[mythtv-users] OT: Predicted hard drive failure; replacement consideration

[Mark Lord]

On 12-04-18 02:32 PM, John Drescher wrote:
>> At work I am having seriously high failure rates with Seagate drives
>> for the last 3+ years. I am talking about >8% annual failure rates out
>> of around 75 drives.
> 
> The ones I am taking about are 7200.10s, 7200.11s and 7200.12s. I have
> already shipped back 7 of these this year alone.


The best advice I can offer for hard drives, is BUY LOCALLY,
at a shop which deals in volume, but which you can visit
and pick up the drive and hand carry it away.

Drives are shipped to such stores from the factory,
in well padded protective shipping containers,
the same as to online retailers.

But drives purchased from online retailers are then repackaged,
and shipped through a very bumpy ride to you.

Lots of DOA and early failure do result from that second shipment,
so bypass it and pick the drive up yourself at a local (large) retailer
whenever possible.

Over the past twenty years of working on Linux storage,
just about every 3.5" drive that got shipped to me,
from a retailer or a manufacturer, has died prematurely.

And every single _new_ drive I have purchased with my own cash
at a local retailer is still going strong.

I did make the mistake once of buying a refurb unit at a local retailer,
forgetting that it probably has made multiple extra trips through
shipping companies -- that drive is now failing after less than a year.

Cheers