Hi folks,
 
Seagate HDs seemed to have a bad reputation for a while -- I was always advised to avoid them by the folks at my local computer stores, and I can even recall owning one or two that turned into bricks way too early in their operational life. 
 
Is that still the case? I hear rumours -- and have read the occasional review -- that suggest Seagate has upped their QC game and their drives are much better products than they used to be. 
 
I'd be curious to hear from any of the knowledgeable folks on these forums about your view and/or recent experiences with Seagate products. 
 
Thanks,

Rob

I have no recent experience with Seagate drives. 
I do have quite a bit of pleasant experience with Toshiba drives though.
 

I have used dozens of WD drives, and only had one failure in the last 15+ years.  It was a SATA 1TB WD Blue  7200rpm HDD, and that failure was graceful, in that it developed bad sectors, but did not fail completely.  I ordered a new drive, restored a good image onto it, and was up and running again.
 
I have only had one Seagate drive, it was a 2TB model, and it failed with less than a year of use.  I realize that is only a sample of one, but I think I will pass.  That failure was so bad, I could not get the computer BIOS to recognize that a drive was plugged in. Total fail.
 
I have also have had a great experience with a Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB, chugging away daily for 2.5 years, and still at 100%.  Although I have a friend with the same drive, about the same age, that failed while he was on vacation and left the PC on. Total fail.  It could have been a power surge or something, not sure.
 
I believe that all drives will fail, it's just a gamble on how soon.  Imaging is your best friend.  So have a plan! 
 
I image my system drive daily with Macrium Reflect Free.  Set a schedule, connect an external drive, and forget!  https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree
 

I have several newer (within last year) Seagate drives and no problems.  There were certain models that did have reliability problems but that has been at least 5 years ago. 
 

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-stats-for-2017/
 

I always go with Seagate if possible, have done since mid to late 90's, never had an issue to speak of, replaced them when I needed something bigger or built a new PC. I can't say the same for the WD and Samsung drives I have had. Before going with Seagate I used Quantum drives, which I believe became Maxtor, or was purchased by them.

I had some Seagate issues about 5 or 6 years ago, so avoided them for some time - but the last couple I have had have been OK
However I think the best ones I have used have been either Toshiba or Samsung - on SSD discs I am using Crucial, and they have been rock solid so far
Nigel
 

I think they're all about the same nowadays.
I've had a few Seagate drives and they're the same as WD or Toshibas re: reliability etc.

If you survey enough people, you'll find that every brand of HDD has had a failure in their experience. I've used a few Samsung and WD drives without incident.
 
Some particular brand/models have had egregious failure percentages, the 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 in particular. That particular drive generated a lawsuit.  I have owned four of those drives, and two have outright died; failed to spin up, or spin up, and not transfer data. I am working to replace the two remaining 3TB models before anything else bad happens. In contrast, a 2TB Seagate ST2000DM001 has been my main recording drive for five years, and has been perfect.
 
My arsenal of HDD's is now mostly HGST (8x) with a few (4x) WD products sprinkled among them. All the SSD's are Crucial (6x) and (3x) Intel. 

Scroll down a bit to see lifetime stats. (from 2013)
 
https://www.backblaze.com...ive-stats-for-q1-2018/