Seagate looking to buy SSD manufacturers

Guru3D News · **Seagate looking to buy SSD manufacturers -** 08-01-2012, 08:30 | posts: 6,380

Seagate announced disappointing financial results the company failed to meet expectations with a net income of $1.06 billion on revenue of $4.48 billion. One of the interesting things said during the...

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ATR · 08-01-2012, 13:32 | posts: 129 | Location: Melbourne, Aus

They have the right idea to enter into the ssd market, but I wouldn't touch OCZ with a 10 foot pole. Unless they can improve the quality of their ssd's it wouldn't be worth it.

Agent-A01 · 08-01-2012, 16:08 | posts: 5,705 | Location: USA

Theres nothing wrong with ocz

Neo Cyrus · **Memory**: 6GB DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24-1T

As an owner of many OCZ products including a Vertex 3 SSD, I can tell you there is plenty wrong with them and that I won't be touching any more OCZ products with a 10 foot pole either unless they seriously change their ways.

Their RMA department is an absolute joke which gave me a bad replacement which I ended up keeping because they're such a pain in the ass and pretty much refused to give me a proper replacement. This was relatively recently, not some experience from many years ago.

I wouldn't have bought that Vertex 3 either if it weren't for the fact that I had $100 credit at a certain store so if I chose whatever SSD from another store I would have had to pay $100 more.

Speed Weed · 08-01-2012, 16:17 | posts: 675 | Location: Somewhere in Scotland

But there will be, Agent-A01, if Seagate takes OCZ over.

Neo Cyrus · **Memory**: 6GB DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24-1T

I've never had a Seagate drive die or crash on me. I'm currently using 6 of them.
- 2 640GB Barracuda 7200.11s
- 1 1TB Barracuda 7200.12
- 2 2TB Barracuda Greens
- 1 500GB (2.5") Momentus G-Force (7200RPM version)

I just barely avoided their bad firmware and I've gotten a bit lucky with their products in general I suppose.

RoadKillNL · 08-01-2012, 16:51 | posts: 2,664 | Location: Netherlands

How is Seagate nowdays with HDDs? I remember back in the day they were noisy bastards.

I currently use a Samsung SpinPoint 1TB 5400RPM for storage.

I know they take over the Samsung HDD part, but i wonder how that affected the quality of the old Samsung HDDs.

chilly willy · 08-01-2012, 17:11 | posts: 432 | Location: chicago area

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKillNL

How is Seagate nowdays with HDDs? I remember back in the day they were noisy bastards.

I currently use a Samsung SpinPoint 1TB 5400RPM for storage.

I know they take over the Samsung HDD part, but i wonder how that affected the quality of the old Samsung HDDs.

i mostly use seagate and ocz for my own stuff and for builds for others. i have atleast 10 seagate drives in my home. a couple 1.5tb. multiple newer 2tb models. 1 new 3tb model. and lots of ocz 64/128gb ssds. all work great no problems at all. except for a minor issue i had with 2 ocz solid 3 128gb ssds new firmware update fixed every single problem and they are great since. zero problems since updating firmware.

i know this is just a fluke but i have one western digital 1.5tb drive and its warmer, louder, and slower than the comparable seagate drives i own.

seagate and ocz are fantastic bang for buck and from my experience anyway certainly hold up in the quality department.

proFits · 08-01-2012, 17:13 | posts: 5,749 | Location: Montreal

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKillNL

How is Seagate nowdays with HDDs? I remember back in the day they were noisy bastards.

I currently use a Samsung SpinPoint 1TB 5400RPM for storage.

I know they take over the Samsung HDD part, but i wonder how that affected the quality of the old Samsung HDDs.

About your question; they have their process set, so not much changes.

Either way if I can, I'll never be buying an HDD ever again

Neo Cyrus · **Memory**: 6GB DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24-1T

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKillNL

How is Seagate nowdays with HDDs?

For me they're relatively silent but I keep them on at all times. My power options are set so they don't constantly go to sleep.

