Reliability of Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001

The best advice is test them when you get them with manufacturer provided tools. If you're really paranoid put them through the paces.
 
I have 4 of them in a raid 5 at home. So far they are working great.

How long have you been using them for?

The best advice is test them when you get them with manufacturer provided tools. If you're really paranoid put them through the paces.

I always test my new hard dives, but what I am wondering about is the long term reliability of the drives.
 
On the spec sheet, it says that they are rated for 2400 power on hours. I'm not sure if that means per year, or total. Either way it is not very good. Also, Seagate seems to hide the warranty length, but I think it is only 1 year. Someone posted that they entered the serial number into Seagate's warranty checker, and it was only 1 year. I cannot find a general warranty length specified on Seagate's web page.
 
I've also been concerned with the 2400 power on hours. A friend brought this article to my attention, which speaks briefly on reliability and the 2400 power on hours. I never even checked this before on my other hard drives, and just assumed that they were made for 24/7 operation in average home pc :eek:

If this is a meaningful metric, this leaves the WD green drives and the super expensive Hitachis as the only other 3TB drives to choose from. Not good.
 
I saw hitachi 3tb 5400RPM drives for $166, and 3TB 7200RPM for $200.

Newegg isn't always the best source for drives.
 
How long have you been using them for?



I always test my new hard dives, but what I am wondering about is the long term reliability of the drives.

Bought them in early February. this year.

I have always had good luck with Seagate drives. I have 4 of their 1.5TB drives from about 3.5 years ago and they are still running great.
 
The warranty length should give you an indication of how long this disk will last. I would buy Hitachi.
 
I currently have three of these in use; they're all 7200 Sata III. Two harvested from Go Flex USB3.0 External Enclosures "October of 2011 "and one bought from Amazon "January of 2012" All have seen heavy use without any issues thus far.Two are attached to an Adaptec 6805 "JBOD"and are set to spin down after 20 minutes of inactivity, so I rarely keep them on 24/7. These drives are fast for spinners, much faster than any I've ever used with the exception of a raptor. I've been very happy with there performance. I can confirm that the OEM and retail drives Manufactured after 1/1/2012 both have a Two year warranty. The retail ones manufactured prior to that date carry the old Five year warranty. The warranty however really isn't an indicator of reliability. After the floods last year Seagate, WD and Samsung "purchased by Seagate" all decreased the warranty length on almost all of their HDD. WD's comparable drive "Sata III 7200rpm" carries the same two year warranty, and the 5400 has a three year warranty. Hitachi's comparable model is the only one I'm aware of that still carries a five year warranty, and you pay a pretty hefty premium for it. Last time I checked Newegg they were going for 400$ + Shipping. The Tom's article you linked to is pretty interesting though, seems like they're not designed for 24/7 use. Unless you plan on spinning them down, I'd have a hard time recommending them.
 
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The warranty however really isn't an indicator of reliability.

The company who built the disk doesn't think the odds are good that it'll be running past 2 years and you don't think that's relevant? I've seen other people say more or less the same and I'm amazed every time. The usual excuse is something about long warranties being bad "for the books." If it's purely an accounting thing how did the hard drive industry thrive for the past 20 years with longer warranties?

Five year warranties are all of a sudden "bad for the books" because a large fraction of these disks will be dead in two years and Seagate knows it.
 
I will come out and say that based on personal experience, hard drives are generally less reliable than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Not sure why, but they just seem to fail more than ever. I think this is common among most consumer electronics these days and is a direct result of much lower manufacturing costs. Personally, a hard drive isn't something that I expect to be using in 5 years time anyway, it will likely be past it's usefulness then in terms of speed and capacity.

As for Seagate, I am still quite confident in their product but it's very difficult to ascertain reliability data on something like a given model of hard drive, they don't tend to have a long service life for reasons I mentioned above, but aside from the few years ago problem with the 7200.11 series Seagate has been a very reputable storage vendor their entire lives.
 
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