Seagate Barracuda 7200 320GB SATA II--Does yours make bad noises?

[Crackles McFarly]

From another person, myself and a bunch of forum posting it turns out
their is a frequent problem with this drive making some chirp noise or
abnormal noise in general. This is for brand new drives and it seems
most are 'made in china'. Turns out if you get a NEW drive or even a
replacement from 'made in singapore' the noises go away and the drives
even perform the previous one by about 5%-10%.

I thought I'd pass this along if someone had this crap version and
wanted to avoid the headache.

Try for 'advanced replacement' with seagate. They will send you the
replacement drive 1st, then you send the crap one back to them for a
$19.95 fee which includes the shipping.

You could do the normal replacement and save the money but I wanted to
keep using the drive until the replacement one arrived.

Hope this helped even ONE person.
Good day

Yours Truly,
Crackles R. McFarly
Associates Degree in Air Quality and Pollen Studies
Certified Air Quality Specialist 'X7 Station: Fulton County, Georgia'

 

[Pat]

I have 3 of these. Mine are quiet. Thinking of buying a few more.

 

[mjlwaimea]

I have 3 of these. Mine are quiet. Thinking of buying a few more.

I also have three of these drives, and I know they were all made in
China. I haven't had a single problem yet and have heard that these
drives are relatively bullet-proof (at least for a few years); I
bought my first one about one year ago. I have two raided and the
performance is great. I have two barracuda 80s raided, and they are
from Thailand. I haven't had any problems with these drives either.
I would highly suggest the 320s and am also thinking about buying one
or two more. For the money, it's hard to beat this amount of storage/
performance. I looked into the 500/750 gig units, but they turned out
to be quite a bit more for the $/gig compared to the 320. Plus, I
would have to order them and wait. I have seen the stats on the
higher capacity barracudas and they are supposed to be even faster
than the raptors. Does anyone own a raptor who can verify their
speed?

I am an American who lives in Indonesia and can currently purchase
these drives for around 85 USD. I was just curious how much they are
going for in the states. If dramatically lower, I will wait to buy
some more.

Best Regards and happy nerd-shopping,

Michael J. Lederer

 

[Pat]

I ordered one last night from newegg for $70 with free 3 day shipping.

 

[Crackles McFarly]

I ordered one last night from newegg for $70 with free 3 day shipping.

Price is dropping, mine was ~$90 2 months ago :-(

 

[Mick]

Price is dropping, mine was ~$90 2 months ago :-(


Price is dropping, mine was ~$90 2 months ago :-(

Thanks for the pricing update. I just bought another and am thinking
of getting one more to make a nice RAID array. Some guy from
California on this forum said he set up a 500 gig Raid array with five
drives for 732 USD. Sounds a bit cheap for that set-up, doesn't it?
Anyway, the price has been dropping fast; I bought my first one about
a year ago for around 115 dollars, and I just got one yesterday for
80. Very nice...

Michael J. Lederer