My reflections on Seagate Barracuda LP

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 5:36 am

Just bought a 1,5 TB Barracuda LP yesterday and while a was a bit worried about the 3 platters compared to the two I planned, I was positively surprised when I finally heard it. Audibly quieter compared to both my suspended Samsung T166 and WD3200AAKS single platter drive.
Because of the review of the 2 TB drive, I mounted it in a Scythe Himuro and suspended it. Despite the lack of airflow(no fan in front of it), it runs quite cool, temperature never exceed 30 degrees. And it is inaudible by my ears.

Write speed is also a lot better compared to my older drives.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 7:49 am

I thought the 1.5TB version had 4 platters, with one being deactivated? hmhm.

The LP is definetly quieter than T166, I can attest to that. Seeks with 16 LP drives in raid6 is quieter than 9 T166 drives in raid5...

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 10:57 am

Wibla wrote:I thought the 1.5TB version had 4 platters, with one being deactivated? hmhm.

The LP is definetly quieter than T166, I can attest to that. Seeks with 16 LP drives in raid6 is quieter than 9 T166 drives in raid5...

I'm not sure about the platters, I compared it to a WD GP 2TB which is ridiculously overpriced and it looked a lot smaller (thinner) but I haven't compared it to a 2 TB LP. More importantly, it's audibly quieter than most "quiet" 7200 drives although not as good as a GP and it performs well so I can really recommend it to others. 1 TB model should be quieter as well.

They days of Seagate's noisy drives seems to be over.

JohnMK · Post by **JohnMK** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 9:07 pm

One of my two, 2 TB LP drives makes clicks of death so often that it slows to a crawl during use. The other didn't for the first day of its use, but does click now, rarely. I'm not talking about the usual sounds of seeking, but instead, characteristic "clicks of death." Now I know all hard drives fail and it's possible to get a string of bad luck but I've had two customers' Seagate 1.5 TB external drives exhibit the same symptoms, and one of my 1.5 TB Seagate drives started failing in the same way several months ago. And another couple of guys in my circle of close friends have had problems with their Seagate 1.5 TB drives. I've gotten to the point where I just won't be buying another Seagate for at least the next year, hoping that this is just a bad batch of hard drives with unusual unreliability.

JohnMK · Post by **JohnMK** » Fri Jan 08, 2010 9:11 pm

By the way, I'm pretty sure the entire series uses 500 GB platters through and through, so the 1.5 TB variant would thus use three platters.

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 3:05 am

I hope I got a better sample then. My PATA Seagate still lives and do just fine, not power efficient at all but it's been going sturdy for nine years. I don't expect a equally good sample but I expect it to last during the period of warranty.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 9:04 am

JohnMK wrote:One of my two, 2 TB LP drives makes clicks of death so often that it slows to a crawl during use. The other didn't for the first day of its use, but does click now, rarely. I'm not talking about the usual sounds of seeking, but instead, characteristic "clicks of death." Now I know all hard drives fail and it's possible to get a string of bad luck but I've had two customers' Seagate 1.5 TB external drives exhibit the same symptoms, and one of my 1.5 TB Seagate drives started failing in the same way several months ago. And another couple of guys in my circle of close friends have had problems with their Seagate 1.5 TB drives. I've gotten to the point where I just won't be buying another Seagate for at least the next year, hoping that this is just a bad batch of hard drives with unusual unreliability.

Do you see any early warning signs in the SMART data?

JohnMK · Post by **JohnMK** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 11:54 am

Wibla wrote: Do you see any early warning signs in the SMART data?

I don't really know what to look for. Of course I could jump up and down at the Raw Read Error Rate, for example, but for all I know that could be a normal value. Etc. So here's the SMART data from the less clickety 2TB LP,from HDDScan. If I remember correctly, the noiser of my pair, which is now removed since the noise was really annoying, had a value much higher than 100 for the Reallocation Sector Count.

