Seagate "Green" Barracuda SATAII drives

Gravity Jim · Post by **Gravity Jim** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 12:26 pm

Just in case you hadn't heard, they suck out loud. I bought one on sale without doing my due diligence, and after a few weeks of use it started making all kind of ghastly noises. When I realized it was bad, I took it back for a replacement. They had none left. Also, they've been discontinued.

Fortunately, they know me at the Office Depot where I bought it, and they broke the 14-day-return rule to give me my money back. I have a Western Digital Caviar on the way to my door step tomorrow: here's hoping it works well, and doesn't sound like the head arm is slamming against the inside of the case every 4 minutes.

If you see one on sale, don't be tempted.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Mon Dec 19, 2011 2:09 pm

Sleep mode is often the 'green' and in our business, that could be a killer!

Gravity Jim · Post by **Gravity Jim** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:07 am

Well, my MacPro has shut up right nicely since removing the Seagate.... seriously, the noises from this drive were so loud and so frequent it was driving me nuts, but not a peep with it removed, so at least the diagnosis was correct. The new WD Caviar should be here shortly.

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:18 am

Which color Caviar? Black is best.

Gravity Jim · Post by **Gravity Jim** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 8:12 am

That's the one. I read a lot of good reviews on it.

Dwetmaster · Post by **Dwetmaster** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:12 am

I gave up on Seagate since losing 4 seagate drive. Actually, all the Drives that gave up on me in my life are Seagtes (or Maxtor)

WD all the way for me...

MIDI Life Crisis · Post by **MIDI Life Crisis** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:34 am

Gravity Jim wrote:That's the one. I read a lot of good reviews on it.

Have had a few of them. Great drives.

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 10:06 am

I'm wary of Seagate now after being very confident. I bought a bare drive to go in an existing case, and it wouldn't erase in OS X. Seagate said it should have, and sent me another one, but OS X couldn't even see it. They sent me a third and again it wouldn't erase. I can understand a small failure rate, but three in a row makes you wonder.

Gravity Jim · Post by **Gravity Jim** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 7:42 pm

Agreed... I think I've installed my last Seagate drive... Lost the Seagate boot drives in two Macs in the same month a couple years back (and actually resurrected one long enough to save all the data by doing that "12 hours in the freezer" thing, no kidding, it actually worked). Now this noisy thing and widespread reports on the web that the sound is an indication of imminent failure....

Now the new WD is installed, partitioned and runs dead quiet. Niiiice. For the first time ever, I created a partition just for holding a one-version-back clone of the boot drive: I'm taking a second run at Lion, and want to be able to throw a switch and get back to where I was. So far, though, every thing seems to be running nicely in 10.7.2.

kgdrum · Post by **kgdrum** » Tue Dec 20, 2011 9:36 pm

I used Seagate drives for years but moved away 1 or 2 years ago when they started to have well known issues.
Subsequently I have had good results with both Hitachi drives & WD Black drives.
I hope the prices come back down from the flooding in Thailand soon as they are too expensive right now.
2 brands I avoid are Seagate & LaCie.

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:34 am

KG, what problems have you had with LaCie? I haven't bought a new one for a while, but I though they ensured some sort of Mac compatibility. They don't make the actual hard drives.

kgdrum · Post by **kgdrum** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:55 am

I only had 1 LaCie drive it had a power supply problem which is very common w/ them,do search I've seen many complaints about this.

mikehalloran · Post by **mikehalloran** » Wed Dec 21, 2011 3:46 pm

>Just in case you hadn't heard, they suck out loud.<

Mine is working fine 17 months after I bought it. Seagate doesn't let you return perfectly working drives (unlike WD and Maxtor used to) without charging you for testing and return shipping if they find it's still good.

LaCie doesn't make drives, only enclosures last I checked.

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