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The ST3000DM001 is a hard disk drive released by Seagate Technology in 2011 as part of the Seagate Barracuda series. It has a capacity of 3 terabytes (TB) and a spindle speed of 7200 rpm. This particular drive model was reported to have unusually high failure rates, approximately 5.7 times higher fail rates in comparison to other 3 TB drives.[1]
Specifications[edit]
The ST3000DM001 uses three 1 TB platters, compared to five platters in the previous generation Barracuda XT drive, and has a spindle speed of 7200 rpm. The drive uses a 40 nm dual-core LSI controller and 64 MB of DDR2-800 as the DRAM cache. As part of the release of its 1 TB-platter drives, Seagate announced that it was phasing out its Barracuda Green line of 5900 rpm hard drives.[2]
Reception[edit]
Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech noted that the ST3000DM001 is 'a bit faster in sequential performance than the old Barracuda XT, at lower power consumption' and that 'Seagate appears to have optimized the drive's behavior for lower power rather than peak performance'. He said he was 'personally ok' with the lower performance under heavy loads as long as the drive is used together with a solid-state drive (SSD) in a system.[2]
Backblaze, a remote backup service company, observed that its ST3000DM001 drives have failed at rates far higher than the average of other hard drives.[1] Only 251 of the 4,190 ST3000DM001 hard drives placed in service in 2012 were still in service as of 31 March 2015.[3]
According to Backblaze, the company switched to Seagate 3 TB hard drives after the 2011 Thailand floods disrupted the supply of hard drives and increased their prices by 200–300%. Backblaze, which normally used HGST 3 TB hard drives, were only able to find Seagate 3 TB drives in 'decent quantity'. Backblaze noted that the failure rates of the ST3000DM001 did not follow a bathtub curve typically followed by hard disk drive failure rates, instead having 2.7% failing in 2012, 5.4% failing in 2013, and 47.2% failing in 2014. Other 3 TB hard drives that Backblaze placed in service in 2012, which were operated in a similar environment as the Seagate drives, did not show signs of increased failure.[3]
Joel Hruska of ExtremeTech noted that Backblaze was unable to explain the high failure rates of the ST3000DM001 compared to other products. Hruska pointed out that Seagate cut the warranty for these drives, along with most other hard disk drive manufacturers, from three years to one year in 2012. Hruska provided supplier-change or part substitution, shipping of substandard hardware to increase profits, and Backblaze's use of consumer hard drives in an enterprise environment as possible explanations.[1] Paul Alcorn of Tom's Hardware pointed out that of the 3 TB hard disk drive models that were in service with Backblaze, the ST3000DM001 was the only drive without a rotational vibration sensor that counteracts excessive vibration in heavy-usage cases.[4]
Class action[edit]
In 2016, Seagate faced a class action over the failure rates of its ST3000DM001 3 TB drives.[4][5][6][7] Law firm Hagens Berman filed the lawsuit on 1 February in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and primarily cited reliability data provided by Backblaze. The lawsuit also pointed to user reviews of the hard disk drive on Newegg, which totaled more than 700 reviews with 2 or fewer stars.[5]
The lawsuit lists Christopher Nelson, who purchased a Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB drive and a Seagate Barracuda 3 TB hard disk drive in October 2011, as its plaintiff. Both products subsequently failed, and the lawsuit contended that Seagate replaced them with inherently faulty products.[4]
Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, said that the hard drives 'failed to deliver on Seagate’s promises, and replacements from Seagate were just as defective'.[6] Bruno Ferreira of The Tech Report compared the lawsuit with the high failure rates faced by the IBM Deskstar 75GXP and 60GXP hard drives in 2002.[7] Paul Alcorn of Tom's Hardware argued that Backblaze used the drives in a manner that 'far exceeded the warranty conditions' and questioned the 'technical merits' of the lawsuit.[4]
On June 15, 2018, Judge Joseph Spero ruled that the class action plaintiffs must separate into multiple classes, as there was too much variability in failure rates to combine all claims a single class.[8][9] In 2019, the plaintiffs were denied class certification a second time.[10]
References[edit]
- ^ abcHruska, Joel (16 April 2015). 'Backblaze pulls 3TB Seagate HDDs from service, details post-mortem failure rates'. ExtremeTech. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ abShimpi, Anand Lal (2 November 2011). 'Seagate's New Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) Review'. AnandTech. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ ab'CSI: Backblaze – Dissecting 3TB Drive Failure'. Backblaze. 15 April 2015. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ abcdAlcorn, Paul (2 February 2016). 'Class-Action Lawsuit Against Seagate Built On Questionable Backblaze Reliability Report'. Tom's Hardware. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ abNewman, Jared (2 February 2016). 'Seagate slapped with a class action lawsuit over hard drive failure rates'. PC World. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ abCarey, Gabe (1 February 2016). 'Reliability problems open Seagate up to class-action lawsuit over 3TB hard drives'. Digital Trends. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^ abFerreira, Bruno. 'Seagate hit with class-action lawsuit over 3TB drive failures'. The Tech Report. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
- ^'Seagate Buyers Must Carve Up Class Cert. Bid, Judge Says'. Law360. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- ^Sortor, Emily (22 June 2018). 'Seagate Hard Drive MDL Must Divide Into Multiple Classes, Judge Rules'. Top Class Actions. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- ^'Seagate Hard Drive Buyers Lose 2nd Class Cert. Bid'. Law360. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
Almost a year ago, we covered Backblaze’s decision to phase out Seagate 3TB drives after seeing unacceptably high failure rates from one drive in particular, the ST3000DM001. Now, Seagate is facing a class action lawsuits brought on behalf of its customers who bought that particular model — and Blackblaze’s data is mentioned prominently in the suit.