001 Raw Read Error Rate 111 100 0000024F-D237 006

003 Spin Up Time 100 100 00000000-0000 000

004 Start/Stop Count 100 100 00000000-0043 020

005 Reallocation Sector Count 100 100 00000000-0000 036

007 Seek Error Rate 100 253 00340004-103B 030

009 PowerOn Hours Count 100 100 00000000-003A 000

010 Spin Retry Count 100 100 00000000-0000 097

012 Device Power Cycle Count 100 100 00000000-000E 020

183 SATA Downshift Error Count 100 100 00000000-0000 000

184 End To End Error Count 100 100 00000000-0000 099

187 Reported Uncorrectable Error 100 100 00000000-0000 000

188 Reported Command Timeouts 100 100 00000000-0000 000

189 High Fly Writes 100 100 00000000-0000 000

190 Airflow Temperature 067 062 33 C 045

190 Airflow Temperature Minimum 067 062 20 C 045

190 Airflow Temperature Maximum 067 062 33 C 045

194 HDA Temperature 033 040 33 C 000

194 HDA Temperature Minimum 033 040 19 C 000

194 HDA Temperature Maximum 033 040 60 C 000

195 Hardware ECC Recovered 044 037 0000024F-D237 000

197 Current Pending Sector Count 100 100 00000000-0000 000

198 Uncorrectable Sector Count 100 100 00000000-0000 000

199 UltraDMA CRC Errors 200 200 00000000-0000 000

240 Heads Flying Hours 100 253 7AE40000-005B 000

241 Total Host Writes 100 253 0000F255-09E1 000

242 Total Host Reads 100 253 00000BBA-DC6C 000

JohnMK · Post by **JohnMK** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 11:59 am

By the way, here's the SMART data from my 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black, which cost me $300:

001 Raw Read Error Rate 198 198 00000000-0B79 051

003 Spin Up Time 051 043 00000000-3872 021

004 Start/Stop Count 100 100 00000000-00C8 000

005 Reallocation Sector Count 200 200 00000000-0000 140

007 Seek Error Rate 100 253 00000000-0000 000

009 PowerOn Hours Count 099 099 00000000-0406 000

010 Spin Retry Count 100 100 00000000-0000 000

011 Recalibration Retries 100 100 00000000-0000 000

012 Device Power Cycle Count 100 100 00000000-00B4 000

192 Emergency Retract Count 200 200 00000000-0032 000

193 Load/unload Cycle Count 194 194 00000000-4C6E 000

194 HDA Temperature 104 101 48 C 000

196 Reallocation Event Count 200 200 00000000-0000 000

197 Current Pending Sector Count 200 200 00000000-000E 000

198 Uncorrectable Sector Count 100 253 00000000-0000 000

199 UltraDMA CRC Errors 200 200 00000000-0000 000

200 Write Error Rate 100 253 00000000-0000 000

Current Pending Sector Count is marked with a yellow exclamation point in HDDScan, and I did indeed have some data corruption a week ago which a thorough chkdsk took a very long time to do its utmost to correct.

anss123 · Post by **anss123** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 1:35 pm

JohnMK wrote:One of my two, 2 TB LP drives makes clicks of death so often that it slows to a crawl during use. The other didn't for the first day of its use, but does click now, rarely. I'm not talking about the usual sounds of seeking, but instead, characteristic "clicks of death." Now I know all hard drives fail and it's possible to get a string of bad luck but I've had two customers' Seagate 1.5 TB external drives exhibit the same symptoms, and one of my 1.5 TB Seagate drives started failing in the same way several months ago. And another couple of guys in my circle of close friends have had problems with their Seagate 1.5 TB drives. I've gotten to the point where I just won't be buying another Seagate for at least the next year, hoping that this is just a bad batch of hard drives with unusual unreliability.

Odd. I got a Seagate LP 1.5 TB and had the same problem (It would click and slow down for several seconds all the time). Fed up I sent it back as faulty and got my money back.

I then bought the 1 TB model. The 1.5 TB was IMO pretty noisy even when it wasn't clicking, more noise than my almost 2 year old Samsung 1TB disk as far as I could tell. The Seagate LP 1 TB variant is quieter than both but can still be a bit noisy (compared to the Samsung) when writing.

If my 1TB model start clicking I'll lament not getting another Samsung disk but as for now I got what I wanted.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 9:54 am

If you look at the customer reviews on Newegg for the 1.5TB and 2TB LP you'll see a lot of reported failures - more than 30% gave it 1-star.

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 11:35 am

If my 1TB model start clicking I'll lament not getting another Samsung disk but as for now I got what I wanted.[/quote]

I can't hear my LP at all right now, a little during write but it is still more quiet than both of my 7200 RPM drives so I guess I've got a good sample.

Concerning Newegg reviews: Most people writing these reviews give it a bad rating because of reasons which are totally ridiculous, being slow is one of them, what do you seriously expect from a 5900 RPM drive?

