Seagate Hit with Class Action Lawsuit for High Failure Rates

[UltraNeonGaming]

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Seagate has just been hit with a Class Action Lawsuit for the High Failure Rates of their 3TB hard drives (both internal and external) and Seagate's "inability to deliver non-defective hard drives that conform to their express and implied warranties". 

While Seagate has advertised their drives as "reliable" and "dependable" allegations have often been levied against the company that their drives have been some of the most unreliable on the market, with the Plaintiff claiming that the drives were "defective and failed prematurely at spectacularly – and in many respects unprecedentedly – high rates" and is taking action against the company both for himself and all affected consumers. 

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This is a class action arising from Defendant Seagate Technology, LLC’s (“Defendant”) repeated failure and inability to deliver non-defective hard drives that conform to their express and implied warranties; its breach of consumer protection, unfair competition and false advertising laws; and its unjust enrichment.

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The class action lawsuit goes on to cite data from Backblaze as evidence against Seagate, with Backblaze having on several occasions reported that Seagate is among the worst manufacturer on the market who have failure rates that are often much higher than that of other manufacturers. 

As demonstrated by consumer experience and reports released by Backblaze, a data backup company, the true failure rate of the Drives was substantially higher than advertised, and the Drives did not last nearly as long as comparable devices from other manufacturers or even other models manufactured by Defendant.

It should be noted that Backblaze is a cloud storage service company and these failure rates are for consumer drivers running under data centre conditions, so they're running hotter and have vibrations from other HDD's.

Linus actually talked about this multiple times on the WAN show and how these results are flawed.

Other forum users have also talked this:

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Unfortunately, receiving a defective hard drive bears much more severe consequences than many other products on the market. Since many people use these drives as their primary source of storage, or as a critical backup, a defect means not only then end of an expensive product, but the end of important files as well.

As of now, Seagate is yet to respond.

What do you have to say this? This is some stupidly weak and very flawed evidence for a lawsuit.

I don't think this lawsuit will accomplish much.

Sources:

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/storage/seagate_hit_with_class_action_lawsuit_for_high_failure_rates/1

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/seagate-faced-with-class-action-lawsuit-alleges-it-sold-defective-drives/

[Aytex]

step 1, make better Drivers, cheaper then competition

step 2 profit???

[That Norwegian Guy]

The pinnacle of human stupidity, right here.

I know and hope they will be laughed and spat out of court.

[daniellearmouth]

And some people question why I refused to recommend their 2TB Barracuda drive for a while.

That said, it WAS only some drives that were affected...

[Deli]

The so-called evidence is a bit weak.

[Atmos]

Well, not sure it warranted a class action lawsuit, but seagate definitely has never been the consumer reliability go to manufacturer.

[Notional]

Seagate simply just make shitty drives. At least on the consumer side. I still don't see the issue with Backblaze. The WD drives are also consumer drives, and they don't crap out as much.

Either way, seems like 3TB drives in general has issues on all manufacturers. I wonder why that is? New data density on the platters or?

My WD black 2 TB just died, and I can't be arsed to get a new mechanical, so Samsung 850 500GB for me. I'd rather have less capacity than noisy crappy drives.

[That Norwegian Guy]

3 minutes ago, daniellearmouth said:

And some people question why I refused to recommend their 2TB Barracuda drive for a while.

That said, it WAS only some drives that were affected...

It's a "careful what you wish for" scenario.

Seagate lowered QA standards in 2012 because they had to.

What happened in 2012? Oh yeah, Western Digital were hit by floods and were unable to produce fuck all for 11 months. So these fucknuggets actually would have preferred a global HDD blackout on the market, NO HARD DRIVES AVAILABLE TO ANYONE, rather than Toshiba, (2TB) Seagate (3TB) and Hitachi (lower capacities) putting their B+ stock of HDD on the market.

 

Yeah I hope these (probably just one very inept and unwise moron though) catch syphilis.

[kuddlesworth9419]

And why the hell. Those tests where not scientific in any way. I have all Seagate drives and none of them have ever failed me. They are going on 5 years old now. I bet if you did an actual scientific study you would find they all fail around the same time.

[daniellearmouth]

Just now, That Norwegian Guy said:

It's a "careful what you wish for" scenario.

