Seagate CEO cops to sloppy floppy in Q4

Seagate says the storage market is chugging along just fine, but the company's late-mover position in notebook and nearline markets made for a disappointing fourth quarter. "The real issue here is we've been sloppy on product execution," said Seagate CEO Bill Watkins, during an earnings conference call. "We've been sloppy on …

[Doug Glass]

Product Execution

If the BS corporate-speak phrase "Product Execution" means product quality; they've hit the nail on the head. And my sentiment is echoed all over the web.

I used to buy Seagate exclusively but their quality, in my experience, is just not there any more as it once was. Western Digital seems to have taken Seagate's quality niche.

And their five year warranty is a joke. I sent in a retail drive with 3 1/2 years left on it's five year warranty. They replaced the drive with an OEM and went to great pains to inform me the replacement drive had a warranty of one year. I guess I was just expecting too much for the replacement to be the same as the original. That alone will keep my money out of their pockets.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Doug

You hit the nail right on the head! Back in the day, Seagate used to be a true quality product, sadly those days are long gone. Most of the seagate products I've purchased have failed well within the warranty period and I've gotten the same response. Anymore, if I purchase a machine with a seagate drive in it, I'll yank it and put damn near anything else in it, before I'm hosed.

Sucks to be Seagate

[Matthew]

I agree

Just this day bought a segate drive... DOA..

Problem is its for RAID so want to keep them all the same. next time i might go with WD..even if they have a shorter warranty period.

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Emotional responses

hard drives always elicit an emotional response - you typically lose the data and that makes you angry. So angry you NEVER buy Seag/WD/Sam/Hit/Tosh (delete where applicable) again.

If you bought a Zanussi (or whatever company) washing machine and it died after 4 years, you wouldnt be as angry that you vehemently would never buy a Zanussi product again.

Fact of life 1 : EVERYTHING fails....eventually.

Fact of life 2 : HDD failures occur because either a) Product quality issues (of which ALL HDD companies have at some time or other - they are highly complex elec/mech devices). b) ESD c) Handling d) EOS e) Act of god.

Fact of life 3 : Contingency plans for all of the above should be practiced.

Paris - Because she elicits a physical response ;^)

[Doug Glass]

@Emotional responses

I think you confuse emotion with resolve. I bought Seagate exclusively over a period of several years and only after appropriate research, validated by personal experience, did I decide to steer clear of Seagate in the future.

Yes, mechanical things fail and because of that I've backed-up my data (multiple ways) for over three decades. But the point here is NOT the reality of mechanical failures. The point is Seagate's corporate strategy and how they fulfill their promises.

If you are willing to accept the way your vendors of choice treat you, however good or bad that is, then more power to you. As for me, I'll evaluate my situation and based on my experience make those decisions concerning my choices of where I spend my money. And I choose not to support Seagate any longer because they, as a company, have ceased to meet my standards as a spending consumer.

... End of Thread ...

[James O'Brien]

Seagate warranty/quality

I had used Seagate drives for many years due to reviews and personal experience with them. From the amount of abuse that was heaped on products with their drives in the to little abuse always on servers. I stopped using them once I started to see ever increasing numbers of them either DoA or failing prematurely.

That having been said in response to Matthew about WD's warranty:

It depends on what "type" of drive you get from them. I have, and always will, bought server grade HDDs for everything I use. Sure they cost a bit more but instead of the normal 3-year "consumer" grade drives, I get a 5-year (with a nifty special phone number for support) "server" grade HDD. Not to mention I have had nothing but good results with their technical support and can give nothing but praises for them.

Sometimes it pays to pay more.

[{¯`·.¸_LÅMߤ¥_¸.·´¯}]

@Doug

I trust it was Seagate that you dealt with direct and not a distributor?

If you experience poor support direct from Seagate I suggest you are in the minority, they do have a very good reputation. Of course YMMV, and you gotta go with gut instinct sometimes.