By default settings they rapidly go to sleep and every time I need to access something they click a lot as they spin up. Basically it was as if everything was laggy and clicking because they went to sleep so often.

If you have no problem keeping them on constantly then there is no issue.

RoadKillNL · 08-01-2012, 17:39 | posts: 2,664 | Location: Netherlands

Quote:

Originally Posted by proFits

About your question; they have their process set, so not much changes.

Either way if I can, I'll never be buying an HDD ever again

Well ye, i hope my current Samsung SpinPoint will last long enough untill a 1TB SSD will be affordable.

I do have a 15 Min Sleep timer on it tho. I don't access it a lot so i rather let it go sleep mode than keeping it spinning all day. Some say this wears down a HDD faster due spin ups, but ive been doing it for years now.

proFits · 08-01-2012, 18:03 | posts: 5,749 | Location: Montreal

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKillNL

Well ye, i hope my current Samsung SpinPoint will last long enough untill a 1TB SSD will be affordable.

That's a great question, one that I can't answer

Small google search wasnt successful to know when we'll be getting 100$ 1TB SSDs

lehtv · 08-01-2012, 19:13 | posts: 3,094

Crucial M4 128GB was $200 just a year ago, now it's $120, 40% reduction per year. 18 months ago when I bought it Vertex 2 was £200, now a Vertex 3 is £80 - also a 40% reduction per year.

The only 1TB SSD I can find now is an OCZ Octane 1TB for $2500 which is about three times the $/GB of lower capacity drives. I think they'll go down in price at an accelerated rate once we get some more competition going.

512GB SSD's are much more common, found for around $400. Assuming the rate of -40% per year:

$240 in 1 year
$150 in 2 years
$90 in 3 years
$70 in 3.5 years (current cost of a 500GB HDD)

Perhaps the reduction in cost will gradually slow down, perhaps not. I'd expect 1TB SSD's for $100 in 5-7 years

tsunami231 · 08-01-2012, 19:52 | posts: 2,367 | Location: USA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo Cyrus

I've never had a Seagate drive die or crash on me. I'm currently using 6 of them.
- 2 640GB Barracuda 7200.11s
- 1 1TB Barracuda 7200.12
- 2 2TB Barracuda Greens
- 1 500GB (2.5") Momentus G-Force (7200RPM version)

I just barely avoided their bad firmware and I've gotten a bit lucky with their products in general I suppose.

All my HDD have been seagate and I mean all of them I never had problem with and everyone of the HDD i have still work to this day, including the one I droped about 6 feet, might be lil noise now but it works. and noise wise they are quiet, I dont hear them ever over my fans in the system i had.

If seagate gets into SSD next one i buy will probably be from them, thats not to say the samsung 820 128gb I have is bad cause it great not single problem. fast too.

j.chen · 08-01-2012, 21:04 | posts: 49 | Location: Toronto

so much OCZ hate.
their RMA service has been fine for me. had some faulty ram sticks and got em' replaced with no real hassle. every part of my computer has failed on me before, be it hdd, psu, mobo, etc. so I feel every brand has their own issues. currently using an ocz ssd and it is so far so good.

Corrupt^ · 08-01-2012, 21:11 | posts: 4,831 | Location: Belgium

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoadKillNL

How is Seagate nowdays with HDDs? I remember back in the day they were noisy bastards.

No problems here but tbh the only brand I ever had issues with was Maxtor... over and over.

Perhaps Seagate could turn the table quality wise for OCZ.

chilly willy · 08-02-2012, 04:40 | posts: 432 | Location: chicago area

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corrupt^

No problems here but tbh the only brand I ever had issues with was Maxtor... over and over.

Perhaps Seagate could turn the table quality wise for OCZ.

i avoid maxtor and now hitachi like the plague. i had to buy 50 hitachi drives at a discounted rate for a small business and more than half of them failed after 3 months. The company insisted on going through their guy at hitachi for a discounted price and it bit them in the ass. i told them seagate is about the same price for what they need and swapped all the bad drives out for seagate models and everything has been great for a year now. near 100% 24/7 usage on most of them. i told em to buy another 20 seagate drives in case the remaining hitachi crap dies.