Seagate lowered QA standards in 2012 because they had to.

What happened in 2012? Oh yeah, Western Digital were hit by floods and were unable to produce fuck all for 11 months. So these fucknuggets actually would have preferred a global HDD blackout on the market, NO HARD DRIVES AVAILABLE TO ANYONE, rather than Toshiba, (2TB) Seagate (3TB) and Hitachi (lower capacities) putting their B+ stock of HDD on the market.

 

Yeah I hope these (probably just one very inept and unwise moron though) catch syphilis.

Yeah, my drive died a few days after the 1-Year Warranty went out, so...sourness kept with me for a good while and ended up with a Toshiba drive. It's still going strong, to my surprise.

Oh well......at least my Samsung SSD has lasted me at least half a year, as has my WD Green for well over a year.

[That Norwegian Guy]

1 minute ago, daniellearmouth said:

Yeah, my drive died a few days after the 1-Year Warranty went out, so...sourness kept with me for a good while and ended up with a Toshiba drive. It's still going strong, to my surprise.

Oh well......at least my Samsung SSD has lasted me at least half a year, as has my WD Green for well over a year.

Hard drives last a very long time for most people if it wasn't DOA.

The highest likelyhood of an HDD failure is before you even get it in your hands, and immediately after starting to use it. Then it sharply decreases until 3-5 years when the curve starts pointing up again, if you're an ordinary consumer using it the way it was meant to be used.

And not stripping 2.5" backup drives out of external enclosures to use them in a 24/7 server environment and then publishing charts about it like drama prostitutes BackBlaze.

[SuperShires]

The only ever HDD to fail on me is a Seagate one, but I've always thought it was my fault somehow (confined to a small space with little airflow)

Not bothered like cause the only HDD's I buy are WD

[Daegun]

I came into this thread out of the curiosity of seeing if they used Backblaze as a source. I was not disappointed. Though I guess I was, precisely because they used Backblaze as a source. Wonder how quickly it'll be thrown out/dismissed/lose.

[Watermelon Guy]

This happens every year, backblaze are not trusted.

[grayperview]

Backblaze are hardly credible anyway, its been covered many times on here, there testing methods are far from scientific.

[Guest]

And this kids is why they should teach a subject in schools regarding how to qualify good evidence versus bad.

[daniellearmouth]

Just now, Windspeed36 said:

And this kids is why they should teach a subject in schools regarding how to qualify good evidence versus bad.

If only debate classes were mandatory...

[Belgarathian]

This is ridiculous, and stupid.... This is 'MERICA. 

[comicsansms]

Why do these class actions exist?

You are NOT going to make money off the effected drives, you are just being a pain.

[PlayStation 2]

This lawsuit is fucking bullshit. For once, Backblaze tests are bullshit. For two, Seagate sells more hard drives than anyone else, IIRC. Three, this is probably attributed to what might be Seagate's meh customer service.

[Clyne]

Piff they should have just use a different source for driver failure instead of Backblaze, seeing how Backblaze's test is unreliable and shouldn't be used for evidence.

Bought a 4TB seagate a few months ago and it's fine...for now.

[CommandMan7]

I just bought a 4TB Seagate drive over the 3TB at a significant premium, and this is why. Although Backblaze's testing may be far from accurate, it also isn't Seagate biased for no reason. There has to be some sort of lower reliability, perhaps not to the degree stated, but some sort of lower reliability of Seagate 3TB. Plus, odd numbered capacities across all manufacturers are lower, for some reason. The lawsuit is stupid, obviously people looking for some money, but some people overreact. 

Seagate, somehow, is slightly less reliable than other manufacturers, and people just get all defensive and pissy when people acknowledge this fact. I'm not saying don't buy them, 99/100 people who buy Seagate won't ever have a problem. Heck, I own two reliable and well performing Seagate drives myself, and I trust the brand.

 

[suicidalfranco]

2 hours ago, That Norwegian Guy said:

The pinnacle of human stupidity, right here

[Beskamir]

I've got two Seagate 2TB drives in my desktop for at least 2-3 years now and neither has died yet. Although I am hearing some rather disturbing clicks from my system every so often...

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Lol. I have 2 seagate drives in my pc. Does this mean I get a dollar or what?