Backblaze’s failure data as of April 2015
Seagate failure rates on the ST3000DM001 weren’t just far higher than other drives, they were also distributed differently. Normally, products follow what’s called a “bathtub curve” failure rate. That means an initial high period of failure as defective units die, followed by low overall failure rates until end-of-life, when hardware begins burning out. The Seagate drives in Backblaze’s storage pods did not exhibit this type of curve.
Backblaze 3TB failure data as of 2015
As of April 2015, just 6% of the original 3TB drives Backblaze purchased were still in service. This kind of data could be evidence of a significant problem with the drive family.
The complaint
The complaint notes that Seagate’s ST3000DM001 was the first 3TB drive to use three platters at 1TB each. This is in contrast to other 3TB drives then on the market, which used 4-5 platters to hit their 3TB densities. https://nh-software.mystrikingly.com/blog/jungle-jewels-game.
The company made a number of marketing claims that emphasized the reliability of the ST3000DM001, including the claim that the annualized failure rate of the drive is less than 1% and non-recoverable read failure rate is extremely small. These figures are both highly suspect when used to calculate overall drive reliability, but they’re the only information that a hard drive manufacturer will typically release.
The class action suit leans heavily on the Backblaze report — and that’s where problems may arise.
Does Backblaze’s data accurately capture the failure rate?
The class action suit does offer the example of a plaintiff who purchased a drive, experienced an early failure, and then replaced it again with a warrantied drive that also failed. It also leans on the Backblaze information on the ST3000DM001 to support allegations that the drive family was broken.
This argument will hinge on whether Backblaze’s use of the drives in a commercial storage pod constitutes a proper environment for representative testing. I suspect Seagate will argue it does not. Seagate manufactures enterprise-class drives that are specifically designed for reliable operations in challenging environments, and the company will likely claim that the reason Backblaze saw such high failure rates on the ST3000DM001 is because they operated the drive incorrectly.
The fact that the Seagate drives failed in huge numbers while competitor drives did not could be evidence of a defect across the entire product line, or it could simply mean that the other consumer drives are over-engineered.
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Death Star vs. Failacuda
If Seagate is smart, it’ll examine what IBM did during the 75GXP debacle — then do the opposite. For those of you who don’t remember: Once upon a time, IBM had a thriving HDD business. IBM Deskstar drives had a reputation for stability and reliability, so the launch of IBM’s 75GXP HDD, and the so-called “fairy dust” that IBM sprinkled on the drive to improve its density were both well received.
Failed drive heads on the infamous 75GXP. The drives acquired the nickname “Death Stars” due to their failure rates
Unfortunately, the honeymoon didn’t last. Customers quickly began to complain, first about early failures, then about repeated failures on replacement drives. As problems spread, publications tried to get in touch with IBM to discuss the issues. IBM’s official policy was to tell everyone, including the press, that it would honor the drive’s warranty and nothing else.
Whatever Big Blue thought it was accomplishing, it didn’t work. With no information on the size or scope of the problem, most publications publicly yanked their previous Deskstar endorsements. IBM wouldn’t tell anyone if the problems on the 75GXP also affected the 60GXP families, so customers steered clear of anything with an IBM label.
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It’s hard to measure how much financial impact the disaster had on IBM, since it happened synonymously with the first dot-com crash, but the endless stream of uncertainty and overall negative PR did the company no favors. In the end, IBM sold its HDD line to Hitachi.
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There’s little risk of Seagate taking a step that drastic — storage was a side business for IBM, but it’s Seagate’s entire focus. With that said, this is a situation that will be better served by frank admissions and service, not by stonewalling and subterfuge.