Anyone else use Seagate Ironwolf drives?

ChRoNo16

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Feb 3, 2011
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Had bought two 4tb ironwolf drives for my synology, worked great for 8 months, then one of the drives all the sudden started reallocating sectors like crazy.


Thoughts? Happen to anyone else?

I cant afford WD reds or I would have done that to begin with.
 
I have used the 10TB and 12TB ones as regular drives in a file server running 24/7 and haven't had any issues. They are surface scanned monthly and have been working fine.
 
Had bought two 4tb ironwolf drives for my synology, worked great for 8 months, then one of the drives all the sudden started reallocating sectors like crazy.


Thoughts? Happen to anyone else?

I cant afford WD reds or I would have done that to begin with.

Congratulations, you've lost the hard drive lottery!

It's just bad luck. Essentially all hard drives have super low failure rates; they're low enough that even a single drive failure in a year is a statistical anomaly for about 99% of purchasers. If you don't have a whole bunch of drives, your sample size will always be too low to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions from with regards to the reliability of a brand or model drive.

Just pick a brand that you 'like' and has the other things you might care about; warranty, performance, aesthetics, whatever. You'll either be in the vast majority of folks whose drives don't die, or you'll be unlucky and yours will die. Just *plan* on being a member of group two (backups!) and you'll never be disappointed!
 
I still maintain that HDD manufacturer standards and tolerances dropped during the floods a few years back to make up stock levels and they never went back up after.
 
Every drive will fail eventually. Some earlier and some later. With few exceptions due to bad design (Drivestar 80GB) or bad firmware (7200.11) there are no “bad” drives, as long as you buy the right drive for your particular application and use case. As for failure it is just a question of when, not if.
 
I have 2x 8TB Ironwolf's, one is a torrent drive being used 24-7 and the other is being used as media storage. I have 11457 power on hours on one and 10594 on the other with no errors what so ever, shit happens my man.
 
Here in the UK the difference between the 4TB Red and the 4TB Ironwolf is a crippling...$1.28!
Was not the case here or I would have gone reds for sure, everyone building anything with spinning disk basically uses reds now.

I have 2x 8TB Ironwolf's, one is a torrent drive being used 24-7 and the other is being used as media storage. I have 11457 power on hours on one and 10594 on the other with no errors what so ever, shit happens my man.
I barely got 6k hours on the drive and it went. just sucks you know? still waiting for slow seagate on an RMA...
 
Was not the case here or I would have gone reds for sure, everyone building anything with spinning disk basically uses reds now.


I barely got 6k hours on the drive and it went. just sucks you know? still waiting for slow seagate on an RMA...

I feel your pain, I got a WD 4TB Re that has 122 unrecoverable sectors that has less than 18k on it, sucks big time.
 
Still better than Toshiba, who instead of actually repairing your drive requires you to provide the original invoice and then gives you a giftcard to the Toshiba digital store instead of actually fixing your issue. Not that I'm bitter.
I guess that isnt that bad, as long as they give you enough to replace it.
 
I guess that isnt that bad, as long as they give you enough to replace it.

Haha. When I had a drive die (external USB attached drive) and went through the process, they no longer sold the capacity drive that had died. The money they gave me covered a smaller drive with money left over, but didn't cover the next size up. I ended up having to toss them ~$10 in addition to their cash to move up a size.

Mostly I was just stunned at the process. They couldn't replace the unit based on the serial#, from which they should be able to derive the warranty information. They required the receipt, which I had to call down to Microcenter and have them reprint. And then after doing that, instead of just replacing the drive I got the store credit hassle. Ugh. They did honor it in the end, and I've not stopped purchasing Toshiba drives (their prices below 4TB can't be beat), but it definitely left a sour taste.
 
I see what your saying, I wouldn't be real happy to have to pay out of pocket. To be honest I kind of am now that I think of it. Seagate requires you to ship them your bad drive at your own cost, if its defective they will ship a replacement at their expense, but I doubt it will be as fast as the 2-day shipping I paid for.
 
Haha. When I had a drive die (external USB attached drive) and went through the process, they no longer sold the capacity drive that had died. The money they gave me covered a smaller drive with money left over, but didn't cover the next size up. I ended up having to toss them ~$10 in addition to their cash to move up a size.

Mostly I was just stunned at the process. They couldn't replace the unit based on the serial#, from which they should be able to derive the warranty information. They required the receipt, which I had to call down to Microcenter and have them reprint. And then after doing that, instead of just replacing the drive I got the store credit hassle. Ugh. They did honor it in the end, and I've not stopped purchasing Toshiba drives (their prices below 4TB can't be beat), but it definitely left a sour taste.

Really cant blame Toshiba from you not having your papers in order.
im not sure if its a culture difference in whatever country you are from but its considered normal for adults to keep their reciept from where I am from.

The facts they wouldn't pay for the next higher model to replace their broken unit is still crap.
but really im amazed but the crap warranties we get in the states sometimes. most of them would be illegal as not satisfactory in other countries.

I bought a wireless headset.
sorry we dont make any wireless headset in that price ranage anymore so you are gettign a wired one.
well I cant used a wired one i got a wireless for a reason so you warranty did siltch to elevate my issues
never buying plantronics again.

Just another bulletpoint on how USA stinks as a nations to take care of its citizens
 
I see what your saying, I wouldn't be real happy to have to pay out of pocket. To be honest I kind of am now that I think of it. Seagate requires you to ship them your bad drive at your own cost, if its defective they will ship a replacement at their expense, but I doubt it will be as fast as the 2-day shipping I paid for.

what type of NAS or system is it in as vibrations can kill a HDD sooner
 
I've been running 3 8TB ironwolf drives in my Synology 918+ since June without issues. It sounds like you just got unlucky on the drive. The good news is, they should have at least a 3 year warranty, so you should be able to get a free replacement.
 