A person that use his or her time to write a review on a major dealer is seldom especially good at handling computer parts. Off course there are some exceptions but in most cases problems related to hardware are caused by the inadequate user himself/herself.

taidi · Post by **taidi** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 6:37 am

What happened to the single platter 500GB version of this drive (ST3500412AS) - several UK sellers list it but none have any stock....even New Egg in the States are out of stock.

Has it been discontinued already ?

srbliss · Post by **srbliss** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:44 pm

taidi wrote:What happened to the single platter 500GB version of this drive (ST3500412AS) - several UK sellers list it but none have any stock....even New Egg in the States are out of stock.

Has it been discontinued already ?

I just bought one about 4 hours ago at a local store for $49, different part number ST3500418AS - still the .12 version and it is very quiet I can't hear it over the one year old laptop drive (WD 320gig) it is replacing while it is being cloned. So far is seems nice I will put into my quiet drive (I think that is the name) enclosure once I find the dang thing.) This is my first 3 1/2" drive in 4 or 5 years I can't take the whine of old 7200 drives and have been using laptop drives for years.
Steve

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:14 am

taidi wrote:What happened to the single platter 500GB version of this drive (ST3500412AS) - several UK sellers list it but none have any stock....even New Egg in the States are out of stock.

Has it been discontinued already ?

Do mean the LP drive and not the Pipeline HD (which is impossible to get hold of here in Sweden)?

taidi · Post by **taidi** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:48 am

Thanks Steve, but that isn't the low power Pipiline drive featued in the recent SPCR review which has the part No. ST3500414CS. Searching the Seagate site for this number brings up the Pipeline HD range of drives where the 500GB version is listed as both ST3500312CS and ST3500321CS...I can't fathom what the difference is between these two but have found the ST3500312CS available from a couple of UK sources.

The ST3500412AS I've been looking at is listed by Seagate as a Barracuda LP drive with very similar specs to the Pipeline drives but has a 16MB cache rather than 8MB - I suspect it has been discontinued as 500GB is not now an option in the selector on the web page for this drive, although Google finds several UK vendors who have it listed but NA.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-gb/produc ... ifications

Think I'll settle for the ST3500312CS as this drive is designed for DV recorders (Cool'n'Quiet) and seems to be the same drive as featured in the review.

taidi · Post by **taidi** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 4:00 am

bozar wrote:
taidi wrote:What happened to the single platter 500GB version of this drive (ST3500412AS) - several UK sellers list it but none have any stock....even New Egg in the States are out of stock.

Has it been discontinued already ?
Do mean the LP drive and not the Pipeline HD (which is impossible to get hold of here in Sweden)?

Yes...see above - I came across the Barracuda LP drives whilst searching for the Pipeline drives and got a little confused.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 5:21 am

I also have one LP drive now with reallocated sectors, so im gonna look at replacing it at one point.

A little FYI about newegg reviews. They have the crappiest packaging system known to man when it comes to harddrives, so ALOT of failures on the whole can probably be attributed to transport damage, which is gonna colour the reviews on the site aswell.

taidi · Post by **taidi** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 7:27 am

Finally gave up on acquiring a 500GB version of the LP or Pipeline drives and settled for a 320GB version ST3320310CS.

LambdaTek seem to have a good stock of these.

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop ... ID=B135412

lm · Post by lm » Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:57 am

I also had the click of death - slow to a crawl happening to my Seagate Barracuda LP 1.5TB drives this autumn. The first one started doing it just after a couple of days, got a replacement from the store, the second one started doing that after a week, and now I'm on the third one which I did not even want to try for months as I would rather just had my money back. The third one has worked for a couple days now, we'll see.

The funny thing is, I've gone through numerous hard drives during the years, and none have failed this far except these.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Wed Jan 20, 2010 11:17 am

Use something to burn in the harddrives, if the drive lasts a few months, its likely to last quite a while.. DOA's are ofcourse not nice, and out of 16 1.5TB LP drives I have, one is failing after 2000 hours runtime.

bozar · Post by **bozar** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 3:44 am

Update on my drive

Slowly but steady really annoying clicks has increased in frequency and now they occur really often which pisses me off a lot. Got in contact with the store which sold me the disk and they offered to check the drive so now I'm considering if it's worth the trouble.
If I get a replacement drive I really want a Western Digital Green Power instead and not another LP considering how many others seems to have problems with this series.

