Apple announces 27-inch iMac 3TB Hard Drive Replacement Program

Mac Daily News ^ | Friday, June 19, 2015

[Swordmaker]

Apple has determined that a very small number of 3TB hard drives used in 27-inch iMac systems, may fail under certain conditions. These systems were sold between December 2012 and September 2013. Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will replace affected hard drives free of charge.

Apple is contacting affected iMac owners who provided a valid email address during the product registration process to let them know about this program. If you have not been contacted, but think you have a 3TB hard drive, you can enter your serial number to see if it’s part of this program here.

Source: Apple Inc.

[freedumb2003]

Most sad.

I crying.

[Swordmaker]

Apple announces 27-inch iMac 3TB Hard Drive Replacement Program

Apple has determined that a very small number of 3TB hard drives used in 27-inch iMac systems, may fail under certain conditions. These systems were sold between December 2012 and September 2013. Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider will replace affected hard drives free of charge.

Apple is contacting affected iMac owners who provided a valid email address during the product registration process to let them know about this program. If you have not been contacted, but think you have a 3TB hard drive, you can enter your serial number to see if it’s part of this program here.

These appear to be SEAGATE 3TB drives that are failing. I have had four of these 3TB Seagate drives in Seagate external drive cases in the last several months fail at my office. This is not limited to Apple drives, but apparently is a problem with Seagate 3TB drives. — PING!

Apple Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Swordmaker]

Most sad.

The Seagate 3TB drives are failing on Windows machines too. Keep crying.

[Irish Eyes]

Mark

[Fungi]

Too big, too fast.

[roadcat]

Hmmm. I own a Seagate 3TB external hard drive, bought it in August 2012. Use it daily attached to my Mac Mini with no problems. Probably from a good batch, before the affected ones in December 2012. I have Drive Genius running in the background, doing daily consistency checks on my drives and this Seagate is fine. Will notify those I know who have iMacs with these drives.

[Steely Tom]

You will be contacted.

[Swordmaker]

Hmmm. I own a Seagate 3TB external hard drive, bought it in August 2012. Use it daily attached to my Mac Mini with no problems. Probably from a good batch, before the affected ones in December 2012. I have Drive Genius running in the background, doing daily consistency checks on my drives and this Seagate is fine. Will notify those I know who have iMacs with these drives.

I haven't allowed Seagate drives in our office for two years, since we started getting these failures on external drives. We limit our drive purchases to Western Digital RED drives now, drives certified for RAID arrays. They're more expensive but are worth it.

[amigatec]

I have never used Seagate drives, unless I didn't have any other choice. I have had more than one go bad. I always buy WD drives.

[VeniVidiVici]

I KNEW that they would be Seagate drives.

[martin_fierro]

Friggin' Seagate.

[dennisw]

This sucks!!! Majorly!! If you buy Apple products. I have a 500gb Samsung HD that has been flawless for 6 years. It was a green type that spins at 5400. It lives!!

[dennisw]

Hmmmm......glad I bought a West Digital Blue 500gb a few years back. Looks like Apple cheaped out here and should have bought West Digital. Or perhaps only Seagate had 3TB hard drives then.

How do you fill a 3TB hard drive? With blue-ray movies?

[roadcat]

Yikes, these drives are very prone to failure! I will replace mine right away with a different brand, ordering today (and a RAID-1 pair).

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/3tb-hard-drive-failure/

Backblaze article shows they only have 10 percent of their Seagate 3TB drives still working, after a few years, of nearly 5,000 units they purchased. Over 80 percent failed or had problems, and others were suspect as prone to failure. With a track record like that, the odds are against mine staying alive.

[Swordmaker]

This sucks!!! Majorly!! If you buy Apple products. I have a 500gb Samsung HD that has been flawless for 6 years. It was a green type that spins at 5400. It lives!!

It is not limited to Apple products, Dennis, the Seagate failures are hitting everywhere they are being used. They used to be very reliable but somewhere along the way, Seagate went to hell.

[roadcat]

Looks like Apple cheaped out here and should have bought West Digital. Or perhaps only Seagate had 3TB hard drives then.
How do you fill a 3TB hard drive? With blue-ray movies?

Due to the 2011 Thailand flood disaster, which saw Western Digital factories destroyed, there was a shortage of hard drives. Not just Apple was affected, all computer companies were hurt. You couldn't get Western Digital hard drives. Seagate filled the vacuum.

I have one of those 3TB Seagate drives... primarily filled with HD movies along with backups and photo archives.

[Swordmaker]

How do you fill a 3TB hard drive? With blue-ray movies?

We filled Four of them (three in the array with a mirrored replacement drive) in a RAID array back up system for our patient database including 3D radiography images. That fills up Faster than BluRay movies. 15-18 Gigabytes per backup.

[dennisw]

The spinning hard drive businesses has been brutal for years. Not too much profit and corners have been cut like with Seagate here. 3GB was a bridge too far

[dennisw]

How do you fill a 3TB hard drive? With blue-ray movies?

We filled Four of them (three in the array with a mirrored replacement drive) in a RAID array back up system for our patient database including 3D radiography images. That fills up Faster than BluRay movies. 15-18 Gigabytes per backup.

So 15-18 gigabytes per patient?  I got two knees x-rayed from a few angles and the CD they gave me was not more than 40mb. I copied the contents onto my computer and cloud backup.