Data Backup Digest

Having entered the industry in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is no stranger to digital data storage. While there's no denying the innovations they've ushered into the world of data storage, a recent lawsuit, which was filed by the law firm of Hagens Berman out of Seattle, Washington, claims that the company's drives aren't living up to today's standards of efficiency and reliability.

The lawsuit, which was officially filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on February 1, 2016, is attempting to recoup consumer costs associated with data loss and recovery within Seagate drives. A number of specific drives are named, including the Barracuda 3 TB Hard Disk Drive, Backup Plus 3 TB External Hard Disk Drive, Desktop HDD 3 TB and GoFlex 3 TB External Hard Disk Drive. Additionally, any Seagate drives with the model number of ST3000DM001 are also covered in the lawsuit.

According to a statement issued by Steve Berman with Hagens Berman, "Seagate promised purchasers reliable hard drives that would safeguard their important documents and cherished photos, but consumers report that these Seagate hard drives fail sometimes just days after their first use." His statement went on to read: " These hard drives failed to deliver on Seagate’s promises, and replacements from Seagate were just as defective, amounting to loss of data and wasted money for thousands of purchasers – something we believe to be direct violation of federal consumer-rights laws."

However, the team with Hagens Berman isn't just throwing out unsubstantiated claims. Apart from citing more than 700 negative reviews on Newegg, the lawsuit highlights a number of statistics from Backblaze, a popular online backup service provider. According to their numbers, more than 30% of the aforementioned hard drives that were deployed in 2012 failed within a period of three years. Considering that most drives reviewed by Backblaze maintain an average survival rate of 80% after four years, the numbers regarding Seagate's drives are indeed troubling.

In addition to citing extremely high failure rates, the lawsuit also claims that many replacements issued by Seagate were also defective. Some consumers even reported failures within the first day or two of use.

Furthermore, Hagens Berman wants to include as many Seagate consumers in the lawsuit as possible. If you have purchased one of the aforementioned Seagate drives, according to the Hagens Berman website, you may be entitled to damages. They are inviting anyone who has used these drives to fill out an online form for more information.

Berman summarized his firm's stance by stating: "Plain and simple, consumers paid for a product that they did not receive, and we intend to fight for their rights to receive payback from Seagate."

While they have acknowledged that they've received a copy of this specific complaint, Seagate has yet to make a public statement at the time of this writing. For more information on Seagate's products and services, please visit their official website at www.seagate.com. To find out more about the lawsuit, or to add your own complaint to the lawsuit, please visit www.hbsslaw.com/cases/seagate.