Mastakilla · Post by **Mastakilla** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 12:23 pm

I just bought 4x Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS, 2TB to put in a RAID 5 on my LSI RAID controller.

I currently just attached one of them and I can also hear a loud click around every 5 mins...

And this is while the drive is idling...

gonna try now if it also has a performance drop and after that I'll try the other 3 drives...

but this is not good at all

edit:
how did you find out about the performance drops?

i just tried running the benchmark in HD Tune pro and it seems normal on first sight.

Actually I've only heard the clicks during idling so far

lm · Post by lm » Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:49 pm

At least my performance drop was very obvious: During a disk operation, the disk would start to click like "chaa-tsirp, chaa-tsirp, ..." during which no IO progress. So for example trying to play back video from the said drive, the video would simply stop for the duration of the clicking and then continue.

Really obvious when it happens.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:52 pm

Wibla wrote:I thought the 1.5TB version had 4 platters, with one being deactivated? hmhm.

JohnMK wrote:By the way, I'm pretty sure the entire series uses 500 GB platters through and through, so the 1.5 TB variant would thus use three platters.

Bzz, sorry guys but the correct answer is that it has 4 platters 500GB each. None of the platters or heads are deactivated.

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/supp ... 64361d.pdf

Page 4 shows that both the 2TB and 1.5TB drives have 8 heads and 4 disks.

The only difference is the number of sectors that are available to the OS. Some of the unused sectors can be manufacturing defects and some may just be spare sectors for bad block reallocation later in the drives life.

Page 16 shows you that the 2TB and 1.5TB drives make the same noise.

The 1TB drive is 2 platter and is quieter but the other two prices (2TB and 1.5TB) are just marketing variations on one physical drive.

FWIW I got 2 of the 1TB two platter versions and didn't have any problems with them that I know of (but they are in a server room that is noisy so until they fail or at least give SMART status changes I'm not going to notice clicking.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Fri Apr 23, 2010 6:59 am

I knew there was a reason they were $79.99 for 1.5TB at Microcenter this week. Glad I didn't bother with them.

Pierre · Post by **Pierre** » Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:48 am

I own one SÎ¤32000542AS drive, and from time to time I have also heard the clicking noise (although the frequency has certainly been reduced, yet I'm not absolutely certain it's coming from the particular drive), but I have never witnessed any performance drops, in fact I have copied from and to it large amounts of data (500-600gb) many times and the performance never dropped during the transfer (steady between 66-74mb/sec -writing speed- on data of different sizes)...it was really steady I must say...

Very pleased so far...

I don't really know what to look for. Of course I could jump up and down at the Raw Read Error Rate, for example, but for all I know that could be a normal value. Etc. So here's the SMART data from the less clickety 2TB LP,from HDDScan. If I remember correctly, the noiser of my pair, which is now removed since the noise was really annoying, had a value much higher than 100 for the Reallocation Sector Count.

You should be looking more at the "data" values instead of the arithmetic values I think...I have been getting reallocated sectors on my 1,5TB Seagate drives but the arithmetic values always remain high, with no indication of a problem....maybe the arithmetic values have more to do with current reading/writing operations than with the general hdd state...if the 12-digit data values stay at "0" on the critical smart data indications, like the "reallocated sectors count", "current pending sectors", "off-line uncorrectable errors", then you should be fine...
You should watch that Wd Caviar Black drive, though...cause it seems it has trouble reading from/writing to certain sectors...those could easily become bad/reallocated sectors...
(hard disk sentinel is my favorite program for hdd monitoring and diagnostics)

Klusu · Post by **Klusu** » Sat Apr 24, 2010 11:16 pm

I have one with "clicks of death", too. Some sectors are really slow. It's a shame the drive passes Seatools diagnostics. Another thing: the drive disappears (tested on 2 motherboards of the same model, could be the motherboard's problem).
Regarding the number of platters. Seagate shows it in the model number. 541AS has 4 platters.

Pierre · Post by **Pierre** » Sun Apr 25, 2010 1:55 am

These really sound like serious issues...
Have you contacted Seagate Support? Do we have any official input on the workings of the "clicking noise" (could it be something like wd head-park thing?)

From my experience, their support is really quick to answer (at least if you chat or if you submit a case officially through "my account" and escalate it to support)

Klusu · Post by **Klusu** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:41 am

Tested the drive on another computer. Much better, no clicks. We should use IDE drives. Too often SATA drives don't work (on different boards). No way of telling which is to blame, the drive or the MB.