I've been running 3 8TB ironwolf drives in my Synology 918+ since June without issues. It sounds like you just got unlucky on the drive. The good news is, they should have at least a 3 year warranty, so you should be able to get a free replacement.

I should, they are just dragging their feet. have the NAS powered down for safety
 
Really cant blame Toshiba from you not having your papers in order.
im not sure if its a culture difference in whatever country you are from but its considered normal for adults to keep their reciept from where I am from.

Not sure. It's a difference between manufacturers though; for example Seagate only requires the receipt if the drive is older than the warranty period based on the date of manufacture on the drive. This situation can happen if a drive sat on a store shelf for a while before being sold, and then that drive died very near the end of its warranty period. In normal cases, a drive will have a printed manufacture date on it (11/2017 or whatever) and a X year warranty, and as long as the two line up then the warranty is honored. HGST/WD have operated the same way in the past, though I haven't had to RMA one of their drives in a while so I can't say for sure anymore.
 
Not sure. It's a difference between manufacturers though; for example Seagate only requires the receipt if the drive is older than the warranty period based on the date of manufacture on the drive. This situation can happen if a drive sat on a store shelf for a while before being sold, and then that drive died very near the end of its warranty period. In normal cases, a drive will have a printed manufacture date on it (11/2017 or whatever) and a X year warranty, and as long as the two line up then the warranty is honored. HGST/WD have operated the same way in the past, though I haven't had to RMA one of their drives in a while so I can't say for sure anymore.


Just because somebody elevates you responsibility and go an extra mile is not the fault of the company that does not. That was my point.
there was a balme towards a company which was IMHO actually the person itself failing to live up to his/hers responsibilty.
but ppl are so fast to pint finger at companies when they are themself to blame.

you dont see me complaing aobut toshiba is not providen botoable tools to test their drive lieks seageta and WD does.
it still affect my decision when im buying (aka i avoid toshiba in general) but i dont blame them for not providing something extra.

There is a different of taking something into account and blame somebody.
if you are hte kind of person that doesn have your papers in order offcause you need to take that into consideretion next time you buy a driver and avoid toshiba
 
Every drive will fail eventually. Some earlier and some later. With few exceptions due to bad design (Drivestar 80GB) or bad firmware (7200.11) there are no “bad” drives, as long as you buy the right drive for your particular application and use case. As for failure it is just a question of when, not if.


back about 20 years ago when I first got into the IT industry, I had a stack of Western Digital drives that I was replacing in six month period of time. All from the same vendor who build our PCs for us. I think I replaced like 25-50 drives in that period of time.

I've always had good luck with WD and their returns though. Last HHD failure I've experenced was with an Intel SSD about 6 years ago-My Samsungs have been running like tops since 2013/14.
 
Had bought two 4tb ironwolf drives for my synology, worked great for 8 months, then one of the drives all the sudden started reallocating sectors like crazy.


Thoughts? Happen to anyone else?

I cant afford WD reds or I would have done that to begin with.

Where are you that WD are that much more than IronWolf? They are about the same price everywhere I check.
 
These days, I buy drives based on the ease of the RMA... I expect the drives to fail and if it's really important, I'll pick up a cold spare to use while I RMA the def one. There are sometimes differences between size/models and It's good to check other user experiences and backblaze.
I haven't had to RMA drives in hte past year, but I stopped buying Toshiba when they wanted me to find the original receipt for that serial number in a year where I sourced drives from Newegg, Amazon, and Microcenter. So switched back to WD and Seagates. Both processes aren't too bad, but Seagate required signature delivery which can be inconvenient if you're not home, but I understand the need. I've only had one HGST fail on me and I ran into an obstacle trying to RMA it and didn't bother.

I'm only running 4 Seagate Ironwolf right now, but just picked up 4 more on the Newegg deals.
 
I still maintain that HDD manufacturer standards and tolerances dropped during the floods a few years back to make up stock levels and they never went back up after.
The Backblaze statistics show that there were reliability issues with some specific models in that time (Seagate 3TB, for instance), but this has long been overcome. The longevity of drives is currently pretty good across the tested drives, with the worst model AFR for 2018 just over 4%.
 
The Backblaze statistics show that there were reliability issues with some specific models in that time (Seagate 3TB, for instance), but this has long been overcome. The longevity of drives is currently pretty good across the tested drives, with the worst model AFR for 2018 just over 4%.

Good to know!
 
The Backblaze statistics show that there were reliability issues with some specific models in that time (Seagate 3TB, for instance), but this has long been overcome. The longevity of drives is currently pretty good across the tested drives, with the worst model AFR for 2018 just over 4%.
There's another problem, too, though? :) There's the Ironwolf or Ironwolf Pro and the WD Red and Red Pro. Which mfger to get and which version? :) I am thinking about considering the 'Pro' version of one or the other - but, wait.... not done yet.... there's the WD Gold (series), too, to complicate matters further. I want to know why they need all these drives and if the floods made them neglect quality control or speed up building, then what about all these versions of drives? I am looking at the Pro versions also to get 5 yrs of warranty instead of 2 or 3 with the other ones.
 
Still better than Toshiba, who instead of actually repairing your drive requires you to provide the original invoice and then gives you a giftcard to the Toshiba digital store instead of actually fixing your issue. Not that I'm bitter.

I went though this as well. I bought 6 Toshiba 3TB 7200rpms from NCIX before they went belly up when they were blowing them out super cheap. 1 died and the RMA process was nothing like i have ever dealt with before, totally useless IMO. I need a drive to rebuild an array not a damn voucher.
 
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