• To their credit, Seagate eventually agreed to supply data recovery for bricked drives. Around six months after this all started. One wonders how much data was lost when drives were thrown out, or time-sensitive data got recovered months after it no longer mattered.

Considering the story I saw play out over several months, I consider "limited support" to be the least I can say. I would not personally risk a 7200.11 myself now. I had to give up on the 1.5 TB drive, even with the super price. Hopefully the 7200.12 is fixed, but I don't plan to consider it until a few more months of good customer reviews have accumulated.

[indigoimac]

For whatever it's worth newegg will take returns of the 7200.11 series if you pay the difference for a WD or something like that. And yes, Seagate has definitely been shitty about the whole situation. I pretty much backup everything religiously so it would only be a nuisance if a drive crapped out on me, but who really wants to deal with that?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by reader50 

Based on newegg reviews and comments posted around the internet during the whole episode:[list][*]drives appeared to have substantial (50%?) brick rate within first few months of ownership.

You do realize that people without problems are less likely to post than people with problems?
To hit a 50% failure rate you'd need hundreds of reboots those few months.

[revMedia]

Never trust reviews on Newegg. It's laughable.

Seagate offers great support, I highly recommend their stuff.