Western Digital or Seagate

[1000mAh]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

[halfelite]

I got a brand-new Seagate 1.5 TB about three years ago for my birthday. It failed less than four months after I got it (well within warranty), but their customer service required you to pay to contact them and wanted me to pay something stupid-expensive like $100 to ship it to them and for the shipping of a new drive to me. They were also rather rude and I pretty much got the feeling he just wanted to say "tough titties" and hang up on me. The issue was never resolved by them because they strung out contact by not responding to emails or calls until the warranty period expired, in which case they told me there was nothing they could do because the warranty expired. A coworker of my dad's is the one who replaced the faulty drive in the old shell for me, or else I'd still have a bum drive. I was really, really unhappy with their lack of customer courtesy and don't plan to ever buy from them again.

I don't know if their policies have changed since then, but their official customer support forums were full of similar problems at the time that also were ignored. Maybe it's an isolated event, but it was a REALLY unpleasant experience for me. So, ANYTHING is better than Seagate to me.

Not sure what happened to you but that is not there policy only time you give money to seagate is with a CC to get advanced replacement were they send you a new drive and you send your old back once you get it. Other wise you fill out an RMA they give you a ups/fedex label and you ship your old drive and wait for them to ship you one back.

[Dhruv]

I got a brand-new Seagate 1.5 TB about three years ago for my birthday. It failed less than four months after I got it (well within warranty), but their customer service required you to pay to contact them and wanted me to pay something stupid-expensive like $100 to ship it to them and for the shipping of a new drive to me. They were also rather rude and I pretty much got the feeling he just wanted to say "tough titties" and hang up on me. The issue was never resolved by them because they strung out contact by not responding to emails or calls until the warranty period expired, in which case they told me there was nothing they could do because the warranty expired. A coworker of my dad's is the one who replaced the faulty drive in the old shell for me, or else I'd still have a bum drive. I was really, really unhappy with their lack of customer courtesy and don't plan to ever buy from them again.

I don't know if their policies have changed since then, but their official customer support forums were full of similar problems at the time that also were ignored. Maybe it's an isolated event, but it was a REALLY unpleasant experience for me. So, ANYTHING is better than Seagate to me.

You could have just taken it to the vendor from whom you bought it... he bears the trouble after that
This is what we do over here

[megido-rev.M]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

Lucky

[Dhruv]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

Lucky

Even i have a Seagate 2 TB... 7th month complete on 7/18

[megido-rev.M]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

Lucky

Even i have a Seagate 2 TB... 7th month complete on 7/18

Oh we'll see, in 17 months.

[halfelite]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

Lucky

Even i have a Seagate 2 TB... 7th month complete on 7/18

Oh we'll see, in 17 months.

I have over 25 seagates some going on 5+ years. Even some of the original 1TB drives that need the firmware update so they would not brick them self.   Hard drives die its like anything else. I still think how one uses the drive and environment plays a major roll in how each drive lasts. I never had good luck with WD myself I would not call it bad luck just did not last as long as the seagates

[rostheferret]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

Lucky

Even i have a Seagate 2 TB... 7th month complete on 7/18

Oh we'll see, in 17 months.

I have over 25 seagates some going on 5+ years. Even some of the original 1TB drives that need the firmware update so they would not brick them self.   Hard drives die its like anything else. I still think how one uses the drive and environment plays a major roll in how each drive lasts. I never had good luck with WD myself I would not call it bad luck just did not last as long as the seagates

Did you buy all/most of those drives at the same time? Every HDD manufacturer has good and bad batches...

[Dhruv]

I have Seagate 2Tb, now 2 years old, working fine.

Lucky

Even i have a Seagate 2 TB... 7th month complete on 7/18

Oh we'll see, in 17 months.

If the hard disk breaks down... do we lose all the data or we can still recover it?

[Copperstone]

If the hard disk breaks down... do we lose all the data or we can still recover it?

We can recover anything... for a price.

I lost 223 GB of data some 6 years back. I was bloody depressed as it had all my music collection. I just called up some recovery guy and asked him the details. He said, the first 5GB will be Rs. 8000/- then for every next 1GB around Rs. 1500.
For bulk recoveries, i.e 100GB or 200GB of data, around Rs. 60,000/- MINIMUM that too depending on the type of files or something like that. And on top of that they don't guarantee a 100% success rate.
Professional recovery agents are even more expensive.

[Dhruv]

If the hard disk breaks down... do we lose all the data or we can still recover it?

We can recover anything... for a price.

I lost 223 GB of data some 6 years back. I was bloody depressed as it had all my music collection. I just called up some recovery guy and asked him the details. He said, the first 5GB will be Rs. 8000/- then for every next 1GB around Rs. 1500.
For bulk recoveries, i.e 100GB or 200GB of data, around Rs. 60,000/- MINIMUM that too depending on the type of files or something like that. And on top of that they don't guarantee a 100% success rate.
Professional recovery agents are even more expensive.

Damn that is too expensive.... i should use my drive more carefully...
my hard disk is seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk STAC2000300 it is said on the net that it is 7200rpm

[Copperstone]

^ Most of the external HDDs are 7200 rpm.

[kitamesume]

^ seriously? then i'd rather tear them apart and turn them into internal drives =D compact little beasts :p

[Copperstone]

^ A lot of my friends have done that. They tore it open, removed their Optical drives on their laptops, and attached their external, to the optical drive SATA connecter.

[Dhruv]

Curtailed my usage of hard disk to seed to 8 hrs a day....
Instead of using it for 16-18 hrs ... maybe it will help to keep it's health up
And i guess i'll buy WD My Book Essentials 3TB

[halfelite]

Did you buy all/most of those drives at the same time? Every HDD manufacturer has good and bad batches...

Most of the time No. Most I usually buy at a time is is 2 and 3 at the most, In the past I have bot boxes of 10 and such but usually stay away from that since I run raid now. Would hate to lose a whole batch.

[Copperstone]

Do check out today's Times of India newspaper...they have given details of the knew Seagate Backup Plus HDDs. Starts at Rs. 7000

[Dhruv]

Do check out today's Times of India newspaper...they have given details of the knew Seagate Backup Plus HDDs. Starts at Rs. 7000

I think you are referring to this one
http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/standard/backup-plus/
It comes in max 1 TB.. not enough for me... i archive anime.. all of them

[Grimpak]

it's a matter of opinion between both Seagate and WD to be very honest. WD was bleh a good few years back, but they started to come on top these last years. Seagate were pretty much bullet-proof, but then a batch of them a few years ago came with faulty firmwares that bricked the entire HDD for no apparent reason (physically, the plates were fine, it was the controller that went b0rked). This however, seems to be in the past and they seem to step up nowadays.

personal experience from WD which I have now is, I have a 1tb green drive and a 1tb black drive. both awesome and work quite well. The green one is working as storage while the black is the main one. it is of note, however, due to the design itself of the hdd, WD Caviar green drives aren't that great for portable, NAS of to be used as an OS drive. they have some weird power saving techniques (constant spin-down/up from 5400 to 7200 and back) that is time and load sensitive. It is, nevertheless a very performing green drive, and quite the saver on power.

WD caviar black drives are good drives. work well, and are fast for a mechanical drive. better than this only really either a seagate momentus XT (hybrid drive), a velociraptor with it's blistering 10k RPM's or a SSD.

[Dhruv]

^Velociraptor is out of consideration because i need either a 2 TB or 3 TB plus it needs to be cost effective too
you can give me a link of the page of this Caviar green drive you mentioned so that i can take a look and decide
otherwise My Book Essentials can pretty much fulfill my requirements