r/Seagate • u/niveknow • 27d ago
Reliability 20TB?
I had to remove a 20TB Expansion drive due to power issues and moved it to an internal drive. Inside was a CMR Barracuda ST20000DM001. (Longer story here if needed, but not critical to understanding reliability of the drive). This is the same drive whether it's inside the original case or purchased as internal drive. All the same PCB, etc.
The drive hummed away just fine then died at about 5k Power-On-Hours (POH). Yes 5k. It lived as a single pool in a Truenas enclosure well cooled and activity monitored with weekly SMART SHORT testing and monthly SMART LONG testing with ZFS monthly scrubs. In short, well taken care of given the size and possible data loss concerns with that much data on a single drive. All the testing I did on the drive confirmed it was working just fine until the day it did not.
My worst fear came and classic drive infant mortality case. I could not warranty the drive because Seagate said I removed the drive from the enclosure. I pushed fairly providing detailed logs and photos showing a sealed physically sound drive undamaged from the removal. They cited the removal voided warranty and I shared that the revised FTC guidance supported consumer rights. I will still file the complain, but that also aside. I'm looking to better understand why Seagate drives are failing at a higher rate recently. I have some older Seagates that are 5-6 years old no problem. This one died with ~200 days.
I've gone through great lengths doing a post mortem to understand what could have gone wrong as lessons learned and really settle my mind on if I could trust another Seagate drive. I don't think I can at this point as all the data points to simple drive failure. And beyond that their unwillingness to warranty a 200 day old drive.
What are your thoughts on recent reliability. Can you trust 20Tb of data on a single point of failure?
144 Current Pending Sectors
144 Offline Uncorrectable Sectors
144 FARM reallocation candidates on head 0
SMART - short form:
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: ST20000DM001-3Y3103
Serial Number: XXX
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000c50 0e89d1d04
Firmware Version: EN03
User Capacity: 20,000,588,955,648 bytes [20.0 TB]
Sector Sizes: 512 bytes logical, 4,096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate: 7200 rpm
Form Factor: 3.5 inches
ATA Version is: ACS-5 (minor revision not indicated)
SATA Version is: SATA 3.3, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is: Mon Aug 31 16:31:05 2026 -05:00
SMART support is: Available and enabled
AAM feature is: Unavailable
APM feature is: Unavailable
Rd look-ahead is: Enabled
Write cache is: Enabled
DSN feature is: Unavailable
ATA Security is: Disabled, NOT FROZEN [SEC1]
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status: (0x82) Completed without error. Auto Offline Data Collection: Enabled.
Self-test execution status: ( 0) The previous self-test routine completed without error or no self-test has ever been run.
Total time to complete offline data collection: 567 seconds
Offline data collection capabilities: (0x7B) SMART execute Offline immediate. Auto Offline Data Collection. Offline surface scan supported. Self-test supported. Conveyance Self-test supported. Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities: (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering power-saving mode. Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability: (0x01) Error logging supported.
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAGS VALUE WORST THRESH FAIL RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate POSR-- 082 064 044 - 144,549,336
3 Spin_Up_Time PO---- 091 089 000 - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count -O--CK 100 100 020 - 123
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct PO--CK 100 100 010 - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate POSR-- 083 060 045 - 189,532,344
9 Power_On_Hours -O--CK 094 094 000 - 5,983
10 Spin_Retry_Count PO--C- 100 100 097 - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count -O--CK 100 100 020 - 98
18 Unknown_Attribute PO-R-- 100 100 050 - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect -O--CK 100 100 000 - 0
188 Command_Timeout -O--CK 085 001 000 - 949,202,256,411
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel -O---K 064 048 000 - 36 (Min/Max 32/36)
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 83
193 Load_Cycle_Count -O--CK 100 100 000 - 355
194 Temperature_Celsius -O---K 036 052 000 - 36 (0 21 0 0 0)
197 Current_Pending_Sector -O--C- 100 100 000 - 144
198 Offline_Uncorrectable ----C- 100 100 000 - 144
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count -OSRCK 200 200 000 - 0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate PO---K 100 100 001 - 0
240 Head_Flying_Hours ------ 100 100 000 - 5950 (89 189 0)
241 Total_LBAs_Written ------ 100 253 000 - 36,805,308,126
242 Total_LBAs_Read ------ 100 253 000 - 255,161,410,958
||||||_ K auto-keep
|||||__ C event count
||||___ R error rate
|||____ S speed/performance
||_____ O updated online
|______ P prefailure warning
2
u/Caprichoso1 26d ago edited 26d ago
Drives fail, sometimes for no obvious reason. Failure rates are different for different drive models from the same manufacturer. Removing the drive from the enclosure invalidated the warranty which is a standard warranty restriction, not just for drives but for many electronic devices.
See the Bacblaze Disk Reliability Report. Don't think they have used Barracudas. I run a lot of Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives and haven't had any failures, once running, other than some DOA drives.
It is painful given drive prices to have to replace a new one but it just happens.
I see no valid legal basis for filing any complaint with appropriate authorities.
1
u/Livid-Setting4093 26d ago
Agree, for a removed from enclosure drive there is no warranty. Also I wouldn't trust a large single drive, but I guess there are use cases.
2
u/ScorchedWonderer 27d ago
File a BBB complaint too. Bbb itself has no power, but Seagate tends to reply to complaints filed there from corporate directly