Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!imagen!fjd From: fjd@imagen.UUCP (Fred Drinkwater) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Seagate ST251 Reliability Message-ID: <1587@imagen.UUCP> Date: 5 Jan 88 23:57:06 GMT Organization: Imagen Corp., Santa Clara CA Lines: 50 Summary: And now for the bad news... A couple more comments on Seagate reliability or lack thereof: I did not see your original query about the Seagate drive. While I cannot comment on that particular drive, I do know for fact that PC's Ltd, the 7th largest PC maker in the US, has dropped Seagate as a supplier due to an in-field failure rate that exceeded 11% earlier this year. These were machines that passed burn-in at the factory but did not work for the customer. Given PC's Ltd's habit of taking any kind of junk for the right price, and the fact that Seagate was cheaper than the alternative, this alone says quite a bit... Bear in mind that each PC's Ltd. comes with a 1 year on site maintainance contract, so PC's Ltd had to pay a service tech to visit most of the failed drives, and you can imagine what that cost. I personally own a Seagate 4096 that seems to work fine, so your report is somewhat reassuring. My only problem with mine is that the Novell COMPSURF disk tester constantly picks up random errors everywhere at the rate of 30 per 100,000 accesses, which is somewhat unnerving. --- James R. Van Artsdalen ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!james "Live Free or Die" Home: (512)-323-2675 Work: (512)-328-0282 5300B McCandless, Austin TX 78756 ****************************** From: Urs Probst I have now my second ST251. The first worked 9 months without any problems. But one day, the drive-motor didn't turned... I suppose, it was a mechanical problem of the auto-head-return mechanism. Fortunately, the drive still was under warranty, and they gave me a new one. But I had problems with other Seagate harddisks too: I purchased a ST238 for a friend, but I had to send back the first and the second they sent me. Final, the third ST238 functioned! You see: Seagate doesn't have a good quality-control... Good luck! Urs Probst ETH Zuerich Switzerland ********** Caveat Emptor, and don't lose those warranty papers, folks! Fred Drinkwater {decwrl,ucbvax}!imagen!fjd Disclaimer: Opinions expressed above are strictly those of the author(s).