Neo Cyrus · **Memory**: 6GB DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24-1T

IIRC Maxtor was bought out a long time ago. It's the only brand of HDD that I had which sustained any minor damage which was only detectable with scans (rather than major/obvious damage), but it was eternity ago. IIRC it was so long ago that it was a 40GB model, and only 1 sector died.

chilly willy · 08-02-2012, 18:45 | posts: 432 | Location: chicago area

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo Cyrus

IIRC Maxtor was bought out a long time ago. It's the only brand of HDD that I had which sustained any minor damage which was only detectable with scans (rather than major/obvious damage), but it was eternity ago. IIRC it was so long ago that it was a 40GB model, and only 1 sector died.

yeah they used to be pretty good but something happened at some point and they turned to crap. although i still have one maxtor drive in my home... the 120gb hard drive i took from my fat xbox 360 and stuck into my slim is a maxtor drive. the thing works great for what it is. but with the amount i use my 360 and the nature of the content on it. it wont be a big deal if it bit the dust. ive had it for a long time now and everything is backed up with xbl. barring save games but all i have on there that i still care about is gears of war 3 but i have that backed up too.

Finchwizard

I've only had a handful of Seagates fail over the thousands of drives I've seen around work.

Western Digital have been useless.

Hitachi someone mentioned to be bad. I've got 12 of them at home and run 24/7 and have been rock solid.

Seems to be different places around the world have different luck with each brand.

Have Seagate been asleep in the whole SSD thing?
It's been around for a while now. And no wonder their market has dropped.

Although on the other hand if they've let everyone else spend money on the R&D they might be able to come in at the end and come back.

Neo Cyrus · **Memory**: 6GB DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24-1T

How many WD drives did you have fail? Personally I only ever had one WD drive (500GB Caviar Blue) and its write head crashed, it was only able to read. If it was only 1 head for both read/write then somehow only the write part of it magically failed. It was an extremely loud screeching sound when it happened, it was pretty obvious something went terribly wrong.

Two weeks later I reconnected it to get some data off of it and it was magically working again.

NeoElNino · 08-03-2012, 01:04 | posts: 946 | Location: Canada

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo Cyrus

I've never had a Seagate drive die or crash on me. I'm currently using 6 of them.
- 2 640GB Barracuda 7200.11s
- 1 1TB Barracuda 7200.12
- 2 2TB Barracuda Greens
- 1 500GB (2.5") Momentus G-Force (7200RPM version)

I just barely avoided their bad firmware and I've gotten a bit lucky with their products in general I suppose.

I had 2 1TB Seagate 7200RPM die on me from the same bad firmware batch. I will never buy again.

Neo Cyrus · **Memory**: 6GB DDR3-2000 9-9-9-24-1T

Well they sent you replacements I assume? Bad firmware like that is more like a freak accident, it doesn't happen often enough to warrant avoiding them as if they're known to regularly have bad quality or something. Cutting out Seagate from your options doesn't leave many choices.

chilly willy · 08-03-2012, 12:31 | posts: 432 | Location: chicago area

my problem with WD is not the quality of their drives. although the last few ive gotten were warmer and louder than seagate drives while being slower. with WD to get anything worthwhile you need to pay an arm and a leg for higher end models. Also intellipower is a stupid idea. basically they dont want you to know the spindle speed so they say intellipower to sound flashy and hip and draw in stupid people. Also their product lineup is crowded for no reason. red, black, green, blue, caviar, raptor, velociraptor, intellipower, blah blah blah. what does seagate have? 5400/5900rpm and 7200rpm. and varied capacities and internal/external. 2.5/3.5, 16/32/64mb cache, etc. its fairly straightforward. if you know what you want you can easily find the specs and just purchase the drive at a reasonable price. If you are a good consumer that does research before buying and are looking into WD you have to go through bs marketing mumbo jumbo to see what the different colors do.

also as far as drive failure rates between WD and Seagate. both are about even. whats the deciding factor for me? seagate costs WAY less and suits my needs.